A famous quote by Abraham Lincoln is, ‘’ Government by the people, of the people, for the people.’’ Unfortunately in Pakistan the phrase ‘For the people’ is invalid as politicians do no work for the people but they want to gain the maximum power and want to fill their pockets with money. Pakistan was founded on 14th August, 1947. During the past 67 years, Pakistan has experienced both dictatorship and democratic governments. Even though, democracy can be a viable form of government for most of the countries, however for a third world country like Pakistan, dictatorship seems appropriate because it has a low literacy rate which render the masses incapable of making a rational choice, prevalent provincialism which takes priority over national decision making and lastly dictatorship in Pakistan has always outperformed democracy in economic development and growth.
According to a report of UN education department UNESCO, the illiteracy percentage was 79 percent in Pakistan in 2012 (Pakistan today). The above report shows that the literacy rate of Pakistan is alarmingly low which means that the majority of the population of Pakistan is incapable of making a calculated and rational choice. Due to their unawareness and lack of knowledge, the majority ends up voting for the person who is portrayed in the media as the best; only because of huge amount of money that he has fed the news channels with. Hence, the media only advertises those contenders who are rich enough to pay the news channels a handsome amount and consequently many able and worthy candidates who are unable to afford the same lime light are deprived of the chance of competing on the same footing. Moreover, People are unable to choose the right representative as they are...
... middle of paper ...
...right to choose their own representatives yet they can’t because of the tremendous pressure from influential members of their society. But this doesn’t end here as there had been reports of fraudulent polling throughout the major urban cities of Pakistan as well which has discouraged many educated members of the society to cast their vote. Even the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)’s Chairman Imran Khan pointed out that “record rigging” had takenplace in the May 11 elections, his party had accepted the polling result, but would never accept the fraudulent polling.
Democracy may prove to be befitting for other countries, but for Pakistan dictatorship is the best option due to the aforementioned reasons. Napolean said that one bad general is better than two good ones. These reasons support the well-known phrase that a good dictatorship is better than a worse democracy.
The deficiency of the Canadian electoral system decreases the level of democracy in the Canadian constitution. Canadian citizens are known for being active in political matters; whether it relates to them specifically or not. In fact, “on average, educated, well informed, and interested in politics – all factors associated with high voter turnout.” But if this is the case, why is there a democratic deficit in the Canadian electoral system? The answer is simple: Most elections today rely heavily on media when it comes to national context; which decreases the l...
Democracy is control by the people. On the surface, this appears to be a superior form, but as Plato warned it is slow to react, oppresses of the minority, and lacks skilled leaders (Perry,
The country of Pakistan has not always oppressed women. The former man in charge of Pakistan professed, “No struggle can ever succeed without women participating side by side with men. There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a third power stronger than both, that of women (Lamb and Yousafzai 31).” It was not until a general named Zia ul-Haq threw a coup and seized control of the government that women and men’s rights became incomparable under Islamic Law. Zia’s regime did not allow women to play most sports, have access to healthcare, or open a bank account, and, in...
“ The successful establishment of democratic government in divided societies requires two key elements: power sharing and group autonomy”(Lijphart, 2004). Country X is a society divided not only ethnically but religiously making the creation of a long standing or stable democratic state difficult, but not impossible. As the quote from Lijphart above states, power sharing and group autonomy are two elements which need to be emphasized in order to develop a stable state. For power sharing and group autonomy to be implemented Country X must have a democratic presidential system. A presidential system is necessary because it allows for equal representation in the legislature, a balanced system of regulation, and fair laws to be implemented. All of these aspects will create a society which has power sharing and group autonomy. For Country X to be a stable democracy a presidential system is the correct institution.
