Assessment of Views On Democracy - Essay Example

Assessment of Views On Democracy There is a pervasive promotion of democracy by many international organizations. Democracy has become a popular word in society. The process of achieving democracy involves several steps. Many states are in the race towards democracy. Rakner, Menocal, and Fritz, (2007:6) offer a definition of democracy and highlight the crucial features of the democratization process. Democracy denotes the institutionalized mode of government that allows the people to participate in political decisions through the election of leaders to form the government. Election of these leaders must be through an election that exercises freeness, fairness, and competition. This paper will assess the views of different authors concerning democracy and the democratization process. Carothers describes the western and American model. The western model is a developmental approach whose target is the attaining of equality and a level of justice. According to this model, democratization involves several multiple factors that have a relationship. Democratization involves iterative changes that take place over time. Democratization is favorable for states that need to achieve long-term socioeconomic and political goals (Tilly, 2000:10). This model emphasizes on the value of good governance and existence of a properly functioning state (Carothers, 2007:13). The United States model of democratization is rather political. This form of democratization emphasizes on a political struggle of democrats seeking dominance over non-democrats. Political parties have a crucial place in this model. This models aims at gaining political liberties. In this process, institutions receive a lot of attention with democrats ensuring there is a level of democracy in political parties, elections, and institutions that fight for civil rights. This model has been the guideline of the United States struggled for democracy over the years. The nations politics consists of democrats fighting non –democrats and implementation of policies that favor the existing institutions. In its promotion of democracy, the United States urges other nation to adopt this model. The Bush regime of the United States made efforts of promoting this type of democratization (Bunnel and Calvert, 2005:434). In most of the cases, these two models usually overlap. Carothers gives the illustration of Canada; a country that had focused on the developmental model, but is recently making advances into the political model through the promotion of institutions. Carothers presents a guideline that characterizes the democratization process. One of these involves the presence of a vibrant and independence of the civil society (Carothers, 2002:10-20). A crucial indicator of democracy is the presence of elections that are free, competitive, and fair in all aspects. Democracy should provide an environment that fosters accountability and transparency with free access to information necessary for the formulation of public policy. A rule of law is a necessary precondition of democracy with a judicial system that exercises independence in its operations. In addition, for effective democratic development, a state should accord the required respect for human rights (Carothers, 2003: 85). Division of labor is an additional necessity for democratization. Majority of democracy promoters argue that the armed forces should have a civilian form of control (DeZeeuw, 2005:490). The preconditions for democracy surround three important pillars as Carothers mentions. These include the presence of state institutions, effective political party systems, and civil society (Carothers, 2003:86-88). These three must function under democratic guidelines. According to Carothers, there is a challenge in balancing focuses on the three aspects. However, the article makes it clear that with states committing to work on realistic goals but with a broader perspective of the entire system, democratic development can occur. States that intend to achieve everything at a usually are mixed up and do not make any steps forward. It is worth noting that Carothers believes in the gradual process of democratization that ensures that all the necessary preconditions for democracy are available (Carothers, 2004: 415). Zakaria supports Carothers’s point of view that states should focus on extensive preparation for a democratic system. A state should work on instituting effective political parties, a civil society with a voice and the rule of law with an independent judicial system (Zakaria, 1997:25). For Zakaria, democracies should be liberal exercising freeness and fairness in elections systems. He argues that an effective democracy should regard civil groups and political institutions with constitutional protection. According to Zakaria, constitutional rights such as liberties of speech, religion, property, assembly, separation of powers and an effective rule of law are the features defining a real democracy. However, he recognizes the existence of illiberal democracies. These illegal democracies have gained power through democratic election. However, they rarely recognize the limits of their powers. In most cases, they seem to exercise power beyond the limits of democracy. Diamond (2003) has been keenly observing the existing democratic trends. Democracies are increasing each