The wave of Democracy, engulfing the whole world ?
After the tragic assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the ex prime minister of Pakistan, people thought, it's too hard for the country to make transition from dictatorship to democracy. But the resilience of the people of Pakistan made it possible. Today, many leaders namely Robert Mugabe, Vladimir Putin, Mwai Kibaki, Jacob Zumma, Musharraf, Hugo Chavez, try very hard to remain in power against the will of their people. Sometimes they might succeed after striving a lot, but people express their anger in the form of votes. Recent election results in Pakistan and Venezuela which went clearly against Musharraf and Chavez respectively, show the people's desire to be governed by ballot box.
What inherent quality does this system of governance harbor that, everybody want to have democracy in one's country( especially in the third world)? Today around 60% of states across
the globe are democratic. But it's interesting to note that, people living under democracy do clamor about the sluggishness of their leaders. On the other hand, Chinese claim to be quite happy under quasi-authoritarian regime. So, democracy sounds to be an ambivalent concept.
What is the essence of democracy? Can we measure it with the help of certain parameters? What are the advantages of this system of governance? Is it always a perfect cause to fight for? Why it has flourished and took roots so deeply in certain countries, but not in others? Low turn-up of voters in the elections, does-it suggest that democracy's charm is fading day by day? or is it getting redefined itself in the wake of modern globalised world?
First, this paper tries to shed some light on the notion of democracy, its traditional and modern parameters; secondly, it intends to analyse, why developed nations succeeded in respecting those parameters, where as their developing counterparts are still struggling in doing so; thirdly, it seeks to know whether people are always happy with this method of governance.
The term ‘democracy’ has been taken from Greek word. The real essence of this concept is freedom of the people, it's a set of practices through which a state is governed, and the most fundamental practice is that, people enjoy their full right to elect their political representatives through peaceful, unbiased electoral process. In the elections, the majority decides the fate of the government; it means , the majority gets an edge on the minority in electing leaders and thus influencing the policies too. But in order to guarantee liberty to every citizen, there must be equality of power among every one, for that there is a need of equality of rights among the majority and the minority. So in order to bring equality between the two poles, an efficient rule of law under the umbrella of the national constitution was conceived. Therefore an electoral and judicial system set up the pillars of democracy to make sure that every citizen enjoys liberty and equal amount of rights.
The basic concept of democracy remained the same over many decades, but political thinkers have always allowed its widening to a maximum extent to make leaders more accountable towards their people. The creation of welfare state in the early 20th century can be considered
as an expansion of the idea of democracy. Aftermath of the 2nd world war, and the charter of
the UN , the universal declaration of human rights brought a new came of age for this. Latter,
the newly born states dared to adopt the democratic regime thinking it as the best way of governance. As a result of which, at the end of 2005, 122 states were classified as electoral democracies. In these 122 states, one can find the possibility of varying degree of democracy, it means that on the basis of government's ability to fulfill the needs of its citizens, every country can be scored. A US based agency named “Freedom House organisation” measures this degree on the basis of electoral democracy in all countries. Actually, this organisation relies only on the electoral process and political pluralism and to an extent the functioning of democracy. As a US based journalist Fareed Zakariya points out that just by holding elections a country should not claim to a democracy, for that, it should have other elements to be taken into account like freedom of expression, independent judicial system etc. So let's consider “The Economist Intelligence Unit's” democracy index, which is based on 5categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties; political culture. Guaranteeing civil liberties to the citizens is the main practice of today’s liberal democracy. This includes the protection of basic human rights, which figures in all the constitutions around the world including the UN charter and international conventions. Second feature in this regard is the smooth functioning of governance, it means decisions should be taken and implemented in a democratic way. Third feature of democracy, probably the most interesting one, is the growth of democratic political culture, which reflects a culture of apathy, an obedient citizenry, a nature of abiding by rule and law. We know that such culture develops in a large ample of time, so measuring the political culture in any country (third world) seems difficult. So far as the last element ' participation' is concerned, democracy flourishes only when people show their motivation in engaging themselves in public debate, electing leaders and joining political parties.
On the basis of theses 5 elements mentioned above, the Economist Intelligence Unit places Sweden and other Nordic countries at the top rank due to their extra-ordinary performance in all fronts, in fact all the developed countries secure a high index except Italy. But all the developing nations cut a very sorry figure, and are placed either of the three categories: flawed democracy, hybrid or authoritarian regime.
