Essay on Is Democracy a Precondition for Development?

We know that democracies are common among the economically urbanized countries and rare between the very deprived ones. The reason we scrutinize this pattern is not that democracies are more probable to emerge, as a result, of economic development but that they are to a large extent more possible to survive if they occur to emerge in most urbanized countries. The paths to democracy are diverse. Indeed, they appear to follow no unsurprising pattern. But once democracy is conventional, for whatever reasons, its endurance depends on a few, easily particular, factors.

In a democratic government also depends on freedom of press and freedom of assembly. Freedom of press is the occurrences that happen every day that are informed or detailed through television, newspaper, internet, magazines or speech without adding or removing any type of information that do not benefit a particular sector. And also is that the people have the right to have their own type of press to express their ideas. Today, freedom of press is a utopia because every country has their own secrets, and covers important information to their citizens. With freedom of press, the countries will have a perfect government not so perfect but the people need to know the truth. The democratic government is a form of government in which the people, either directly or indirectly, take part in governing. “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.” This is because there is no system that can perfectly order society. Usually the purpose of democracy is to prevent tyranny (the accumulation of

Democracy came about in a very interesting fashion. It first started out as, a wealthy class of rich males in ancient Greece who had the power to vote and be citizens; while no one else was able to be a citizen and participate in democracy. This notion of democracy slowly evolved out of different revolutions and ideas. We saw great leaps forward in in the evolution of democracy during the US revolution which was exemplified by the cry of: “No taxation without representation.” In the French revolution, in which there has been so much has studied about, is another example of inequality helping democratization. In the modern era, we have seen the Arab spring rise and fall, with some countries making modest reforms and people fighting for as many reforms as they could get; among these, the idea of equality. Pure equality is the striving force that democracy will always try to reach and will never truly achieve.

We must question to what extent democracy relies on external factors of stability in order to be accepted as legitimate. I would very much argue that the wealth and stable economy of each democratic country plays a large part in its citizens accepting democracy as a legitimate governmental system. Let us first look at the UK, Britain has always had a strong democratic nature to the country and relies on the electorate to vote for the MP’S in the House of Commons. However in late 2010 the London riots shocked the world and showed how the legitimacy of democracy relies on prosperity of the economic situation of a country and when this does not exist it creates a social backlash devaluing the legitimacy of the democracy. Similarly grease one of the oldest democracies in the world has also felt this effect and now the government there has all but collapsed all due the financial support of the democracy failing sending the country into mass chaos.

Democracy is a unique type of government, and the purpose of this essay is to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses that a democratic government provides. I will detail that many components of this type of society are both strengths and weakness as each component has beneficial aspects as well as unavoidable pitfalls.

As stated before, some people argue that there is a relationship between both indicators, with economic development causing democracy. Based on the data presented here, I would say that that might be true in some countries, but not in the ones that have been addressed here. For example, Russia has a greater GDP per capita than Mexico, but it is considered to be a not free country, while Mexico is a partly free one with a lower GDP per capita. Yes, Russians might have a greater income per capita, but they are not free people. In sum, it can be said that democracy and economic development play huge roles in the development of a country, however these are not the only factors that need to be taken into consideration, and it

In his argument on the universal value of democracy Amartya Sen discusses the relationship between democracy and economic development. He notes that it is often claimed that nondemocratic systems are better at bringing about economic development than democratic ones. Sen disagrees with this claim. He asserts that this hypothesis is based on "very selective and limited information" (3). He admits that it is true that some disciplinarian states, like South Korea, Singapore, and postreform China, have had faster rates of economic growth than many less authoritarian ones, like India, Jamaica, and Costa Rica (3). However, he points out that this very selective evidence cannot be used

Also democracy provides political rights, civil liberties and freedom of press, freedom of association and freedom to oppose to their governments without being afraid of the consequences. Each nation has a unique democratic way of controlling things and under a democratic system people in Latin America could be govern by the government that they choose to and not the military authority or dictatorship. In order to form democracy in Latin American there had to be revolution against authority and the violence that imposed to their citizens. (Isbester K., 2011) O’Donelli defines democracy as ‘patterns, formal and informal and explicit or implicit, that determine the channels of access to principal government positions; the characteristics of the actors who are admitted and excluded ... and the resources and strategies that they are allowed to use for gaining access’

In our textbooks democracy is defined as “a form of regime associated with ‘rule by the people’ that signifies rights and liberties for citizens, including political rights to participate in elections and civil liberties such as freedom of speech” (Dickovick & Eastwood, 2013). Yet this definition will not suffice alone. To further our understanding of a democracy Larry Diamond and Leonardo Morlino explain what makes a good quality democracy. According to them a democracy is at least made up of universal suffrage, fair elections, multiple political parties, alternative sources of information, and must accords its citizens’ ample freedom, political equality, and control over public policies and policy makers through the legitimate and lawful functioning of stable institutions as well (Diamond & Morlino 2004). Although the quality of a democracy is hard to measure, they offer eight dimensions that can be used to measure the quality of a democracy, and if

The author has been able to fulfill the target of the book, which is to test and answer the questions raised by critics through the provision of evidence of the reason no democracy exists at the present. The author presents the arguments in a chronological way that gives a better understanding of the past, today, and prospective future of democracy. The root of the present democracy is stated in the book and lays the basis of the other arguments in the book. Dahl argues that there are conditions that any state should attain in order for it to be considered as a democratic

Churchill’s claim that “democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried” is deliberately provocative and intended to challenge the reader’s simplistic ideal that democracy is without faults. There are an estimated 114 democracies in the world today (Wong, Oct 3rd lecture). A figure that has increased rapidly in the last century not necessarily because democracy is the best form of government, but primarily for reason that in practice, under stable social, economic and political conditions, it has the least limitations in comparison to other forms of government. Be it the transparency of a democratic government or the prevalence of majority rule, all subdivisions of democracy benefit and hinder its

In his argument on the universal value of democracy Amartya Sen discusses the relationship between democracy and economic development. He notes that it is often claimed that nondemocratic systems are better at bringing about economic development than democratic ones. Sen disagrees with this claim. He asserts that this hypothesis is based on "very selective and limited information" (3). He admits that it is true that some disciplinarian states, like South Korea, Singapore, and postreform China, have had faster rates of economic growth than many less authoritarian ones, like India, Jamaica, and Costa Rica (3). However, he points out that this very selective evidence cannot be used to establish the general hypothesis that nondemocratic systems are better at bringing about economic development (3). "There is no convincing evidence that authoritarian governance and the suppression of political and civil rights are

Development is defined as “the process of change operating over time- the process by which countries and societies advance and become richer’’. The modern 20th century defines development as” the process of change which allows all the basic needs of a region to be met, thereby achieving greater social justice and quality of life and encouraging people to fulfill their potential’’. Todaro defines development as “the process of improving the quality of all human lives through raising people’s living standards, their incomes, consumption levels of food, medical services, education, raising people’s self-esteem through the establishment of social, political and economic systems and institutions that promote dignity and respect and increasing people’s

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.

The relationship between democracy and economic development has taken a substantial attraction in recent years. Most of the analysts debate whether the relationship between democracy and economic development is close with contradictory hypothesis and findings. Both the arguments defending and opposing this relationship exists. Some scholars claim that democracy promotes and hinders economic development; others argue that economic development improves or slows democracy. There exists a third group of scholars who claim there is no relationship between democracy and economic development.