Introduction
It is hard to disagree with the following statement Sir Winston Churchill once remarked: ‘it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried’ – from a House of Commons speech on November 11, 1947. Democracy nowadays is the implementation of the ambitious and long-range aims that the government is likely to fulfill successfully. The presidential office is the representation of all-mighty power taking every sphere of political life under one-source control through spreading the right for freedom across the entire country disregarding the social layers. And though there were and still are other forms of government system in the historical arena, democracy is considered to be the most efficient and effective ruling power.
Contemporary Democracy
Although democracy has evolved as a relevantly contemporary form of Government and has gained much social and political attention, still it has to be stressed that authoritarian regimes have a much longer history hence a richer background. It had various forms and types throughout history that students may be completely absorbed in studying the history of authoritarianism from different perspectives. Namely, the regime was performed through ‘totalitarianism, corporatism, military rule, bureaucratic authoritarianism, and comparative communism’ (Nathan, p.37).
Though Sir Churchill remarked that democracy is the worst governmental system among other not-so-perfect ones, it is still necessary to say that democracy is the best one, so far. A good implementation of democratic power was seen in Ancient Greece several centuries ago. Democracy has been evolving successfully already at those times when people used to come to the marketplace to give their votes for any specific decision. Of course, a democratic society is not a perfect one, though I tend to think that it is the most eligible to be considered as effective. Besides, this kind of government also speaks for the more civilized forms of existence.
Parliamentary vs. Presidential Democracy
It is considered that the parliamentary system is better for the democratic government than the presidential one. In this context, it is appropriate to worry about the kind of democracy, the so-called winner-take-all system (Horowitz, p.73); namely, the systems where the president takes all the responsibility upon himself. Of course, it is also possible to recall the Mother of Parliaments – Westminster – that suffers from exclusive consequences as frequently as presidential systems do. Although the entire responsibility is laid upon the head of the government – the president in the presidential democracy system, the actual power is believed to be given to the people.
The power of people is successfully implemented within the US governmental system. The citizens of the US have a right to vote and express their views openly disregarding race, gender, and class differences. Therefore, it has to be admitted that a democratic society is better than any other form of government experienced by this planet before. Moreover, I tend to think that democracy is a type of government that takes a peak point within all historical heritage of the world. It is widely proved that democracy is a government for the people. They can elect the rulers themselves, unlike the monarchist system. Hence people know that they can meet their expectations for the political system by choosing the governors they trust entirely.
The Soviet Union
In terms of talking about Sir Churchill’s words about other systems of government that showed their utmost on the world’s historical arena, let me refer to communism in Eastern Europe and USSR. One of the most interesting historical periods is the seventy years’ communist regime in the Soviet Union. The outstanding politician and ruler until 1953 were Stalin. Let me be objective and say that he was one of the most powerful though one of the cruelest governors the Soviet Union had ever seen. Once the reins of government were passed to Stalin from Lenin the obscure and at the same time the powerful state began its existence. WWII was won under Stalin’s government and there are other economic and political winning points to discuss: … Stalin’s vision pivoted around the notion of industrialization (Janos, p.7) However, it has to be mentioned that people lived in a terrific totalitarian regime. An interesting issue I would like to touch upon here is the insight of two different nations divided by the ocean, living in the dictatorship and the democratic societies, of course living through their own political and social problems. Wondering how the two different societies – the democratic and the communist one – coped with the ideologies the two systems offered, I can claim that democracy is much better and easier to exist in as per freedom-thirsty nation. As such, the post-Soviet countries took much effort to adjust to the democratic powers after the Soviet Union split up.
Chinese Communism Drawbacks
Unlike the United States China has been a communist state that had established its politics long ago and still stands on its grounds firmly. Therefore, without analyzing extra details of the forms of China government and their success and failures, it is certain that the communist state still exists due to having opposing democratic parties in the country’s government. It needs to be mentioned that according to Nathan the Chinese system is very unstable and ‘it is as hard to imagine the Chinese system surviving as it is to imagine the mature democracies collapsing’ (p. 40). Moreover, unlike China’s communism democracy is a much better governmental system since it has a very clear, cohesive, logical structure. Unfortunately, China does not have a cohesive political structure, though luckily it has absorbed many aspects of a democratic system of power which may truly lead it to collapse: ‘statism with entrepreneurship, political monopoly with individual liberty, personalist power with legal procedure, repression with responsiveness, policy uniformity with decentralized flexibility, and message control with a media circus’ (Nathan, p. 38).
So, democracy is not a perfectly structured system but it can at least give people independence and responsibility at the same time. Namely, giving the nation a right to elect governors implies more responsibility and teaches people to be more careful about their decisions because the results and the consequences are going to be borne by people themselves. In the Soviet Union, people did not have a choice they just accepted the decisions the government used to take.
Fascist Regime
One more regime that has shaken the world in the mid of the twentieth century is Fascism: …The generic term fascism is in origin neither analytical nor descriptive. It was coined … in the heat of political battle… (Turner, p.563). It is a political regime that has evolved to divide the nation into two layers or two categories. Besides the division to the elite and the working class that produced for the elite, Fascism is also known as an ideology of all powering totalitarian government. Along with the total ruling over the people and society overall, fascists came to control the entire economy. The prior feature of the fascist economy is the government-business principle.
So, to compare the democracy and other forms of government that have been exercised throughout history and the world’s states, I have regarded communism, socialism, and fascism. As per the political systems all of the above-mentioned governing systems were imperfect, so is democracy. However, the most convenient way to make people’s lives better is to live in a democratically built society. Of course, history shows examples when non-democratic societies held a powerful life being, though it is hard to prove that people were happy enough as they are in the democratic society.
Conclusion
Democracy tolerantly forces people to think of their future wisely, make the right decisions, and be responsible for what they do and say; though a totalitarian regime did the same using restricting extra people’s opinions’ expression. It does not mean that democracy is perfect by all means, however, it has been at a historical stage long enough to fight for the name of one of the most effective governmental systems.
So, to answer the purpose of the paper, I agree with Winston Churchill that democracy is the best out of the worst – it has its advantages and disadvantages in terms of historical heritage and the teaching purpose for the further generations. It has a huge history for us to remember and learn from. Therefore, let’s consider democracy to be the best form of government among the other ones, indeed.
Reference List
Horowitz, Donald L, Comparing Democratic Systems. Journal of Democracy, Volume 1, no. 4, (1990): 73-79
Janos, Andrew C., What Was Communism: A Retrospective in Comparative Analysis. Communist and Post-Communist Studies Vol. 29, No. 1(1996): l-24
Nathan, Andrew J., Authoritarian Impermanence. Journal of Democracy, Volume 20, no. 3 (2009): 37-40
Turner, Henry Ashby Jr., Fascism and Modernization. World Politics, Vol. 24, No. 4 (1972): 547-564