If we look at the regional distribution of regime types, we find that the region of Latin America, Eastern Europe and some Asian countries are place under flawed democracy. Many Latin America countries despite their economic growth remain fragile democracies. Most of eastern European countries show good record of political freedom and civil liberties, but in terms of political culture they lag behind their western counterparts. So far as hybrid and authoritarian regime are concerned, they can be found in the ex-soviet union countries. Interestingly the Middle East and north African countries states are highly dominated by authoritarian regimes. Although, democracy is a buzzing word in today's world, no one can deny from the advantages it brings to the people of any country, but still almost 40% of the world's population lives under non-democracy (its large proportion lives in China).
What does democracy bring to the citizen of any country? Is it always advantageous cause to go for? Because certain countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh have suffered a lot under democratic regime where as China, North Korea and Russia have been growing quite dramatically under quasi- authoritarian regime. So it seems quite logical to see, why countries should opt for democracy? The best example for this, we can consider, is the western world comprising the USA and west European countries. People in this part of the world enjoy maximum degree of liberty because they've an egalitarian society based on equal-distribution of wealth, and secured by a strong judiciary system. That's why they succeeded in creating network of international free-trade through the general agreement on Tariff & Trade (1947) which dismantled the trade barriers. This very step proved to be a very efficient tool in reducing poverty, very populous countries like China, India have also benefited from this in bringing down their poverty. Secondly, the conglomeration of liberal democracies which came into being after the agreement of GATT, has tried to avert the chances of war and any regional clashes. We often cite that “democracies never wage wars among themselves”. This is because, a head of democratic state can never ignore the public opinion, and people's will always goes against war. A government by putting aside their will can never get into war, though there are certain exceptions where as in a non democratic regime, government does not have any liability of going to the people for asking for votes, so they take decisions on their own. It's therefore appropriate to say that democratic regime is just not in the interest of the people of that vey country, but it provides stability and peace to the entire world.
Now the question arises that if this tool of governance is so efficient, then why 40% of the world population have decided to live under non-democratic regime? And why democratic regime, is it so much concentrated in the western hemisphere of the globe? More interestingly the third world countries, why do they find themselves less apt for democracy?
Almost 20 years ago, on the fall of the Berlin wall, Francis Fukuyama published an essay “the End of History”, in which he forecasted that “the end point of the mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of the western liberal democracy as the final form of human government” .Undoubtedly he has reasons to say so, because in the mid-1970s, roughly half of the world's states could be placed under autocratic regime, and by 1989 the number went down, the trend continued further and by 2002 it was down to fewer than 30. It really seemed that the democratic wave would engulf the whole world. Many decolonized state did opt for democracy in the first phase of their being, but soon stumble in the trap of the autocracy. Why that's so? According to the political scientist Adam Przeworski, there is a direct relationship between the per capita income and the sustainability of democracy. In a country, where average income is less than 1000 pounds a year, chances of democracy is pretty thin. We've already seen through the “Economic intelligence Unit” that, the rich countries are more receptive for this system. A Howard economist Benjamin Friedman endorses the same idea, he says the sustained growth is conductive to democratisation. But this thesis can be nullified easily. Despite a relatively low growth rate (before 2000),India remained a democracy from 1047, where as China with high growth rate (since 1980s) has chosen to remain a one party system. China's share of world gross domestic product has increased by 2.5% in the last seven years. From now till 2050, according to Goldman Sache, China's share of global GDP will go up from 4 to 15%, where as the share of G7 countries (sustained democracy) will go down from 57 to 20%. other emerging markets like Egypt, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan & Vietnam are expected to grow much more rapidly than any developed economy, where as none of these countries mentioned above seem to become a truly democratic regime in years to come.
In order to explain the success or failure of democracy, we can turn to Huntington's culture theory. According to what, the western civilisation following the end of the cold war, will have to confront with Muslim and Confucian civilisation. Because in his views, these cultures don't believe in democracy. We all know that, Middle East and North African countries don't
support democratic regime. By just having a look on the constitution of Pakistan, one can find
that it's the “Allah” who is given a sovereign position not the people. So in such states, people
can't have absolute power to claim their rights (especially woman’s rights). If any such claim is found to be in conflict with the Sharia law, then latter will be respected, not the former one. In India, judges often face such problems.
But in case of Confucian culture, Huntington's theory does not stand for a long time. It's true that China is a quasi- authoritarian state, but their neighbors Taiwan and Indonesia enjoy very much to be a democracy, so his theory does not hold much water in explaining the success or failure of democracy.
