“Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal” (Aristotle). Democracy as a form of government creates a sense of equality amongst all their members of whom they govern. Democracy usually begins with an individual representing a community; the group of representatives who represent the state and the states represents the country. Ultimately, Democracy is a representation of a union of people’s mutual interests, usually in a massive scale. The process of institutionalizing Democracy into a regime is not always the best way to govern a union of people, but it isn’t the worst compared to an authoritarian or communistic state of government. There are several reasons why a regime would want incremental Democracy.
To understand why a regime would want incremental Democracy, we must gain an understanding on what Democracy is. Unlike an Authoritarian regime, where only one ruler magistrates on what one’s people needs, a democratic regime is built upon representatives who make up a regime. These representatives represent a portion of the community. A democratic state of government makes it so that there is power sharing amongst many rather just one to rule them all. Having power sharing within a regime may not seem like a big deal, but it can provide much more accurate analyses of what is needed for the people. It also prevents a regime from abusing their problem for the good of themselves. Democracy can only work well if there is a large enough working class, or in other words, middle class. Having a large working class makes Democracy work because if there were no working class, the democratic regime would fall. This is...
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... will not work in their society. Moreover, causing a reversal of incremental Democracy. Furthermore, this would drive down the move towards a democratic regime. Another issue with Democracy is that local people are needed to participate in the state of government. If no one participates through collective actions, such as voting or polls, then Democracy would fail. Democracy would fail because without the knowledge of what needs to be fixed or done, there would be no progression within the society. This would cause instability
Valand 2 within a democratic society and it needs to be stable for incremental Democracy to proceed. To combat the lack of participation within the democratic state, interest groups can influence the people and motivate participation to push change along. Furthermore, Democracy has it’s own faults, but there are contingencies to when it fails.
1. Janda, Kenneth. The Challenge of Democracy. Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston, MA. 1999. (Chapter 3 & 4).
Janda, Kenneth. Berry, Jeffrey. Goldman, Jerry (2008). The Challenge of Democracy (9th ed.). Boston; New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Janda, K., Berry, J., Golman, J., & Hula, K. (2009). The Challenge of Democracy: American
Many countries have decided against having a totalitarian government system, but there still are countries that continue with running their country with authoritarianism. The Middle East persists on having an authoritarianism style government over having a democracy. Theories that prove to be true to Middle Eastern people of how a totalitarian government is better relate to economics, religion, and international involvement. People living in the Middle East want to avoid having political liberation because that can lead to a consistent and stable democratic government. Another reason keeping them from changing is that since their countries aren’t struggling economically, the citizens don’t see it necessary to elect new leaders. The countries in the Middle East region decide to continue with authoritarianism because the fear and pain is greater than the feeling of freedom.
“The government operates through competing interest groups rather than public opinion. The competing interest groups represent the people’s interest to government decision makers. Democracy exists when many (plural) organizations operate separately from the government, press their interests on the government, and even challenge the government.” The public is best served if the government structure provides access for different groups to press their claims in competition with one another. A pluralistic model of democracy allows minority interests to organize and press their claims on government freely also.
Lastly Mills highlights how a truly democratic state can be achieved. There is a need for a public that acts a medium for true political change, skilled men who form the higher powers of the state and have no vested corporate interests, dependable parties that debate openly and lucidly the problems faced by the world and finally liberated institutions between the public and the elite that act as proponent for the public opinion.
More importantly, what is a democracy exactly? Some would define it as a form of government where the people rule, others as where the poor rule, and I would say it is where everyone contributes in how the government is ran but do not control the final decisions made. In Aristotle 's "Democracy and Oligarchy", he discusses the different kinds of democracies that exist and how equality plays a huge role in defining it. Without equality, or even limiting it, it can change a democracy into an oligarchy. He goes into detail about each kind there is and further analyzes how regardless of having similar elements, they are each unique in their own way.
In comparing the average citizen in a democratic nation, say the United States, to that of a non-democratic nation, for instance Egypt, it will be found that the citizen in the democratic nation is generally better off – free of persecution, free from fear of the authorities, and free to express his opinions on governmental matters. And while national conflicts occur everywhere, incidents like violent revolts have shown to be more prevalent in nations where citizens are not allowed to choose who governs them. It is slightly paradoxical that democracy, so inherently flawed in theory, can lead to such successful outcomes in practice. The question, then, becomes: “If democracy has so many weaknesses, why does it work?”
There have been enormous efforts to spread democracy as a political system throughout the world by the developed democratic countries and the international development organizations including the World Bank. By the late 1990s the United States alone spent over a half billion dollars to promote democratic expansion throughout the world (Diamond, 2003). These were done considering that the democratic system leads towards development. As a result in the late 20th century we saw a huge political transformation towards democracy. During the last few decades a huge number of countries adopted democracy as their political system. However, it retain a big question how far democracy is successful in bringing development of a country? At this stage, some people also criticizes the effort of democratization arguing that it is done without considering the context of a country, sometimes democracy is not ideal for all countries and it is an effort to extinct diversity of political system. In studying the literature regarding the debate, we found a paradoxical relationship between democracy and development. Some argue that democracy has failed to ensure expected outcomes in terms of development. While others confronted that democracy has a considerable impact on development. Another group of people argue that form of political system actually does not have any impact on development process. On the verge of these debates, some development institutions and academics throw light on why democracy is not working properly, and what measure should be taken to make it more successful in bringing effective development of developing countries. Consequently, this writing is an effort of revisiting the different views about impact of democra...
A democracy promotes equal rights for all its citizens and the equal opportunity to represent and choose for themselves in matters that affect their lives (Liddell, Robert Scott). The advent of democracy brought the opportunity of choice and the freedom of choosing according to ones wants and desires. This was considered as a stepping stone to a modern free world, and still holds true.
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 ...
Firstly, K. Isbester mentions that democracy has a different meaning for everyone, as some can define democracy as a good aspect for development, on the contrary other believe that it is nothing more than voting after several years. Although, Latin America see democratic g...
During the 19th century, these principles were increasingly challenged, or they were deprived of their substance beyond representative institutions. So, in many countries, direct-democracy institutions have not been established or implemented since representative elites developed a strong interest in monopolizing power. In addition, pragmatic theories contended that direct democracy could not work under space and time conditions of large modern
Throughout history different types of instrumental regimes have been in tact so civilizations remained structured and cohesive. As humanity advanced, governments obligingly followed. Although there have been hiccups from the ancient times to modern day, one type of government, democracy, has proven to be the most effective and adaptive. As quoted by Winston Churchill, democracy is the best form of government that has existed. This is true because the heart of democracy is reliant, dependent, and thrives on the populaces desires; which gives them the ability for maintaining the right to choose, over time it adjusts and fixes itself to engulf the prominent troubling issues, and people have the right of electing the person they deem appropriate and can denounce them once they no longer appease them. In this paper, the benefits of democracy are outlined, compared to autocratic communism, and finally the flaws of democracy are illustrated.
The foundation of the modern political system was laid in the times when the world was strangled in slavery. In those moments, enlightened minds in Greek came up with the new system that was there to remain for the next thousands of years. This system, now known as democracy, is a form of government in which supreme power is vested to the people themselves. People have the right to elect their leaders directly or indirectly through a scheme of representation usually involving periodically held free elections. A new democratic government is usually established after every 4-5 years, and it is trusted with the responsibility to cater to the needs of all the people irrespective of the fact that they voted for them or not. Although the minorities may not be very pleased with the idea of democracy, however, a democratic government is certainly the best because it establishes social equality among people, reduces the conflicts in the state to a minimum, gives the chance to vote repeatedly, and creates patriotism.