Democracy as the ideal form of Government
David Meyers
Comparative Politics
Mohamed Daadaoui
14 September 2017
“No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
Winston Churchill
There are many different interpretations of Democracy around the world. An absolute scientific definition is hard to compile, as each persons definition of democracy is based on how it affects them directly. Democracy, unlike Dictatorship, has stood the test of time as the fairest, most inclusive form of Government. The happiest people in the World live in democracies. With it’s faults, it is the best option available to nations around the world.
Democracies around the world are usually wealthier, have very low inequality ratings, provide better healthcare and education and protect individual and property rights better than authoritarian states.(Knutsen 2011) There are many key differences between democracies and dictatorships. Democracy is based on a principle of equality. The country is ruled by the people. Either through one vote = one value or through representation, where the people elect representatives to make decisions on their behalf. The advantage of this is the ability to “self-correct” and get rid of representatives by vote when they do not take decisions in line with the needs of the people who voted for them. Dictatorship is a
Democracy is a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, and is one with representative institutions and a rule of law.
“Hence it is that such democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
Pericles , a famous Greek statesman once wrote a document called the Funeral oration (document 3) in which he describes what a democracy. This is the form of government which was instated during the Ancient Greek civilizations and is instated in the (modern-day) the United States. Democracy is made for the majority and not the minority. It is not based on the few leading, rather everyone gets a voice in society. It gives
According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Democracy is defined as a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections. This definition is accurate in
The definition of democracy is a system of government in which the power vested in the people.This means that the government allows the people to make decisions Many people think that the U.S is pure democracy. However it’s proven not to be truly a democracy.
“Thus Dewey sought to conceptualize democracy as a mode of being a way of life, or as a personality formation. He argued that even if all of the right external structures were in place if there was little to no prior development of the democratic moral ideals within persons that make up American Democracy, more and more of its people would devolve into mere empty-shelled democratic citizens.” (John Dewey)
Democracy, as a word, has many interpretations. Communist countries define themselves as economic democracies. Clearly the opposite is true due to the definition that the Founding Fathers of The United States used. Democracy is defined as having five key characteristics. These principles are the following: majority rule, equality, liberty, necessity of compromise, and individual worth. Majority rule, principle number one, can be broken down into two distinct categories, popular majority and representative majority. Popular majority, in its root definition, means that the majority of all the citizens or all voters are taken into account in the election of governmental offices. The second type of majority rule is representative majority. This
Democracy, as it is used today, means “ the people rule.” A democracy is a form of government ruled by the people of the country through elections and representation. A democracy is really a form of republic known as a democratic republic. A republic is a government where officials elected by a small group of people that make the important decisions.
A democracy is when the common people are considered as the primary source of political power. Although democracy and absolutism had advantages and disadvantages, democracy was a more effective type of government for it limited royal power and protected the rights of the people socially, politically, and economically. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, tension arose between the two different types of governments, the democracy and absolute monarchs.
A weakness of democracy is the “Tyranny of the Majority”. This is an inevitable pitfall, because in a democracy, the power is vested foremost in the people the constituting the society itself. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote on this concept:
A legitimate state can be defined as “A state in which its citizens have little or no significant resistance to the public policy and leadership of the state in question due to the rightful/legitimate exercise of power.” This Legitimacy of state is often a hard term to apply to any form of government in the modern political world due to the very differing cultures between the western and eastern world. However the general consensus of many political leaders is democracy is the only truly legitimate way of ruling any state. Democracy in the words of Abraham Lincoln is a government formed “of the people, by the people, for the people” where the power of
Democracy is a form of government in which all eligible citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Democracy allows eligible citizens to participate equally—either directly or through elected representatives—in the proposal, development, and creation of laws. It encompasses social, economic and cultural conditions that enable the free and equal practice of political self-determination.
Winston Churchill once remarked that “democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried”. In agreement with his statement, this paper will examine the problems of democratic governments using specific examples, and compare it to the failure of fascist governments in Nazi Germany and Italy and communist governments in the Soviet Union and China.
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
What is democracy? Democracy a form of government in which the people freely elect representatives to govern them in a country, democracy guarantees free and fair elections, basic personal and political rights and independent court of law. There are two types of democracy, direct and indirect democracy. Direct democracy or pure democracy is where there is direct participate of the people; people make decisions for them instead of letting them representative make decision for them. Indirect democracy the decisions are made by the representative on behalf of the people that voted for them. All over the world people are having different views with regard to democracy and how it operates. “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of