In the light of history, one can probably find some solid explanation to its survival or fiasco.Because the kind of 'today' we have, is always the resultant of the kind of 'yesterday' we had. Let's take the example of England, today the country stands as a one of the strongest democracies in the world. So even 200 years ago, the situation of governance was the same? Certainly not! In fact, the country took 200 years to inculcate the democratic culture in the minds of the Briton. Only gradually did the two-party system and the notion of human rights
reach the today's level.
It's equally worth examining about the political and social evolutions which brought the society up to today's level. Then, the story starts from the industrial revolution, which made apparent cleavage between the two classes, workers and managers. Certainly the milestones on the terrain of democracy should be considered the French and American revolutions. They've brought the importance of people at the fore-front of the governance. Several par-excellences political thinkers and reformists of enlightenment era have contributed on their part in shaping up the notion of the people, its relation and liberty vis-à-vis the government. And the invention of printing press was one of the most fascinating things in terms of communicating and preserving the idea from one to another place. All these events had been continuously shaping the stage for today's modern liberal democracy. In the meantime, the colonisation, decolonisation and the two wars came up with a bunch of lessons like the notion of antidiscrimination against the people of different race, colour, providing security to the minority (Jews) during the 2nd world war, making leaders more accountable towards the interests of their people and Wilson's formula of peace, stability etc. And lately, the conventions of the EU brought considerable improvement in the respect of human rights not only in its member’s states but also the countries with which they have trade relations. So all the evolutions taken place in the western hemisphere from the very start (almost 200 years back) till today have been the driving force behind the deeply rooted today's democratic culture.
The history of developing world presents completely a different picture. World's two oldest civilisations Chinese and Indian one have not seen many such continuous processes of social and political evolutions, except a few one like Socialist movement in China which made the country one party state, and National independent movement in India. We must remind ourselves that, the today's developing world came into being after the 2nd world war after a continuous struggle with their foreign rulers for the independence. After gaining that, the most
of them did try to walk on the delicate path of democracy ; but very soon due to their internal
weaknesses, like lack of basic experience of democratic institutions, a huge gap between haves and have-nots, these newly born democracies have either fall into the traps of communism, or got replaced by military rulers. The reason behind the fiasco of the democratic regime in these countries is that, the political elites have always been in stead of being concerned with the needs of the poor, tried their best to stick to power to make money. Such irresponsible, sluggish behaviour gave opportunities to religious leaders (especially in Muslim countries) and military generals to grab the power by inciting the people's anger against their civilian leaders. It needs to be stressed on one more point in this regard. The people of the decolonised nations had launched their struggle for an independent nation, but not necessarily for democracy. Because their first demand was to win their own rule, be it communist or Islamic state .That's why the light of democracy reached late their home, because their thirst was quenched with the quest of independence. Amidst of all these circumstances, India exceptionally survived the democratic regime since the last 60 years. But why she despite her huge economic disparity, the ethnic, religious, linguistic diversity made possible something unthinkable. Though many people do call the Indian democracy a messy one, but is not it amazing to have one billion people sharing diversity in terms of language, religion, region, under a parliamentary democracy?. This is true that India does not exercise the same level of human rights as the West does, because due to low percentage of literacy (only 64%) and certain religious believes, Indians have not been able to develop an efficient democratic culture. But the country has proved them wrong, who believed that the democratic regime can only be practiced by rich and educated people. And so far as its sustainability is concerned, it's appropriate to say in its extreme era of poverty (in 50s and 60s), sharing a close amity with the Communist Russia, it did not fall into the hands of the socialist dictatorship, then today the picture has completely changed. People are getting much more aware of their rights; in this scenario, no political party or leader would ever dare to turn authoritarian, because becoming autocratic means losing next election measurably (whenever it happens), not only for the leader but for the entire party, that would be political suicide. Even before that, logically coalition politics of the country often slashes the wings of any powerful leader.
If democracy is such a bunch of goody-goody that the people in every country yearn for it; since it brings all sorts of liberty and comfort to the people, then why do they( even in a established democracy)stay away from casting their votes in elections ? Why the number of membership of any party across Europe is flagging down? Does it suggest that, democracy’s charm is fading day by day?
