Is Liberal Democracy the Only Viable Form of Democracy - Essay Example

Running head: Liberal Democracy “Is Liberal democracy the only viable form of democracy?” Liberal democracy is defined as a contour of representative democracy. In this case, people elect representatives that make decision on their behalf. The power to make decision hold by the representatives is moderated by constitution that gives emphasis to protecting liberty of people and the minorities’ rights in society. Such rights may include: freedom of assembly and speech, right to privacy and private property, freedom of religion, and equality when facing the law and rule of law (Glenn, 2004). The above rights are guaranteed through several institutions that are controlled through statutory law. In the present world governed under the liberal democracy, the constitution protects the rights of minorities and individuals, as well as prohibiting the majority will by eliminating the practice of majority rule (O’Donnell, 2009). However, it has been argued that liberal democracy is not the only democratic way of ruling. Some people have said that liberal democracy is not liberal or democratic. Power appropriation can not guarantee the survival of society and the polity future. Evidence have been provided to support that liberal democracy is not the only viable form of democracy, as it has sometimes been compatible with inequality in resource allocation, anti-democratic rule, systematic corruption, and physical operation (Glenn, 2004). There are alternative forms of democracy that ensure that vote of individuals is compatible with fate of people. The quality and nature of rule and governance comprise a significant factor for survival, development and stability of a society (Glenn, 2004). Power appropriation by governing or ruling by force or election has no assurance for good governance, or development. For the past many years, there have been several systems of governance which have disappeared as they have failed to offer a promising future of troubled societies. Liberal democracy for this case has gained momentum in many societies as result of capitalism, in which it is claimed to be the only feasible way of governance. As the other systems of governance are almost getting forgotten, liberal democracy has become a common worldwide system of governance, rule and power legalization, endorsed by the citizens’ votes (Hylton, 2003). Looking in the past, liberal democracy has lacked democracy due to appropriation of state resources for partisan or sectarian use. It has also been found that liberal democracy marginalizes the majority, oppresses the minority, and encourages systemic corruption in many societies. Failure of liberal democracy to provide feasible political system, poses a big challenge to politics and governance of many societies in the world. However, comparing liberal democracy with dictatorship form of governance, liberal democracy is a step forward in the wrong direction (Glenn, 2004). Liberal democracy is not practiced in the correct order. The rulers consider their needs first before considering the citizens. For this reason, there has been struggle to implement other forms of democracy that are compatible with the interest of people. Other than liberal democracy societies can either choose between delegation and representation to achieve democracy. Delegation and representation therefore offer viable alternative forms of democracy. Delegation is a political process where people hand over their rights and power to a given number of individual, who have the freedom to act independently and act to their own judgment on behalf of the rest of the people ((Hylton, 2003)). On the other hand, representation form of democracy is where people are entitled to active use of rights, influence, and power to ensure that their interests are met by controlling and nourishing those individuals who act on their behalf (Bell, 1964). Let’s look at the two forms of democracy separately. First, delegation which is a system of power appropriation by leaders through tenure authorization by universal suffrage is a liberal democracy keystone. The power to delegate originates from the electorates through voluntary vote. In simple terms, delegation means giving others the authority to make decision. Delegation in relation to decision and policy making makes liberal democracy to be ‘carte blanche’ (Glenn, 2004). In this case, the chosen political elite have the freedom to act on behalf of other individual, restricted by checks and balances (Lijphart, 1977). Liberal democracy has been doubted as a legitimate way of power endorsement. The electorate which endorses power to the leaders from the social science perspective, is not equivalent of individuals, and does not capture the whole social group. The act of assigning the electorate is influenced more by politics rather than social factors. For this matter, liberal democracy does not represent the interests of the majority who speak out together to protect their rights and power (Lijphart, 1977). Therefore, liberal democracy is neither a system of rule of the people, nor people’s model who act for their own interest. It is not even the right device for legitimacy, but a legalizing device in an open contest of political power appropriation. In this case, people marginalize their voice by electing leaders to act on their behalf. As result of this, delegation easily spoils the arbitrariness and dynasty (Lijphart, 1977). The elected leaders in political systems do not represent the direct outcome of the vote of people, but a bargained compromise of many people (Glenn, 2004). The contest of political leaders to acquire positions in the political system is the force that stimulates liberal democracy dynamism (Lijphart, 1977). The liberal democracy political system has a complex network of decision making by institutions and political leaders, which interfere with the pre-exiting economic, social, cultural, and religious structures. Such interference result into rearranges the above structures into bargained legal authority (Glenn, 2004). However, O’Donnell describes the non-representative delegative democracy as the best way of achieving democracy in our societies. Legal provisions for free and fair elections, independent judiciary, free press, and strong civil society which are forms of checks and balances, are the best in achieving democracy under liberal democracy. However, the checks and balances can not be adequate solution to delegative democracy in societies with flawed governance structures (O’Donnell, 1996). The horizontal control nature of delegative democracy which results from state agencies mutual controls over the rest of institutions can not ensure vertical control which represents the interests of the majority. Despite this limitation, external pressures and controls by civil society can be used to moderate the effect that may result from delegative liberal democracy. Lack of structural democracy in delegation is not a technical limitation that can be allowed by the famous obsolete argument of sensible impossibility for all individuals to make decision at the same time (Glenn, 2004). Up to this point it is clear that delegative liberal democracy does not work. Delegation makes the governance system unfit for individuals to express their interests. It is for this reason why liberal democracy spoils the decision making by the elite. This takes use to a new form of