Military Regime: A military regime is a form of government wherein political power resides with the armed forces (McGuigan, 2003). The military is the power-holding group that centralizes political and legal authority (Clapham and Philip, 1985). Military regimes, however, cannot simply be classified as governments dominated by the military, because they are seldom purely military in composition. Civilian bureaucrats and politicians generally play a role in the government, but the military always has the final say. The presence of civilians in military governments shows that military elites do not necessarily organize military regimes. Nevertheless, a military regime is always headed by a military officer, active or retired, with the support of the military establishment, and the political structure includes routine mechanisms for high-level military officers to influence policy and political appointments. …show more content…
the form of democracy practiced in ancient Greek city-states. The nature of democracy in most modern societies has elicited many other definitions of democracy. In the words of Sithole (1994:153) “democracy is a form of governance in which the supreme power or authority in a society is vested in the people and that power is exercised by the people directly or indirectly through an institutionalized system of representation involving periodically held free and fair elections”. Beetham (1995:55) also asserted that democracy is a “mode of decision-making about collectively binding rules and policies over which the people exercise control and the most democratic arrangement to be that where all members of the collective enjoy effective equal rights to take part in such decision making directly - one, that is to say, which realizes to the greatest conceivable degree the principles of popular control and equality in its exercise...”. According to Powell (1982:6), the basic features of democracy
Democracy means a government ruled by the people. Athens were not a democracy because they only allowed 12% of citizen men to vote nobody else could unless they were citizen men. (Doc C) In a true democracy people would have equal say, but the athens did not let women vote or people that weren’t citizens. In ancient athens people couldn’t express their thoughts, if a majority of others disagreed with the idea they could banish the person.
Democracy, the form of government in which there is a rule by the people, is said to have originated and thrived in the classical period of Athens, from 500-350 B.C.. Democracy inherently gave all that were considered citizens power to participate in politics. That being said, it is highly debated as to how much power the people, also known as the demos, exercised in this democracy. Many practices and informal institutions can be said to have limited the power of the demos. The democracy in Athens could be said to have been a democracy in theory yet not in practice, as can be proven through a variety of primary sources recounting Athenian political institutions and practices. Such primary sources that can demonstrate this include Herodotus’ History, Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War, and Demosthenes’ Oration Against Eubulides.
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.
Democracy is defined as a government ruled by common people. The power of the should be in the hands of the largest class which is the poorest. The political system of ancient Athens was a Democracy, which involved all of its citizens.This system was divided in three parts: the ekklesia( a sovereign governing body who wrote the laws) the boule(representatives from the Athenian tribes) and the dikasteria, (the courts in which citizens argued cases in front of selected jurors). Every men could participate in the political process, being selected by lot to fill even the highest offices and being paid for pub- lic service. Four times a month proposals were debated and decisions were made openly so and any citizen could speak to the issues of the day.
The government type known as democracy is the system in which all qualifying citizens have identical political rights, freedoms, and securities. In ancient Greece, only free adult males could be qualified as citizens.
Democracy is defined as the the rule by the people which Athens did not show in their government. The Athenian Democracy was ruled by The Ekklesia, The Boule, and The Dikasteria. The Ekklesia, Boule, and Dikasteria were made of the assemblies, council of 500, and courts, which does not include all the people of Athens. Demokratia exemplifies that all the people have the right to power/rule the government.
The United States is a militaristic country because of the military budget, the military’s expansion into civilian areas, and military culture. The large and increasing budget of the military is an example of U.S. militarism. According to National Priorities
Democracy. A democracy is a government which all the people of the state are involved in making decisions, such as voting for representatives. So was there a democracy that was set by the Athens? Or was it an oligarchy that represents how everyone is supposed to live. Although many say the athens lived a democratic life, the evidence says it itself, they didn’t.
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
Democracy is a form of government where people choose leaders through elections and social construct that are based on the equality of everyone within the state. It is a form of government were majority and public opinions combine to choose leaders with respect to the social structure of a particular society, taking into consideration the social laws, rules, traditions, norms, values, and culture. Plato and Aristotle tow of the most influential figures in Greek philosophy. Both Plato and Aristotle were big critics of democracy as a poor form of government. Aristotle’s views about democracy hold that democratic office will cause corruption in the people, if the people choose to redistribute the wealth of the
“In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme” - Aristotle. This quote lays out the main idea behind Democracy. The idea that the people deserve equality and freedom. Equality in race, colour and religion, and freedom of speech, and will, unless it is against the will of the majority of the people. Democracy endeavors to achieve a balance in freedom of an individual, whilst not violating the majority's will. Democracy was developed in Ancient Greece. The word itself comes from the greek term ‘demokratia’ (‘demos - the people’ and ‘kratos - rule’. Democracy was first used in the Greek state, Athens. Athens used a direct form of Democracy, as people knew each other. Nowadays, there are an abundant amount of countries that are ruled under democracy, such as New Zealand, Switzerland, Ireland, and Austria.
The challenge is how to keep the military in check and subservient to the political authority of a democratically oriented form of government, given the fact that the military possesses the ultimate power of force and coercion. The focus of a democratic form of society is that the citizens exercise direct participation in the government. The populace utilizes elections to select people to serve as their representative. The citizenry must stay cognizant of world affairs, the implications of military intervention, the cost of the sacrifice in comparison to the projected result, and make their elected officials aware of their position. The rule of law must govern this process, and the general population must concur there is a fair method for conducting said elections. The people must believe that the elected officials will in turn utilize the military forces in a disciplined manner, with concern for the greater good of the nation.
In these systems, the regimes possess some of these characteristics but have found ways to manipulate the system to consolidate their power. “Rather than openly violating democratic rules (for example, by banning or repressing the opposition and the media), incumbents are more likely to use bribery, co-optation, and more subtle forms of persecution, such as the use of tax authorities, compliant judiciaries, and other state agencies to ‘legally’ harass, persecute, or extort cooperative behavior from critics” . While it is apparent that these regimes are not fully democratic, it would be unfair to label them as fully authoritarian either. Unlike traditional totalitarian governments, the persistence of true democratic institutions in competitive authoritarian regimes allows the opposition to contest, weaken and occasionally even defeat autocratic incumbents. While these situations are generally uncommon, these situations are possible in competitive authoritarianism due to four independent means, the electoral arena, the legislature, the judiciary and the media. These four branches are virtually independent of the executive control however, unlike in democracies, the competitive authoritarian regimes use its power to undermine their independence. “In regards to the electoral arena, large-scale abuses of state power, biased media coverage, harassment of opposition candidates and activists are widespread, legislatures tend to be relatively weak, the
It has also been suggested that a basic feature of democracy is the capacity of eligible voters to participate freely and fully in the life of their society.[14] With its emphasis on notions of social contract and the collective will of the eligible voters, democracy can also be characterized as a form of political collectivism because it is defined as a form of government in which all eligible citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives.[15]
Using [cite]’s definition of regime type, I have identified three types of regimes in this paper: democracies, dictatorships, and mixed regimes. Democracies are defined as regimes that do not repress its people and include the highest proportion of the populace; dictatorships are highly repressive and exclude most of the population; and mixed regimes use moderate repression and exclude a significant proportion of their populace (CITE). To understand the reasoning behind my hypothesis, I turn to the democratic and inter-democratic peace theories, in which my hypothesis is fundamentally rooted. These theories come from the liberal school of thought in international relations and posit that democracies do not, or are less likely, to go to war, and do not go to war with other democracies (Elman 758). There is much scholarly