In fact, the growth of various labyrinths institutional bodies pose problems for democracy Itself. The role of judges in turning down a law passed by a legislative assembly by calling it unconstitutional quite often hits the headlines in the news. Despite this, the number of constitutional courts has been growing dramatically across the EU, because it’s the only medium through which, one can check the power of the executive. The negative shade of this positive aspect is that, judge’s decisions can be political, and it can block the path of democratically elected people. Another institution sending alarming signal is the growing influence of the interest groups, especially in established democracies. The US is afflicted by such ‘ hyper pluralism ’, the health reform which the Clinton administration was intending to put in place, got blocked by the health insurance industry. These pressure groups have high chances of influencing policy behind closed doors by bargaining with the executive branch before legislation comes in parliament. These groups are becoming increasingly active at a trans-national level. The EU has become a thriving place for such groups; in fact they are around 3000 in number, operating in Brussels. Many say that these groups help people taking part in politics in between elections, where as political parties can be sluggish in implementing people’s friendly policies. But if pressure groups grow much stronger, then it can deter the government from taking any particular decision for which the people have voted them in power. This situations is griming seriously in established democracies, amidst of such scenario, political parties are losing their strength on the people.
The low turn-up of the voters in elections not just in developed countries but in developing one too, hints at the declining charm of democracy. The reason behind this trend needs a deeper look into the subject. In the late 50s, the objective of the political parties was to bring people to a common platform to solve the problems affecting their daily lives. The office of the labour party of England was a place of meeting place for the workers, where as the conservative party used to help people find their life partner. But now people can do these things by various other mediums, especially through internet. According to ‘the Lipset-rokkan’ model (1967), political parties got created around four cleavages : centre/periphery, worker/managers, state/ church, .But these cleavages are one by one disappearing in today’s globalised world. Those ideologies are no more in fashion, nowadays the politics seems to be more often about policies than values. So every party tries to shift from its original ideology just to fit into present scenario of the globalised economy. The New Labour no longer behaves like a socialist party, Tony Blaire himself called them out-dated ideas, and advocated for capitalist means to bring equality and prosperity in the society.
On the other hand, new issues like regional and nationalist flavour in the wake of the EU’s evolution as a strong trance-national organisation. Where as issues like global warming, Islamic terrorism, immigration are equally becoming matter of great concern. Therefore in the wake of these growing challenges, politicians are expected to be quite committed towards their task not only in established democracies but in developing one too. But unfortunately in young democracies, the politicians have not been smart enough to live up to the expectations of the people, or rather due to other weaknesses like dynastic politics (especially in the south Asian region), indiscipline within the party, inherent corruption, people lose their hopes in their civilian leaders, and don’t mind being ruled by a dictator who promises to bring prosperity to them. Such examples can be found in Pakistan, Bangladesh, various Latin American and African countries .Though the Indian democracy is equally weakened by dynastic politcs, sycophancy and corrupt politicians. But the case of corrupt politicians is not restricted to only poor developing nations; one can find its symptoms in developed democracy too. Italy’s recently elected third time Prime Minister Mr. Berlusconi can be considered as a good example of this genre. So the politicians are shaking the faith of their people everywhere.
Is it always fare to blame leaders for everything happening around ourselves? Though we know that in today’s globalised economy, a close network of multi-national companies, the politicians are not left with plenty of choices to make. More importantly, in the present era of
information technology, their every move is closely monitored by media, and their even a slightest mistake is highlighted. Their every speech, even facial expression and body language
create a lot of fuss among people. Bush’s expressions during early days of ‘the Iraq invasion used to cause anger the Muslims around the world. In fact the citizens are becoming skeptical and more demanding in terms of their performance on the part of their government. It showsthe accountability factor is on its constant rise, this is because of economic liberalization bringing the scene of ‘consumerism’. This whole concept of consumerism has brought the demand for high degree of autonomy and self-expression; now people’s needs are no more restricted to only traditional demands like jobs, health-care, education etc, but it goes far beyond and touches a very wide range of issues like environment, global terrorism, poverty in Africa, violation of human rights in Iraq, Tibet. For any democratic government, it’s hard to satisfy each and every need of their people.
The present state of democracy in the world through the prism of decline in the party system is being seen by skeptics as weakening of the system, but this whole institutional structure namely the judiciary, the interest groups or any other worry in the name of ‘checks and balances’ arising on the horizon is very much fathered by democracy itself. It shows that, the executive power believes in being checked by various institutions under democracy, which is enough to say that this system is the best possible solution for the governance where certainly the people have the power to make their voices heard, provided they understand their responsibility. Because without being responsible, one can’t claim for one’ right. The coming decades will be interesting to watch, how the people in the developing world generate the democratic culture in themselves, only then will they be able to practice a true democracy! Another event what the whole world is very keenly monitoring is, whether tomorrow China will ever make the transition of democracy?