year. According to his opinion, the same trends will persist into the future. For him, economic hindrances in poor countries are not genuine reasons for the failure to pursue democracy. He believes that democracy is a possibility even in the developing world where majority of the states live in poverty. He believes that these countries can find their way out of the oppressive authoritarian systems into the liberating democracy. He mentions economic development and performance as crucial drivers for democratization. This means that poor countries have to make efforts in economic growth in order to achieve democracy but he opines that with the right measures in place, any sate can become a democratic representative. In a different article, Diamond analyzes the existence of hybrid regimes. These types of regimes often have a merged authoritarian form of ruler ship with some aspects of democracy. According to him, there are a great percentage of states existing in the intermediate of the seventy-three liberal states and the twenty-five extremely authoritarian states. All other states lie in between with some aspect of democracy either politically or in the civil front. These regimes vary in structure because each of them has its unique prevailing conditions. Diamond listed countries such as Kenya, Venezuela, Ethiopia, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, Kuwait, Malaysia, Singapore, Russia, and Ukraine (Diamond, 2002:30-31). This list is not exhaustive because about 65 % of countries have hybrid regimes. He notes that these regimes undergo rapid changes every so often. Majority of authors define these hybrid regimes variedly. Levitsky and Way (2002:59) explain the emergence of the hybrid regimes. According to these authors, the termination of the cold war brought a challenge to the authoritarian systems that existed during that time. The years following the end of the cold war registered a collapse of a majority of the military regimes and single-party powers that had existed. After the collapse, multi-party system began to talk its roots in majority of the states (Olowu, & Wunsch, 2004:31). However, these authors noted that the transitions that occurred after the collapse of authoritarian systems did not automatically lead to democratic systems. In most of the continents, such as Africa, parts of East Asia, and the Americas adopted electoral democracy fused with autocracy. In majority of the hybrid regimes described by Diamond, there are competitive elections that often led to power. However, these countries portray other aspects that imply a level of autocracy. In some of these states, any critique of the government may lead to harassment. In addition, these states have increased abuse of state, fraud, limitations of media freedom, and other aspects of unfairness in the regimes. These regimes are only competitive but this competition thrives on unfair grounds. O’Donnell (1994:55-60) describes the intermediates of authoritarianism and democracy as an emerging variety of democracies with unique characteristics. He describes these types of democracies as delegative democracies. According to him, these types of regimes portray no relation with the preceding authoritarian systems. In addition, they lack the attributes of representative democracies. According to him, this is an emerging species of states. He mentions that there are no ventures of describing these forms of regimes yet. He highlights a unique characteristic of these states. These states do not exhibit any marked progress towards representative democracy. On the other hand, they do not face any sources of risk of attack from the preceding authoritarian regimes. These systems lack any form of institutionalization. However, they exhibit aspects of social and economic complexities inherited from the preceding authorities. He further argues that these states may use elections to institute new forms of governments that support institutionalization of the preconditions of democracy. However, in most of these cases, the transition to an institutionalized government never results. On the contrary, these states exist in uncertainty. Progression of the uncertain status may occur but the sate does not venture into creating openings for any form of institutionalization that would lead to democracy. Unless these states commit to making progress in institutionalization, the future may remain blurred for quite some time. However, policies and strategies of the government must target to achieve institutionalization (O’Donnell, 1994: 63-69). According to Donnell, a democracy can only function in an environment that favors the formation of multiple political systems. However, he highlights the fact that supporting the development of these parties is proving difficult in most of the states. International organizations have noted the difficulty. Majority of these organizations are offering support to emerging democracies. Donnell highlights the approaches used by these organizations in helping these states achieve democracy. Some organizations opt to engage in a strategy of handling each party individually whiled others focus on a multi-party front. Others emphasize on the value o f having effective institutionalization before democratization. However, it is notable that Donnell recognizes that each state requires a different approach to democracy. It is