democracy which is representation (Wolf, 1999). As mentioned earlier on, representation is a form of democracy where people are entitled to actively use their rights, influence, and power to ensure that their interests are met by controlling and nourishing those individuals who act on their behalf. In other world, representation as a form of democracy is rooted on mobilization of the social actors in a community or society in pursuit of achieving the interests of the majority (Glenn, 2004). The individuals in this case have the ability to exercise their power from bottom, in controlling those acting on their behalf. This brings in three major factors in society that model the social history. They include: social forces which acts as the chief agent, survival which act as the driving force, and awareness which act as the stimulating factor to encourage and direct creation and change (Glenn, 2004). People may contribute significantly in the social process, but history at all times is the social forces’ source of labour (Glenn, 2004). With social forces and the struggle to survive all the time on the scene, the key factor to encourage people to act according to their wish in trying to achieve self-realization, is awareness, where the top political secret to change is found (Glenn, 2004). Working under the awareness ambit are factors that may hamper solidarity and combined actions. This would also trigger the cultural forces as the heartbeat expression of collectivity. However, discourse and supremacy are significant concepts to understand awareness process among the social forces (Bonanno, 2000). The supremacy is normally supported by discourses that work as justifying narrations (Bonanno, 2000). These discourses are presented as evidence to mitigate the reality perception. The major function of the discourses is to prevent social forces and individuals from becoming conscious of their development options and real conditions. The moment the social forces are aware of their capacity to take action, the conditions are all set for them to come up with a feasible ways for collective survival. This could be in pursuit of common objectives and interests that are important to the group (Roger & Anthony, 1999). In this matter, representation is anchored in social agency; and social forces coming to knowledge of their interests and needs, deciding their destiny, and securing their opportunities for development (Roger & Anthony, 1999). Therefore, representation should be rooted in social movement. There should be no enforcement of consensus in the process of ensuring democracy by representation, but negotiations should be held to bring harmony. Concerted action and negotiation, founded on the diversity harmonization is the best alternative to achieving democracy among all social groups in a society (Roger & Anthony, 1999). Representation founded on a wider social movement results into democracy that we have seen lacking in delegation form of democracy. The deficit of structural democracy in delegative liberal democracy poses threat to societal development by weakening the social force agencies in economic and social realm (Bonanno, 2000). All in all, it is clear that the best way to achieve viable democracy in the present world is not by voting, but representation that puts together the societal strategic forces as history agents. Representation results to harmony in a society and trigger development (Gary, Abigail &Frank, 2000). Achieving democracy does neither involve a matter of telling lies, nor telling truth, but paying attention to history authors to get what individuals aspire and think so as to share their feelings, and see how people take action on their behalf. Truth that can be said to be authentic does not come from the expert’s mind and self-proclaimed elites, but from people’s and society’s aspirations to react to the push for self-realization (Bonanno, 2000). Therefore, democracy based on representation as a substitute to delegative liberal democracy is the only viable venue for escaping social death. Under representation form of democracy, people act as their own ombudsman since they can air their views. In addition, representation establishes the path to global harmony (Gary, Abigail &Frank, 2000). Representation form of democracy based on equality, solidarity and freedom, and justice is the only way of providing society development-oriented project and democratic reaction to power usurpation (Bonanno, 2000). Paying respect to the people’s voice, and integrity as the history author is an obligatory prerequisite for changing representation into future symbol of hope with justice, harmony, stability, social equality, and peace in diversity (Bonanno, 2000). Liberal democracy can not be said to be the only viable form of democracy for ensuring social survival, but people have the mandate to come up with feasible way by collectively getting involved in political and social action to ensure that the future is under their own control (O’Donnell, 2009). To conclude, though liberal democracy has gained momentum in the contemporary world, it is not the only viable form of democracy in our societies. Faced with several limitations, this form of democracy fails to represent the interests of majorities. Leaders eager for power have maintained liberal democracy as a way of satisfying their needs in the name of serving the people’s interests. There are alternative forms of democracy that can be practiced instead of liberal democracy. However, delegation which acts as cornerstone for the liberal democracy has been found to lack structural democracy. The fact that delegation is based on liberal democracy has similar limitations as liberal democracy. This leaves us with only one option of viable form democracy that can be applied to our societies. Representative form of democracy offers people with an opportunity to take the future in their own hands. Under this form of democracy people are able to voice their interests and needs. However, for representative democracy to be viable there is need to ensure that justice, social equality, peace and stability, and harmony prevail all the time. References: Bell, W. (1964). Jamaican leaders: Political attitudes in a new nation. Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press. Bonanno, A. (2000). The crisis of representation: the limits of liberal democracy in the global era. Journal of Rural Studies, 16(3), 305-323 Gary, B., Abigail H. &Frank, W. (Eds.). (2000). Understanding contemporary society: theories of the present. London : Sage. Glenn, S. (2004). People’s vote compatible with people’s fate. A democratic alternative to liberal democracy. Retrieved on December 5, 2009 from http://www.crscenter.com/Democracy.doc Hylton, F. (2003). Bolivia: Aymara rebellion and democratic dictatorship. Znet. Retrieved in December 5, 2009 from http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm  Lijphart, A. (1977). Democracy in plural societies. A comparative exploration. New Haven, Yale University Press. O’Donnell’, G. (1996). Illusions about consolidation, Journal of Democracy 7(2) O’Donnell’, G. (2009). Delegative democracy? Working Paper Series. Retrieved on December 5, 2009 from http://www.nd.edu/~kellogg Roger, E. & Anthony, W. (Eds.). (1999). Contemporary political ideologies. London: Pinter, Continuum. Wolf, E. (1999). Envisioning power. Ideologies of dominance and crisis. Berkeley, University of California Press. . Read More