Democracy is being sought by almost everyone in the world especially Africans who find it as the only alternative for survival (Kasongo 2005). They believe that under a democratic system, there is nothing to lose since it has been a potential solution for the world political crisis.
India has been named as the world largest democracy. However, although it is the desired political form, it is found in less than 50% of the governments in the world. Some of these governments which have never experienced democracy include China, which has a fifth of the world’s population.
Democracy in general is viewed as the rights of individuals being equal participants in making decisions that influence their lives (Kasongo 2005).
Democracy is characterized by equality and freedom where every citizen has equal rights in the law and in the process of making and implementation of these laws. This ensures that there is no discrimination between citizens. In a democratic country, the people run the government through voting of representatives (Brown 1967).
Trends of democracy
Democracy was believed to originate from Athens, 2500 years ago (Held 2006). There were other alternative systems which included monarchy, which was the rule by individual, oligarchy, which was the rule by those who were wealthy, and timocracy, which was a rule by people of an elite class. In the 18th and 19th centuries, some countries adopted democracy as the system of their governance.
In 1755, Corsican Republic became the first country to adopt democratic constitution. In 1755, United States adopted a constitution which was characterized by freedom and equality (Newmyer 2005).
Australia adopted democracy in 1861 and they were the first to allow women to vote (suffrage) equivalent to men. New Zealand in 1893, also achieved universal suffrage by allowing women to vote but they could not allow them to stand for parliamentary seat till 1919 (Newmyer 2005).
In the 20th century, liberal democracy brought about various waves including wars, for example, World War I and revolutions. Although democracy flourished in the 1920s, severe economic depression (Great Depression) that was there worldwide changed some nations in Europe, Latin America and Asia to turn to dictatorship.
In the history of democracy, it was termed as the rule by the people (Held 2006), where various concepts are encompassed. This includes all people or representatives being part of the legislative process, making of laws and policies, and rulers being accountable to those that they represent.
The other concept of democracy is that the rulers are supposed to be elected by the ruled and act in the interest of the ruled. According to Held (2006),
“Democracy helps achieve the following fundamental values: rightful authority, political equality, liberty, moral self-development, the common interest, a fair moral compromise, binding decisions that take everyone’s interest into account, social utility, the satisfaction of wants, efficient decisions” (p. 2).
Forms of democracy
There have been various forms of democracy that have come about over time. A single system may consist of more than one form of democracy. These forms include: representative democracy, liberal democracy, direct democracy, inclusive democracy, participatory democracy, socialist democracy, anarchist, Iroquois, sortition, consensus, supranational, cosmopolitan and non-governmental.
Representative democracy is whereby the ruled select their representatives to be the government officials. The winner of the election is the person with the highest number of votes. The elected act in the interest of the ruled and have freedom of making judgements on behalf of the ruled.
The representative democracy consists of parliamentary representation, semi-presidential and constitutional democracies. The parliamentary democracy is where the government is voted in by the representatives (Baccus 2010).
The ruled do not participate. Under parliamentary democracy, a Prime Minister is elected by the representative and can be removed by a vote of no confidence (Brown 1967). Presidential type of representative democracy is where the people (citizens) elect their president during a fixed date. The president heads both the nation and the government (Baccus 2010).
The president serves the public for a fixed period of time. Semi-presidential democracy system is where there are shared powers between the president and the prime minister. Depending with the country, either of them may have more powers than the other over the government and legislature (Baccus 2010).
Constitutional democracy is whereby the selected representatives make decisions based on the constitution that is, set rules of law. The constitution contains the rights that protect the ruled. The majority will can be practised against the minority (Baccus 2010).
Direct democracy is where the individuals make decisions without relying on the representatives. The citizens have power to change the constitution and set referendums. An example of direct democracy in practice is in California where referendums are always done through voting (Buccus 2010). Inclusive democracy aims for direct democracy in social life. Decision making is done by assembly of demos.
Participatory democracy involves interaction between the citizens and their political representatives (Carey 1988). People with common interest meet and discuss things than influence the society and citizens have equal rights to air their views.
Participatory democracy aims at removing the hierarchical type of governance where lateral communication benefits the community as a whole. The participants come together to solve their problems and the community is empowered and can take a political action (Rheingold 1993).
The communication between the citizens and representatives can be one on one or through electronic networks where geographical distance may be a hindrance in communication. Che Guevara, a Marxist revolutionary in his speech said that democracy cannot be managed solely by the rich and professional politicians (Carlsson & Lindgren 2007).
Socialists believe in participatory democracy combined with representative democracy. The ideology of socialist democracy has both values and social theories. The values form the basis of social life and development. The social theory explains how the social development can influence the society to realize these values.
The values of social democracy include solidarity, freedom and equality which are expected to be created at the same time. Anarchists oppose the hierarchical authority and they accept direct democracy. They believe in majority rule. The majority rule does not consider the views of minority.
Apparently, democratic societies conduct elections with the aim of resolving the decisions of the majority rather than the minority. For example, the president is chosen based on the views of the majority in the society.
Furthermore, it is not possible to represent the public in decision making without holding democratic elections. As such, it is very critical to conduct the elections in a manner that represent individual views of the citizens to ensure that the decisions of the public are well represented.