After the tragic assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the ex prime minister of Pakistan, people thought, it's too hard for the country to make transition from dictatorship to democracy. But the resilience of the people of Pakistan made it possible. Today, many leaders namely Robert Mugabe, Vladimir Putin, Mwai Kibaki, Jacob Zumma, Musharraf, Hugo Chavez, try very hard to remain in power against the will of their people. Sometimes they might succeed after striving a lot, but people express their anger in the form of votes. Recent election results in Pakistan and Venezuela which went clearly against Musharraf and Chavez respectively, show the people's desire to be governed by ballot box.
What inherent quality does this system of governance harbor that, everybody want to have democracy in one's country( especially in the third world)? Today around 60% of states across
the globe are democratic. But it's interesting to note that, people living under democracy do clamor about the sluggishness of their leaders. On the other hand, Chinese claim to be quite happy under quasi-authoritarian regime. So, democracy sounds to be an ambivalent concept.
What is the essence of democracy? Can we measure it with the help of certain parameters? What are the advantages of this system of governance? Is it always a perfect cause to fight for? Why it has flourished and took roots so deeply in certain countries, but not in others? Low turn-up of voters in the elections, does-it suggest that democracy's charm is fading day by day? or is it getting redefined itself in the wake of modern globalised world?
First, this paper tries to shed some light on the notion of democracy, its traditional and modern parameters; secondly, it intends to analyse, why developed nations succeeded in respecting those parameters, where as their developing counterparts are still struggling in doing so; thirdly, it seeks to know whether people are always happy with this method of governance.
The term ‘democracy’ has been taken from Greek word. The real essence of this concept is freedom of the people, it's a set of practices through which a state is governed, and the most fundamental practice is that, people enjoy their full right to elect their political representatives through peaceful, unbiased electoral process. In the elections, the majority decides the fate of the government; it means , the majority gets an edge on the minority in electing leaders and thus influencing the policies too. But in order to guarantee liberty to every citizen, there must be equality of power among every one, for that there is a need of equality of rights among the majority and the minority. So in order to bring equality between the two poles, an efficient rule of law under the umbrella of the national constitution was conceived. Therefore an electoral and judicial system set up the pillars of democracy to make sure that every citizen enjoys liberty and equal amount of rights.
The basic concept of democracy remained the same over many decades, but political thinkers have always allowed its widening to a maximum extent to make leaders more accountable towards their people. The creation of welfare state in the early 20th century can be considered
as an expansion of the idea of democracy. Aftermath of the 2nd world war, and the charter of
the UN , the universal declaration of human rights brought a new came of age for this. Latter,
the newly born states dared to adopt the democratic regime thinking it as the best way of governance. As a result of which, at the end of 2005, 122 states were classified as electoral democracies. In these 122 states, one can find the possibility of varying degree of democracy, it means that on the basis of government's ability to fulfill the needs of its citizens, every country can be scored. A US based agency named “Freedom House organisation” measures this degree on the basis of electoral democracy in all countries. Actually, this organisation relies only on the electoral process and political pluralism and to an extent the functioning of democracy. As a US based journalist Fareed Zakariya points out that just by holding elections a country should not claim to a democracy, for that, it should have other elements to be taken into account like freedom of expression, independent judicial system etc. So let's consider “The Economist Intelligence Unit's” democracy index, which is based on 5categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties; political culture. Guaranteeing civil liberties to the citizens is the main practice of today’s liberal democracy. This includes the protection of basic human rights, which figures in all the constitutions around the world including the UN charter and international conventions. Second feature in this regard is the smooth functioning of governance, it means decisions should be taken and implemented in a democratic way. Third feature of democracy, probably the most interesting one, is the growth of democratic political culture, which reflects a culture of apathy, an obedient citizenry, a nature of abiding by rule and law. We know that such culture develops in a large ample of time, so measuring the political culture in any country (third world) seems difficult. So far as the last element ' participation' is concerned, democracy flourishes only when people show their motivation in engaging themselves in public debate, electing leaders and joining political parties.
On the basis of theses 5 elements mentioned above, the Economist Intelligence Unit places Sweden and other Nordic countries at the top rank due to their extra-ordinary performance in all fronts, in fact all the developed countries secure a high index except Italy. But all the developing nations cut a very sorry figure, and are placed either of the three categories: flawed democracy, hybrid or authoritarian regime.
