Democracy
A democracy is a system of government and the term derives from it's use in Athens during the 4th century BC.
Democracies can be divided into different types, based on a number of different distinctions. The most important distinction is between direct democracy and limited democracy. Limited democracy is far more common that direct democracy, and proponents of direct democracy often argue that limited democracy is not democracy at all.
Direct democracy (sometimes also called "pure democracy") is a system in which all people are allowed to influence policy making by means of a direct vote on any particular issue.
Representative democracy (or republic, indirect democracy, or parliamentary democracy), is a system in which the people (or citizens) have their views expressed by elected and appointed representatives that make decisions on behalf of the citizens. The Athenian democracy was a representative democracy.
Essentially, a representative democracy is a form of limited direct democracy in which democracy is directly applied only to certain groups, rather than being applied to all individuals.
Important issues regarding democracy include exactly who are "the people", i.e. who ought to be entitled to vote; how to protect the rights of minorities from the "tyranny of the majority"; and what system should be used for the election of representatives or other officials.
Direct and Representative Democracy
Direct democracy refers to a system in which citizens directly decide each issue by voting. In representative democracy, by contrast, citizens elect representatives at regular intervals, who then in turn decide the issues on their behalf.
Direct democracy becomes more and more difficult, and necessarily more closely approximates representative democracy, as the number of citizens grows. Historically, the most direct democracies would include the New England town meeting (within the United States), and the political system of ancient Athens. Neither system would scale well to a larger population. (Though the population of Athens was reasonably large, most of that population were not citizens, and thus had no political rights.)
It is questionable whether there has ever been a purely direct democracy of any considerable size (but see the No true scotsman fallacy). In practice, societies of any complexity always must contain a specialisation of tasks, including administrative and governance tasks; and hence even in a direct democracy there must be some elected officials. (Though one can still attempt to have all important policy decisions made by a direct vote, with the officials restricted to merely to implementing them.)
Likewise, many modern representative democracies incorporate some elements of direct democracy, most commonly referenda.
Some examples exist of democracies evolving towards the direct democracy paradigm, commonly known as participative democracy. For more details see:
- Electronic Democracy in Italy [1](in italian)
- Participative Budget in Porto Alegre, Brasil[2] (in english)
We can view direct and indirect democracies as ideal types, with real democracies approximating more closely to the one or the other. Some modern political entities are closest to direct democracies, such as Switzerland or some American states, where frequent use is made of referenda, and means are provided for referenda to be initiated by petition (called referenda on popular demand) instead of by members of the legislature or the government. The latter form, which is often referred to as a plebiscite, allows the government to choose if and when to hold a referendum, and also how the question should be worded. By contrast, Germany is closer to representative democracy: in Germany referenda are prohibited, due in part to the memory of how Adolf Hitler used to manipulate plebiscites to support his rule.
Elections can be used by totalitarian regimes or dictatorships to give a false sense of democracy. Some examples are 1960s right-wing military dicatorships in South America, left-wing totalitarian states like the USSR until 1991 or the more prominent National Socialist (Nazi) Germany before the end of World War II.
The system of elections used in some Communist countries might be considered an extreme form of representative democracy, in which the people directly elected local representatives, who in turn elected regional representatives, who in turn elected the national assembly, who finally elected the rulers of the country. However, even though the people are permitted to vote, the large distance between the individual voter and the government means that the system is easily manipulated, giving the result desired by the ruling class.
Representative democracy is the most commonly used system of government in countries generally considered "democratic". However, it should be noted that the definition used to classify countries as "democratic" was crafted by Europeans and is directly influenced by the dominating cultures in those countries; care should be taken when applying it to other cultures that are tribal in nature and do no have the same historical background as the current "democratic" countries.
Discussion on Direct Democracy
Many have argued in favour of direct democracy, on the grounds that it represents the will of the people most accurately; these people argue that, in contrast, representative democracy best represents the will of those privileged enough to be able to mount a successful election campaign. As evidence of this we can look at elections in the USA where, in the 1998 election "about 95 percent of winning candidates outspent their competitors. Business contributions exceeded those of labor by 12 to 1; individual contributions are sharply skewed. By such means, a tiny fraction of the population effectively selects candidates"[Chomsky, 2000] and consequently elected officials.
