The Liberal Democratic Model of the Modern State - Assignment Example

1: Critically assess the extent to which the Liberal Democratic model of the modern can be applied to the case study countries. Following Held’s “Models of Democracy” (2006), three fundamental characteristics of liberal democratic systems of government can be established as: 1. Free Elections – Open, fair, monitored, & validated election processes open to all 2. Freedom of Expression – Citizens enjoy the rights of Free Speech, Press, Assembly, etc. 3. Equal Participation – All individuals can engage in the political process free from repression While there are other characteristics that are reflective of democracy and liberalism, these three can be used as a starting point to evaluate the political process in countries of the world from a common basis. France is taken to be the birthplace of liberal democracy in the modern era, sharing leadership culturally in the development of democratic society internationally with Britain and the USA. The ideals of democracy can be found in literature and transported to any location, but their implementation as a system of government is most strong in the USA and France today. Britain still has the House of Lords and Monarchy which illustrate the feudal patterns of society which liberal democracy replaced, and Spain also has a Constitutional Monarchy and King. The patterns of democratic liberalism found in the USA and France are used as a basis for development of similar systems in nation-states around the world in the process of modernization that relates to democratization internationally. Jürgen Habermas (1994) discusses the process of democratization as it aligns with modernization in his work, “Three Normative Models of Democracy,” relating the different stages a nation may enter into as the people emerge from feudal power relations. (Habermas, 1994) Following this theory, liberal democratic structures will increase in a society as the culture develops economically and through education, adopting scientific standards, and becoming globalized. This theory would suggest that the world’s most advanced economies, such as the U.S., France, and Spain, would be also the most free historically, or have the highest advocacy for democratic institutions. Yet, China has the second largest economy globally, and it is often found to be lacking in liberal democratic openness on these standards. Similarly, Russia replaced the Soviet regime with a technically democratic system, and still has a strong economy today, yet international watchdogs regularly report human rights abuses and undemocratic processes in the country. This leads to the conclusion that there is not a direct relation between the size or advancement of an economy and liberal democracy as a political system inherently, as seen particularly in Russia and China today, but also in historical examples from around the world. Nevertheless, the relationship between modernization and democratization does proceed together in many nations historically, as Barber and other show in their studies on political sociology. (Barber, 2003) 2: The separation of executive and legislature is a fundamental requirement of democratic government’. Discuss. The separation of the legislature and executive is not the fundamental characteristic of democratic government, because the Parliamentary system of government links the Prime Minister directly to the ruling party and its control of the majority of legislators. What is more important than the relationship of separation of powers and indicative of a liberal democracy historically is the use of a constitution in the establishment of the system of government itself. Habermas, in such works as “On the Internal Relation between the Rule of Law and Democracy” (1995), describes the existence of a constitution as a foundation document in a system of government as characteristic and a predictor of democratic liberalism. (Habermas, 1995) Yet, France, Spain, US, Russia and Nigeria all have constitutions and make claims to political liberalism, but in practice display varying forms of openness, equality, and freedom in their societies when compared to international norms or ideals of democracy. Democratic government can proceed through popular assemblies, elections, representatives, and direct voting on issues such as in a referendum, but the separation of executive and legislature is not indicative of a democratic system or even a basic requirement. Yet, the process of constitutionalization as Habermas describes helps citizens to organize on democratic principles and appeal for redress when their rights are violated by the State. (Habermas, 1995) Thus, a judiciary willing to assist the people in the defense of liberty against unjust usurpation by the State, under appeal to rights guaranteed in a constitution, is more beneficial for promoting and maintaining liberal democracy in a nation than a fundamental separation of legislature and executive. Russia, however, has both a President and Prime Minister in its system of government, established through a constitution, but is not taken as a model of liberal democracy because of openness and participation issues. The U.S. has a system of checks and balances to separate the executive, legislature, and judiciary into three branches of government, but this is not inherently more or less democratic than a Prime Minister and Parliament system such as are found in the United Kingdom and Spain. 