If we look at the regional distribution of regime types, we find that the region of Latin America, Eastern Europe and some Asian countries are place under flawed democracy. Many Latin America countries despite their economic growth remain fragile democracies. Most of eastern European countries show good record of political freedom and civil liberties, but in terms of political culture they lag behind their western counterparts. So far as hybrid and authoritarian regime are concerned, they can be found in the ex-soviet union countries. Interestingly the Middle East and north African countries states are highly dominated by authoritarian regimes. Although, democracy is a buzzing word in today's world, no one can deny from the advantages it brings to the people of any country, but still almost 40% of the world's population lives under non-democracy (its large proportion lives in China).
What does democracy bring to the citizen of any country? Is it always advantageous cause to go for? Because certain countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh have suffered a lot under democratic regime where as China, North Korea and Russia have been growing quite dramatically under quasi- authoritarian regime. So it seems quite logical to see, why countries should opt for democracy? The best example for this, we can consider, is the western world comprising the USA and west European countries. People in this part of the world enjoy maximum degree of liberty because they've an egalitarian society based on equal-distribution of wealth, and secured by a strong judiciary system. That's why they succeeded in creating network of international free-trade through the general agreement on Tariff & Trade (1947) which dismantled the trade barriers. This very step proved to be a very efficient tool in reducing poverty, very populous countries like China, India have also benefited from this in bringing down their poverty. Secondly, the conglomeration of liberal democracies which came into being after the agreement of GATT, has tried to avert the chances of war and any regional clashes. We often cite that “democracies never wage wars among themselves”. This is because, a head of democratic state can never ignore the public opinion, and people's will always goes against war. A government by putting aside their will can never get into war, though there are certain exceptions where as in a non democratic regime, government does not have any liability of going to the people for asking for votes, so they take decisions on their own. It's therefore appropriate to say that democratic regime is just not in the interest of the people of that vey country, but it provides stability and peace to the entire world.
Now the question arises that if this tool of governance is so efficient, then why 40% of the world population have decided to live under non-democratic regime? And why democratic regime, is it so much concentrated in the western hemisphere of the globe? More interestingly the third world countries, why do they find themselves less apt for democracy?
Almost 20 years ago, on the fall of the Berlin wall, Francis Fukuyama published an essay “the End of History”, in which he forecasted that “the end point of the mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of the western liberal democracy as the final form of human government” .Undoubtedly he has reasons to say so, because in the mid-1970s, roughly half of the world's states could be placed under autocratic regime, and by 1989 the number went down, the trend continued further and by 2002 it was down to fewer than 30. It really seemed that the democratic wave would engulf the whole world. Many decolonized state did opt for democracy in the first phase of their being, but soon stumble in the trap of the autocracy. Why that's so? According to the political scientist Adam Przeworski, there is a direct relationship between the per capita income and the sustainability of democracy. In a country, where average income is less than 1000 pounds a year, chances of democracy is pretty thin. We've already seen through the “Economic intelligence Unit” that, the rich countries are more receptive for this system. A Howard economist Benjamin Friedman endorses the same idea, he says the sustained growth is conductive to democratisation. But this thesis can be nullified easily. Despite a relatively low growth rate (before 2000),India remained a democracy from 1047, where as China with high growth rate (since 1980s) has chosen to remain a one party system. China's share of world gross domestic product has increased by 2.5% in the last seven years. From now till 2050, according to Goldman Sache, China's share of global GDP will go up from 4 to 15%, where as the share of G7 countries (sustained democracy) will go down from 57 to 20%. other emerging markets like Egypt, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan & Vietnam are expected to grow much more rapidly than any developed economy, where as none of these countries mentioned above seem to become a truly democratic regime in years to come.
In order to explain the success or failure of democracy, we can turn to Huntington's culture theory. According to what, the western civilisation following the end of the cold war, will have to confront with Muslim and Confucian civilisation. Because in his views, these cultures don't believe in democracy. We all know that, Middle East and North African countries don't
support democratic regime. By just having a look on the constitution of Pakistan, one can find
that it's the “Allah” who is given a sovereign position not the people. So in such states, people
can't have absolute power to claim their rights (especially woman’s rights). If any such claim is found to be in conflict with the Sharia law, then latter will be respected, not the former one. In India, judges often face such problems.
But in case of Confucian culture, Huntington's theory does not stand for a long time. It's true that China is a quasi- authoritarian state, but their neighbors Taiwan and Indonesia enjoy very much to be a democracy, so his theory does not hold much water in explaining the success or failure of democracy.