rather unfortunate that some promoters of democracy insist on the efficiency of western models in achieving democracy. Since each state has differing prevailing economic, social, and political conditions, then it becomes impossible for these states to follow a similar trend with those depicted in western models (Buxton, 2006: 710-715). Schedler (2002:35-40) elaborates how hybrid regimes may result from competitive elections but end up in the practice of authoritarianism. Although elections that foster competition are an aspect of democracy, the situation in hybrid regimes reveals that elections may not necessarily lead to democracy. Scheduler emphasizes on the value of opposition parties. The competition of opposition parties becomes very crucial in any democratic setting because it results to the aspect of choice. A democratic government must exist in a competitive policy implementation process that involves the opinion of the leading party and the contribution of the opposition parties. According to Scheduler, elections can be an avenue for a party to gain entry into power and exercise authoritarian control. In such cases, the behavior of opposition parties determines the level of authority that the incumbent party can exert. In some cases, some opposition parties have rejected the election results after the realization that the incumbent party interfered with the electoral process. Some states usually abort the constitutional procedures of an election and this limits the fairness in the elections (Leduc et al, 2007:97). Some parties seeking power often alter the election outcomes in several ways at times predetermining the results of an election (Scott, and Mcloughlin, 2012). In some cases, violence results during the campaigns and Election Day and Schedler mentions this as assign of authoritarian control of elections (2002:46-48). Horowitz (1993:45-50) explains that despite the popularity of democratization, the process may not succeed in majority of the situations. According to him, the process of democratization fails because some ancient authoritarian systems may not be prone to the effects of democratization. In other cases, hindrances may arise at the start of the process. He emphasizes that the success of the process requires the presence of several preconditions. Democracy emphasizes on an inclusive system. This becomes a great challenge for divided communities. These communities comprise of multiple ethnic groups. He highlights the effects of such division in the participation of the opposition parties. According to him, it becomes possible to have potential adversity from within the opposition. On a different note, Leftwich (2005:688-700) compares the democratization process with development. He highlights the fact that development and democratization are two processes that take place at different paces. Development takes place at a fast pace involving rapid changes in several sectors while democracy takes place in slow consensual processes because of this difference, the two processes do not have parallel requirements. Development requirements include transformations targeting equal wealth distribution, reform in political institutions and arrangements that encourage the development process. Development transformations are the roles of authoritarian systems. On the other hand, democracy requires a state that can function effectively. In addition, the opposition in the government must accept defeat while the winning party must compromise in some cases. In addition, freedom in different sectors is necessary for democracy (Sen, 1999: 127). According to Bunce, (2000: 705-715) there are two types of generalizations of democratizations. One of these applies universally while the other one is selective in some states. The universal generalization includes issues that concern the contribution of the economic development, political elites, and inadequacies of the rule of law, limits of state capacity and tactics of sustaining a democratic system. The selective generalization includes comparison of the pace at which states adopt democracy. In addition, this also addresses the total cost and potential benefits of the economic reform that occurs during democratization (Heywood, 2007:498). It is evident that democracy and democratization process have been the focus of multiple authors. While majority of authors looking into the future prospects of democracy predict that more states are likely to become representative democracies, there are challenges (Kumar, 2005:510). The process requires many preconditions for it to be effective. The situations are different in each state. In addition, each state is in a different phase of the democratization process. There are hybrid and delegate regimes that are intermediates between real democracies and authoritarian systems. Through the assessment of different sources, the preconditions and challenges of democracy have become evident. Bibliography Burnell, P. 2004. Building Better Democracies. Why Political Parties Matter. London: Westminster Foundation for Democracy. Burnell, P., and Calvert, P. ‘Promoting Democracy Abroad’. Democratization, 12(4-2005), pp. 433–8.s Buxton, J. 2006. ‘Securing Democracy in Complex Environments’. Democratization, 13(5), pp 709-723. Carothers, T. 2002. ‘The End of the Transition Paradigm’. 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