(Democracy Defined. (n.d.). Retrieved November 05, 2017) The electoral system in Canada has had success in preventing extremists from forcing their way into the political system, however, if Canada adapts Proportional Representation it will give extremist a chance of forcing their way into the political system. The more a system favours larger parties and discriminates against smaller ones, the more likely it will be that voters will choose to favour a larger party rather than waste their votes on the smaller competitor. (PR and the Right wing Extremist N/A). Without Proportional Representation, it’s harder for smaller extremist parties to be elected in elections. Extremist are able to gain seats and force their way in easier in an electoral system with Proportional Representation, Germany 1933 is an excellent example of proportional representation. The Election of the Reichstag by proportional representation was the essential condition for the breakdown of the German Republic (HITLER RISE LAID TO VOTING SYSTEM. (1936, Nov 01). Hitler came to power in a Democracy as the Nazi’s gained seats in the Reichstag, however, Hitler was not elected by direct popular vote but proportional representations. (Thomas DeMichele, Hitler Was Elected President in a Democratic Election, 2016) Hitler came to
Modern non-democratic regimes include authoritarian, totalitarian, post-totalitarian, and sultanistic regimes (O&R, pg. 268). Different states follow different regimes and many do not fall under the category of democracy. Democracy, as defined by Lipset, is “a political system which supplies regular constitutional opportunities for changing the governing officials, and a social mechanism which permits the largest possible part of the population to influence major decisions by choosing among contenders for political office” (Lipset, Political Man, pg. 27).
Discussions of which constitutional form of government best serves the growing number of democratic nation’s are in constant debate all over the world. In the essay “The Perils of Presidentialism”, political scientist, Juan Linz compares the parliamentary system with presidential democracies. As the title of Linz’s essay implies, he sees Presidentialism as potentially dangerous and sites fixed terms, the zero-sum game and legitimacy issues to support his theory. According to Linz, the parliamentary system is the superior form of democratic government because Prime Minister cannot appeal to the people without going through the Parliament creating a more cohesive form of government. By contrast, a
difficult for the views and opinions of the people to be heard. For these reasons democracy is the
Democracy is “...the word that resonates in people’s minds and springs from their lips as they struggle for freedom and a better way of life...” (Schmitter and Karl, 1991:75). However, the word democracy has many different means depending on the country and context it is used in. “Every country has is own culture and comes by its political system through its own history” (Greenberg, 2007:101, cited in Li, 2008:4). Li, (2008) states that because of China’s political structure the usual road to democracy may be difficult for it to achieve. The western idea ...
In On Democracy, Robert Dahl presents five criteria that states are required to meet in order to satisfy the primary aim of democracy, which is to provide political equality to all of its citizens (1998, 37). The criteria include effective participation, equal voting, enlightened understanding, open agenda setting and inclusion. (Dahl, 1998, 38). Above these criteria, this paper will only focus on effective participation and enlightened understanding to apply them to India; this is because its citizens are going through a tough time with the two criteria to become a state with effective democracy. Therefore, this paper will demonstrate that India is in the process of achieving effective participation, but significantly lacks enlightened understanding.
Democracy is not bad or harmful but we must be careful when talking about democracy, whether we actually mean giving power to people to or making those in power more representatives of the people views. Because it all up to us as individuals to how we are using our democracy that gone reflect whether it’s the worst or best form of government. Through democracy we can either build or break our country to how we responded to the situations going on around us, if we stand together and fight for our democracy that we were told about or we sit down and relax watch other people using our democracy to their own good
...a voice and a choice. They have the feeling of being secure and free something which is only achieved through national security. Democracies also share similar beliefs and political ideologies which prevent them from engaging in warfare in the event of an arising conflict. The democratic peace theory states that democratic countries do not engage in interstate wars against each other. This theory has been proven true from time and time again in history. There has never been a case of an independent democratic country raging war on another democratic regime. So definitely when it comes to solving conflict through war regime type does matter since democratic states are 99 percent less likely to engage in a fight with autocracies and 100 prevent less likely to declare war on fellow democracy. Democracy is a preventer of conflict on all levels of human interactions.
In the end, democracy is the best form of government. It gives people a say in who should rule, it allows the best decisions to be made, and laws that are fair and just according to the majority of that societies’ needs. This can provide a very good and peaceful country, and that’s why democracy is a better form of government than oligarchy, dictatorship, communism, or monarchy. Government is needed to control and bring peace to a society, which other forms of government cannot do to the best of their ability due to their structure. In conclusion, democracy is the best form of government for the people.
Democracy has come to mean a principle under whose flag has most of the developed countries aced in their race for Imperialism. It has gone beyond all previous governing systems and has made room for progress and development. By offering free and fair elections, democracy has redefined human dignity and patriotism. It has also helped to improve decision-making among the citizens, and brought down the crime level. Democracy is for sure the most fitting among the other types of government, and needs to be implemented fully for effective functioning of a state.
Pakistan has all the major ingredients necessary to become a developed nation; it has a geo-strategic location, a generous availability of natural resources and a large population in the working age. Despite having the potential to turn itself into a developed country, Pakistan has not been able to fulfill its potential.