In the light of history, one can probably find some solid explanation to its survival or fiasco.Because the kind of 'today' we have, is always the resultant of the kind of 'yesterday' we had. Let's take the example of England, today the country stands as a one of the strongest democracies in the world. So even 200 years ago, the situation of governance was the same? Certainly not! In fact, the country took 200 years to inculcate the democratic culture in the minds of the Briton. Only gradually did the two-party system and the notion of human rights
reach the today's level.
It's equally worth examining about the political and social evolutions which brought the society up to today's level. Then, the story starts from the industrial revolution, which made apparent cleavage between the two classes, workers and managers. Certainly the milestones on the terrain of democracy should be considered the French and American revolutions. They've brought the importance of people at the fore-front of the governance. Several par-excellences political thinkers and reformists of enlightenment era have contributed on their part in shaping up the notion of the people, its relation and liberty vis-à-vis the government. And the invention of printing press was one of the most fascinating things in terms of communicating and preserving the idea from one to another place. All these events had been continuously shaping the stage for today's modern liberal democracy. In the meantime, the colonisation, decolonisation and the two wars came up with a bunch of lessons like the notion of antidiscrimination against the people of different race, colour, providing security to the minority (Jews) during the 2nd world war, making leaders more accountable towards the interests of their people and Wilson's formula of peace, stability etc. And lately, the conventions of the EU brought considerable improvement in the respect of human rights not only in its member’s states but also the countries with which they have trade relations. So all the evolutions taken place in the western hemisphere from the very start (almost 200 years back) till today have been the driving force behind the deeply rooted today's democratic culture.
The history of developing world presents completely a different picture. World's two oldest civilisations Chinese and Indian one have not seen many such continuous processes of social and political evolutions, except a few one like Socialist movement in China which made the country one party state, and National independent movement in India. We must remind ourselves that, the today's developing world came into being after the 2nd world war after a continuous struggle with their foreign rulers for the independence. After gaining that, the most
of them did try to walk on the delicate path of democracy ; but very soon due to their internal
weaknesses, like lack of basic experience of democratic institutions, a huge gap between haves and have-nots, these newly born democracies have either fall into the traps of communism, or got replaced by military rulers. The reason behind the fiasco of the democratic regime in these countries is that, the political elites have always been in stead of being concerned with the needs of the poor, tried their best to stick to power to make money. Such irresponsible, sluggish behaviour gave opportunities to religious leaders (especially in Muslim countries) and military generals to grab the power by inciting the people's anger against their civilian leaders. It needs to be stressed on one more point in this regard. The people of the decolonised nations had launched their struggle for an independent nation, but not necessarily for democracy. Because their first demand was to win their own rule, be it communist or Islamic state .That's why the light of democracy reached late their home, because their thirst was quenched with the quest of independence. Amidst of all these circumstances, India exceptionally survived the democratic regime since the last 60 years. But why she despite her huge economic disparity, the ethnic, religious, linguistic diversity made possible something unthinkable. Though many people do call the Indian democracy a messy one, but is not it amazing to have one billion people sharing diversity in terms of language, religion, region, under a parliamentary democracy?. This is true that India does not exercise the same level of human rights as the West does, because due to low percentage of literacy (only 64%) and certain religious believes, Indians have not been able to develop an efficient democratic culture. But the country has proved them wrong, who believed that the democratic regime can only be practiced by rich and educated people. And so far as its sustainability is concerned, it's appropriate to say in its extreme era of poverty (in 50s and 60s), sharing a close amity with the Communist Russia, it did not fall into the hands of the socialist dictatorship, then today the picture has completely changed. People are getting much more aware of their rights; in this scenario, no political party or leader would ever dare to turn authoritarian, because becoming autocratic means losing next election measurably (whenever it happens), not only for the leader but for the entire party, that would be political suicide. Even before that, logically coalition politics of the country often slashes the wings of any powerful leader.
If democracy is such a bunch of goody-goody that the people in every country yearn for it; since it brings all sorts of liberty and comfort to the people, then why do they( even in a established democracy)stay away from casting their votes in elections ? Why the number of membership of any party across Europe is flagging down? Does it suggest that, democracy’s charm is fading day by day?