The traditional, and to many still compelling, objection to direct democracy as a form of government is that it is open to demagoguery. It is for this reason that the United States was established as, in the terminology used at the time (see above), a "republic" rather than a "democracy". Thus Benjamin Franklin's famous answer, to the question as to what sort of government the "Founding Fathers" had established, was: "A Republic, if you can keep it."
A cynic would point out that demagoguery and populism are two sides of the same coin. Demagogues appeal to people's baser instincts; populists allegedly appeal to their enlightened interests.
Is Democracy a good thing?
Almost all states today support democracy in principle, though often not in practice. Even many communist dictatorships call themselves democracies (e.g. the "Democratic Republic of Vietnam", "Democratic People's Republic of Korea"), even though they are by no means democratic by most Westerners' definition of the term.
Some ideologies have been openly opposed to democracy, for example Fascism.
Communists have argued that democracies are not really democratic, but form in fact a smokescreen for the ruling classes, who exercise the real power. In the Communist analysis, the working class in democracies does not really have a free vote, since the ruling class controls all the media and the general populace have been indoctrinated with ruling class propaganda. According to Communists, real democracy is only possible under a socialist system.
People with views supporting other-than-democratic systems try to find the weak points in democracy and use these as criticisms. Communist ideologues have criticized democracy mostly by its undesired effects (which are accepted by democrats all over the world -- see Chomsky's and Edward Herman's "Manufacturing Consent" for documented examples on how press is not free in democratic systems); however it should be noted that the same weak points exist in other systems, namely the Communist (aka Socialist) systems.
Right to Vote
Historically, many groups have been excluded from the right to vote, on various grounds. Sometimes this exclusion is a quite open policy, clearly stated in the electoral laws; at other times it is nowhere clearly stated, but is implemented in practice by provisions that may seem to have little to do with the exclusion actually being implemented (e.g. poll taxes and literacy requirements used to keep African-Americans in the pre-Civil Rights Era American South from voting.) And sometimes a group will be permitted to vote, but the electoral system or institutions of government will be purposely designed to give them less influence than other more favoured groups.
Ethnic or Racial Exclusion
Many societies in the past have denied people the right to vote on the basis of race or ethnicity. Examples of this include the exclusion of people of African descent from voting in the pre-Civil Rights Era American South and in apartheid-era South Africa.
Most societies today no longer maintain such provisions, but a few still do. For example, Fiji reserves a certain number of seats in its Parliament for each of its main ethnic groups; these provisions were adopted in order to discriminate against Indians in favour of ethnic Fijians. Pakistan reserves certain seats in parliament for voting by "frontier" tribes.
Exclusion on grounds of Class
Up until the nineteenth century, many Western democracies had property qualifications in their electoral laws, that meant that only people with a certain degree of wealth could vote. Today these laws have largely been abolished. However in some "democratic" countries this still applies in practice (although perhaps unintentionally) even though not in law; most democratic countries require an address for the electors to be qualified to vote, this, in practice excludes all those who are not fortunate enough to have achieved enough wealth as to permit them to own or rent living quarters.
Exclusion on the grounds of gender
Another long standing exclusion has been exclusion based on gender. All democracies prevented women from voting until 1893, when New Zealand became the first country in the world to give women the right to vote on the same terms as men. This was due to the historical success of the female suffrage movement. Today almost all states provide women with the right to vote; the sole exceptions are seven Muslim countries, primarily in the Middle East: Bahrain, Brunei, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Right to Vote Today
Today, in most democracies, the right to vote is granted without discrimination with regard to race, ethnicity, class or gender. However, the right to vote is still not universal. It is restricted to persons who have attained a certain age, most commonly 18 (although in some places it can be as high as 21). Only citizens of a country can normally vote in its elections, though some countries make exceptions for citizens of other countries with which they have close links (e.g. some members of the Commonwealth, and the members of the European Union).