3: The democratic nature of any political system is determined by its electoral system’. Discuss Many contemporary theorists of political science are content to define the modern State functioning as a Republic through the election of representatives occasionally in mass-elections as a “democracy” in the classical Greek sense. These same theorists are further hesitant to open a path to social anarchy by advocating “direct democracy” as a preferred system of government or representation in society. They are concerned with proving the “freedom” of advanced, secular, liberal democracies while ignoring critics such as Noam Chomsky and others who show the interrelation of democratic propaganda with economic and social forces of control. (Herman & Chomsky, 1988) Similarly, the world has seen States like Russia criticized for the lack of freedom in elections, with the argument given that the State selects the candidates and those chosen candidates win inevitably. The vote is rigged and the election is a sham. Yet, the two party system in America has been criticized by Chomsky and others as being an actual rigged system which functions to exclude third parties, direct democracy, and repress any change of ideology that would threaten the status quo. (Herman & Chomsky, 1988) This suggests that the undemocratic elements in the U.S. system as described by Chomsky are actually related to the electoral system, the way it is structured, and operates constitutionally. The election of representatives does not guarantee free and equal participation in the process, or even that all parties can compete openly in the process. It is difficult for third parties to get ballot access in the U.S., especially when compared to the multi-party system in France and Spain that includes many more minority parties in parliament. The range of political participation may be limited by a two party system in a same manner that totalitarian States often run sham elections, parliaments, and legislatures through the appearance or public ritual of elections, even though these have no practical effect on the democratic participation of most people in the decision-making process itself. People who participate in direct and local democracy in rural Nigeria, for example, may be closer to a pure democratic ideal, or even tribal village councils where everyone votes on a question of governance, than advanced democratic systems based on mass-population control where the two-party system contains political change, third-party views, and makes the individual voice irrelevant, lost in a process that weighs hundreds of millions of votes together just a few times a year in electing representatives. The representative forms of democracy may also be easily corrupted by minority capital interests or cultural cartels, as other theorists such as Michael Mann have suggested. (Mann, 2005) 4: Does ideology still play an important role in contemporary politics? (the role of ideology in contemporary politics) Habermas promoted an ideal of what he called “discursive democracy - as founded on the ideal of a self-organizing community of free and equal citizens, co-ordinating their collective affairs through their common reason.” (Cohen, 1999) Discursive democracy highlights the importance of ideology in political parties and democratic organizations, as it is on ideological grounds that these parties organize and build social policies. Discursive democracy brings ideological questions to the center of public debate, and modern citizens conduct an informed discussion of the issues of governance primarily through the news media, books, magazines, and other publications. The decentralized technologies of the internet allow these ideological groups to organize and share information through the web. Lincoln Dahlberg and other political theorists highlight the importance of information technology in creating new possibilities for direct democracy in the post-modern age. (Dahlberg, 2001) Multiparty democracy, such as in France and Spain which includes the election of a wider range of ideological voices as representatives, may be more democratic in practice than the exclusionary two-party system, as in the USA. Therefore, watchdog groups in the practice of “monitor democracy,” where the citizens are informed and activist in the defense of their individual or group ideologies, should search for the degree to which opposition voices are excluded or marginalized based upon their ideologies when assessing the openness of democratic standards in a system of government. The concept of a “monitor democracy” was suggested by Jürgen Habermas in “Three Normative Models of Democracy” (1994) and represents the way that individuals and groups organize to protect their ideological interests in advanced democratic systems such as France, Spain, and the USA. (Habermas, 1994) Sources Cited: Barber, Benjamin R. 2000, A passion for democracy: American essays, Princeton University Press, 2000, viewed 12 April 2011, . Barber, Benjamin R. 2003, Which Technology and Which Democracy?, MIT Communications Forum, 2003, viewed 12 April 2011, . Cohen, Joshua 1999, Reflections on Habermas on Democracy. Ratio Juris. Vol 12 No. 4 December 1999 (385-416), viewed 12 April 2011, . Dahlberg, Lincoln 2001, Democracy via Cyberspace - Mapping the Rhetorics and Practices of Three Prominent Camps, New Media & Society, June 2001 vol. 3 no. 2 157-177, viewed 12 April 2011, . Dahlberg, Lincoln 2001, Extending the public sphere through cyberspace: The case of Minnesota E-Democracy, First Monday, Volume 6, Number 3 - 5 March 2001, viewed 12 April 2011, . Habermas, Jürgen 1995, On the Internal Relation between the Rule of Law and Democracy, European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 3, Issue 1, pages 12–20, April 1995, viewed 12 April 2011, . Habermas, Jürgen 1994, THREE NORMATIVE MODELS OF DEMOCRACY, Constellations, Volume 1, Issue 1, pages 1–10, December 1994, viewed 12 April 2011, . Herman, Edward and Chomsky, Noam (1988), Manufacturing Consent: A Propaganda Model, Pantheon Books, 1988, viewed 12 April 2011, . Mann, Michael 2005, The dark side of democracy: explaining ethnic cleansing, Cambridge University Press, 2005, viewed 12 April 2011, . Read More