In fact, the growth of various labyrinths institutional bodies pose problems for democracy Itself. The role of judges in turning down a law passed by a legislative assembly by calling it unconstitutional quite often hits the headlines in the news. Despite this, the number of constitutional courts has been growing dramatically across the EU, because it’s the only medium through which, one can check the power of the executive. The negative shade of this positive aspect is that, judge’s decisions can be political, and it can block the path of democratically elected people. Another institution sending alarming signal is the growing influence of the interest groups, especially in established democracies. The US is afflicted by such ‘ hyper pluralism ’, the health reform which the Clinton administration was intending to put in place, got blocked by the health insurance industry. These pressure groups have high chances of influencing policy behind closed doors by bargaining with the executive branch before legislation comes in parliament. These groups are becoming increasingly active at a trans-national level. The EU has become a thriving place for such groups; in fact they are around 3000 in number, operating in Brussels. Many say that these groups help people taking part in politics in between elections, where as political parties can be sluggish in implementing people’s friendly policies. But if pressure groups grow much stronger, then it can deter the government from taking any particular decision for which the people have voted them in power. This situations is griming seriously in established democracies, amidst of such scenario, political parties are losing their strength on the people.
The low turn-up of the voters in elections not just in developed countries but in developing one too, hints at the declining charm of democracy. The reason behind this trend needs a deeper look into the subject. In the late 50s, the objective of the political parties was to bring people to a common platform to solve the problems affecting their daily lives. The office of the labour party of England was a place of meeting place for the workers, where as the conservative party used to help people find their life partner. But now people can do these things by various other mediums, especially through internet. According to ‘the Lipset-rokkan’ model (1967), political parties got created around four cleavages : centre/periphery, worker/managers, state/ church, .But these cleavages are one by one disappearing in today’s globalised world. Those ideologies are no more in fashion, nowadays the politics seems to be more often about policies than values. So every party tries to shift from its original ideology just to fit into present scenario of the globalised economy. The New Labour no longer behaves like a socialist party, Tony Blaire himself called them out-dated ideas, and advocated for capitalist means to bring equality and prosperity in the society.
On the other hand, new issues like regional and nationalist flavour in the wake of the EU’s evolution as a strong trance-national organisation. Where as issues like global warming, Islamic terrorism, immigration are equally becoming matter of great concern. Therefore in the wake of these growing challenges, politicians are expected to be quite committed towards their task not only in established democracies but in developing one too. But unfortunately in young democracies, the politicians have not been smart enough to live up to the expectations of the people, or rather due to other weaknesses like dynastic politics (especially in the south Asian region), indiscipline within the party, inherent corruption, people lose their hopes in their civilian leaders, and don’t mind being ruled by a dictator who promises to bring prosperity to them. Such examples can be found in Pakistan, Bangladesh, various Latin American and African countries .Though the Indian democracy is equally weakened by dynastic politcs, sycophancy and corrupt politicians. But the case of corrupt politicians is not restricted to only poor developing nations; one can find its symptoms in developed democracy too. Italy’s recently elected third time Prime Minister Mr. Berlusconi can be considered as a good example of this genre. So the politicians are shaking the faith of their people everywhere.
Is it always fare to blame leaders for everything happening around ourselves? Though we know that in today’s globalised economy, a close network of multi-national companies, the politicians are not left with plenty of choices to make. More importantly, in the present era of
information technology, their every move is closely monitored by media, and their even a slightest mistake is highlighted. Their every speech, even facial expression and body language
create a lot of fuss among people. Bush’s expressions during early days of ‘the Iraq invasion used to cause anger the Muslims around the world. In fact the citizens are becoming skeptical and more demanding in terms of their performance on the part of their government. It showsthe accountability factor is on its constant rise, this is because of economic liberalization bringing the scene of ‘consumerism’. This whole concept of consumerism has brought the demand for high degree of autonomy and self-expression; now people’s needs are no more restricted to only traditional demands like jobs, health-care, education etc, but it goes far beyond and touches a very wide range of issues like environment, global terrorism, poverty in Africa, violation of human rights in Iraq, Tibet. For any democratic government, it’s hard to satisfy each and every need of their people.
The present state of democracy in the world through the prism of decline in the party system is being seen by skeptics as weakening of the system, but this whole institutional structure namely the judiciary, the interest groups or any other worry in the name of ‘checks and balances’ arising on the horizon is very much fathered by democracy itself. It shows that, the executive power believes in being checked by various institutions under democracy, which is enough to say that this system is the best possible solution for the governance where certainly the people have the power to make their voices heard, provided they understand their responsibility. Because without being responsible, one can’t claim for one’ right. The coming decades will be interesting to watch, how the people in the developing world generate the democratic culture in themselves, only then will they be able to practice a true democracy! Another event what the whole world is very keenly monitoring is, whether tomorrow China will ever make the transition of democracy?