In the USA the right to vote is denied to prisoners, however other countries like Germany allow prisoners to vote. Some countries also deny the right to vote to those convicted of serious crimes, even after they are released from prison. In some cases (e.g. the felon disfranchisement laws found in many U.S. States) the denial of the right to vote is automatic on conviction of a serious criminal offence; in other cases (e.g. provisions found in many parts of continental Europe) the denial of the right to vote is an additional penalty that the court can choose to impose, over and above the penalty of imprisonment. Another exemption from the right to vote is made by some countries for people in psychiatric facilities.
Democracies around the World
It is difficult to give exact figures as to the number of democracies in the world today. There is no clear line dividing dictatorships and democracies. Many countries (e.g. Singapore) have supposedly free elections, which the governing party has always won, often accompanied by allegations or evidence of the repression of any opposition that appeared to have a serious chance of unseating the government. Whether such countries are democracies or single party dictatorships masquerading as democracies is a matter of dispute.
There have, however, been attempts to determine the number of democracies in the world today. According to Freedom House, at the end of 2000 there were 120 democracies in the world.
Alternative Definition of 'Democracy'
There is another definition of democracy from that given above, though it is less commonly used. According to this definition, the word "democracy" refers solely to direct democracy, whilst a representative democracy is referred to as a "republic". Using this definition, the United States' system of government is referred to as a "democratic-republic," rather than a democracy.
The earliest origins of this definition can be found in the work of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. Aristotle distinguished in his Politics between six systems of government, depending on whether rule was by the one, the few or the many, and whether this rule was just or unjust. He called an unjust democracy system ohlokratia (rule of the mob) , and an unjust oligarchy system (rule of the few) tirania==tyranny. In the other hand Aristotle's politeia, should be mostly translated as a political system where the specialists (and not the populars, as happens to 20th century representative Democracy) persons rule. According to Aristotle's definition, the 20th century political systems ("representative Democracies") should be named "time-limited oligarchies". A particularly interesting feature of Aristotle's demokratia is the choosing of public officials by lot, a technique common among Greek city-states, though not endorsed by Aristotle and mostly unknown in any modern political system. (Although in some countries with first-past-the-post election systems, in the highly unlikely case of two candidates for a seat receiving exactly the same number of votes, the seat is decided by flipping a coin.)
The words "democracy" and "republic" were wrongly used ( due to translation problems) by some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. They argued that only a representative democracy (what they called a 'republic') could properly protect the rights of the individual; they used the word 'democracy' to refer to direct democracy, which they considered tyrannical.
Neither Aristotle's original definition nor that of the American definition Founding Fathers is widely used any more - most political scientists today (and most common English speakers) use the term "democracy" to refer to government by the people, whether it be direct or representative. The term "republic" most commonly means today a politicial system with a head of state elected for a limited term, as opposed to a constitutional monarchy.
Note however that the older terms are still sometimes used in discussions of politicial theory, especially when considering the works of Aristotle or the American "Founding Fathers". This older terminology also has some popularity in conservative and Libertarian politics in the United States.
Within this article, the definition of democracy given at the beginning of this article (i.e. democracy includes both direct and indirect democracy) will be used.
Democracy and Communism
In common popular usage in the West, democracy is contrasted to forms of dictatorship or totalitarianism in which actual power is held by a small group of people. However, the term democracy has been used to include these types of regimes. Political scientists have used the term totalitarian democracy to point out that the ideological justification of totalitarian regimes comes from popular rule. In Maoist political theory, the Chinese Communist Party is part of the people's democratic dictatorship signfying that the Party's absolute rule came about as a result of a popular revolution.
To be more precise, political analysts have created the concept of liberal democracy to distinguish what is commonly regarded as a democracy from dictatorships which claim legitimacy from the people. A liberal democracy is characterized by civil rights and legitimate (actual, non-rigged) multi-party elections.
Democracy and War
One claim that has been made is that democracies rarely if ever go to war with each other. This point of view has been criticized by those who argue that the definition of democracy is flexibly changed to exclude cases which contradict the thesis [3].
See direct democracy; republic; democratic republic; republicanism; demagoguery; populism; the people; Athenian democracy; Roman Republic; Westminster system; voting system
Compare: dictatorship; monarchy; theocracy; Oligarchy; anarchism
References
[Chomsky, 2000] Rogue States, The rule of force in world affairs, Noam Chomsky, Pluto books, 2000, ISBN 074531709X