Undoubtedly, the public decision making processes would be unproblematic if a mechanism which ensures everybody in the society upholds the same views is used in elections. Any election that satisfies the consensus principle would be a reasonable election.
This principle calls for election of those candidates who are agreed upon by different individuals and leaving out those who are not popular. This principle is however not easy to satisfy because in reality, many individuals differ in their views (Black 1948).
Different people have understood the word democracy differently. The origin of the word rather meant “the power of the people”. However, the sense of this power has remained an arguable topic in the recent times. In the modern times, democracy is commonly construed as the determination of the will of the majority through the voting rule.
The power to decide issues by the majority rule is thus believed to be the power of the people. Nonetheless, deification of democracy in this manner exposes it to a lot of social choice dilemma, including Arrows’ impossibility theorem and the Downs’ rational ignorance.
These theories finds out whether voting rule as a decision making mechanism is inherently flawed, and whether democracy as political system and based on a voting rule is reducible to a decision means respectively. Therefore, as critics have argued, as a political system, democracy is inherently flawed.
The social choice dilemma may however escape inherent flaws as a system if, at its core, democracy is perceived differently from decision mechanism based on voting rule (Raaflaub 1989; Ober 1998).
Rather than viewing democracy as a source of popular will and a preference for individuals, it can be taken as a deliberative process based on social decision rule. It can be argued that he social decision rule is rather democratic because it guarantees procedural fairness, which underscores conformity to the political equality principle.
Following election of a representative government, the social decision rule is used by this government to make laws. However, it is important to note that lack of transitiveness by the majority rule which allows cycling satiations leads to doubtful conclusion that justification of democracy can only be minimally justified.
Majority rule which if preferred by populists is recommended by the social choice as the only fair decision rule. This clearly undermines a populist’s justification of democracy (Dasgupta & Maskin 1999).
This rule that provides plenty of information on the popularly acceptable alternatives helps to know which ones to reject. Deliberative and pragmatist grounds can also be used to give justification to the rule of the majority. It is important to note that majority rule defines how the law makers negotiate, bargain, persuade, deliberate, and trade, based on the fact that the support of the majority will determine the final agreement.
Based on the fact that it is reasonable to look ahead to reasonable outcome as a result of the majority rule, then this rule can be justified normatively since it is procedurally fair. Democracy must undoubtedly be part of the agenda-setting procedure in order to satisfy political equality.
Although an open agenda procedure may satisfy political equality, it may sometimes turn out chaotic. Most parliamentary democracies develop procedures that combine stability with political equality, especially through negotiation of a coalition program and a governing coalition (Arrow 1951).
Cycling, which means that there exists numerous and inseparable potential winning coalitions, makes the current winning coalition replaceable. As such, the minorities can protect themselves without violating the majority rule, or rather without giving ways to vetoes that are exposed to abuse in a bid to extort advantages and protect unjust privileges.
In addition, strong spur for coalition building is created by the existence of multiple and potential winning coalitions. Even though, cycling is inherent in democratic process, it rather remains far from being solved (Butler, Miller, & Sargeant 2004).
Elections portray an imperfect procedure since it represents an infallible approximation of the meaning of the general rule. It is true that the rule of the social choice theory provides that no reasonable procedure can reasonably exist, that can guarantee an outcome that is acceptable by all others at all times.
It can therefore be argued that majority rule as a decision rule guarantees procedural fairness based on treatment of alternatives and all voters in a fair manner, and hence the results of the majority rule is not really arbitrary (Woodberry 2005).
The fundamental principle of democracy is the protection of the minority as well as the individual rights and the majority rule. Although it seems contradictory, this is the basic idea that forms a democratic government. Majority rule means “organizing government and deciding public issues without taking away the basic rights and freedoms of minority groups or individuals” (Goodin, Pettit, & Pogge 2007, p. 56).
By the virtue of their ethnic background, their religion, income level, geographic location or rather the losers of elections, the minorities are assured basic human rights that no majority or government should take away from them.
Therefore, with their rights guaranteed, the minorities have a say in the democratic institutions of their countries. Some of the primary purposes of democracy include upholding of the social practices, the cultural identity, religious activities, and individual conscience. Rather than treating differences in culture, identity and values as threats, democracy tries to strengthen them as it recognizes diversity as an asset.
Paul Bremer III, who was an administrator in Iraq coalition provision Authority among the black once claimed that “Democracy entails not just majority rule, but protection of minority rights” (Goodin, Pettit, & Pogge 2007, p. 152). This statement was made after reading a speech during the year end review of the America occupancy of Iraq. By then, the American allegiance to protecting the minority rights was a concerted effort.
Practically, all people in a political society participate in choice of a set of rules that defines the application of minority rights and the majority rules.
The manner in which the majorities are determined, the limits of speech and debate, the manner in which members of a society can propose a law, and whether the minority should be given freedom to guard their rights against abuse by the majority will are some of the problematic areas that are treated differently by different democracies.
Different countries however follow different rules of democracy such as Robert’s Rules of Order which offers succinct declaration of the democratic principle. Different parliaments are currently building ideal principles that will guarantee and respect the rights of the citizens, including the rights of the majority, the minority, absentees, and individuals, as well as collective rights which govern all (Raaflaub 1983).
References
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