International Democracy Day is observed on 15 September every year to raise awareness among people about democracy. This day provides an opportunity to review the democracy of the state in the world. The United Nations created the day to celebrate the system of values democracy promotes, giving citizens the power to make decisions regarding all aspects of their lives.The UN’s specific goal for International Democracy Day is to promote government’s role in maintaining open democracy among all member nations of the UN Charter. From democracy’s birth in ancient Greece thousands of years ago through trial and error up to today, most of the world’s nations choose democracy over all other forms of government. More fundamentally, democracy is supposed to let people speak their minds and shape their own and their children’s futures.
Democracy is a theory of government where the law reflects the will of the majority as determined by direct vote or elected representatives. Typically, the legitimacy of a democracy begins with the adoption of a constitution, which establishes the fundamental rules, principles, duties, and powers of the government and some set of rights for individuals against those of the government. The enumeration of rights attempts to protect individuals from the whims of a democratic majority, a concept developed as republicanism during the overthrow of monarchism.
Across the world, though people are increasingly losing faith in the electoral system. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, less than 5% of the world’s population lives in a ‘full democracy’. The most recent report records the worst decline in global democracy in years, with freedom of expression, in particular, facing new challenges from both state and non-state actors.
What is surprising is that Australia and New Zealand are the only "full democracies" in the entire Asia-Pacific region, while the United States is among those that couldn't find its way into the top category.
There are also eight countries (Algeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Timor-Leste, Ethiopia, North Korea, Laos, Nepal and Sri Lanka) whose full titles include the word "democratic", but the EIU says not one of these countries is actually fully democratic.Democracy in Europe has ‘declined more than any other region,’ signalling a ‘democratic malaise,’ the Index found.
To rank the countries the EIU gives a score out of 10 for a number of categories, such as political participation and the functioning of government, then classifies each country as either full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime or authoritarian.https://www.eiu.com/topic/democracy-index
Winston Churchill famously called democracy "the worst system of government, except for all the others that have been tried.' Many others argue the case that democracy is flawed , philosophically, morally, and empirically. Democracy is controlled by the few and corporate elites. For decades these interests have steered public opinion with unscrupulous methods, aided by a media controlled by them.
In the later parts of the Republic, Plato suggests that democracy is one of the later stages in the decline of the ideal state. One which is so bad that people ultimately cry out for a dictator to save them from it. This idea was big for Plato, democracy would lead to tyrants.
Aristotle, for his part, listed democracy as the failed version of rule by the multitudes. “Timocracy”, rule by the propertied class or even just a more constitutional form of republican government was the ideal kind of rule by the many, in his mind. He would have seen Athens as an ever-decaying city, moving away from its original timocratic constitution as laid out by Solon.
The idea that democracy is fundamentally flawed even had sponsors in later, more liberal, thinkers. Voltaire, who supported all of the liberal freedoms of speech and religion, told Catharine the Great of Russia that, “Almost nothing great has ever been done in the world except by the genius and firmness of a single man combating the prejudices of the multitude”In the uncritical history of representative democracy, it’s never mentioned that democracy in ancient Greece meant citizens, not career politicians, taking it in turns to debate and take decisions (as long as you were a man and not a slave).
Democratic governments are supposed to be accountable, and officials and politicians answerable for their decisions and actions. This is meant to reduce the opportunity for corruption. Democracy also is meant to subject governments to the rule of law, which means the law treats everyone, including the government, equally. But democracy and freedom certainly do not work together, if you happen to be are starving and hunry or your human rights are being violated.
An unrestricted democracy means that the majority decides over the minority. This leaves the minority relatively powerless, and the smaller it is, the less power it wields. Which means that the smallest minority of all, the individual, is effectively depending on his agreement with the majority.
To account for this problem, mature democracies have developed a set of checks and balances in an attempt to make sure that it doesn’t happen; chief among these is the separation of the powers of the State. But this actually makes a system less democratic, since it interferes with the principle of “people’s power.” The end result being the complete alienation of many people. Essentially democracy does not create unity but only serves to foster division.
The UK is a representative democracy that very occasionally holds referendums. Although referendums have been reserved for constitutional issues, it is not the case that constitutional issues are always decided by referendums. Instead they often tend to be used by governments to put to rest major internal debates over constitutional issues. David Cameron promised to hold a referendum on EU membership in order to silence internal debates within the Conservative party, and we are probably about to take the huge step of leaving the EU that a majority of the population no longer want. The end result being the subversion of democracy that is Brexit, which has divided the country as never before, and which might result in the break up of the UK.
Whichever party is in government, the prime minister has the power to appoint over 100 MPs into well-paid ministerial positions. This creates a climate in which the vast majority of MPs do what the prime minister wants because they want a job. Representational democracy has a special vulnerability to lobbying, in which special interest groups spend extremely well-paid people after our elected representativ to persuade, threaten, barter or bribe them into delivering legislation, government funding, or other favors for their group. Because elected officials frequently come from industries, business sectors, religions and the upper class, they thus have many vested interests beyond the will of the people when they take office.
On top of this many believe elections bring little change, that politicians are corrupt, uncaring and out of touch. Boris Johnson unelected Prime Minister is currently taking the complete piss, It should not be forgotten that only about 160,000 Conservative party members, 0.35 per cent of the 45.8m national electorate, got to vote for him. As a result we have a very angry divided nation, and our version of democracy is facing a test like none since we faced the threat of the Nazis. Never before, except perhaps 1930's Germany, has a country been so badly served by a government.
Fundamentally are so called democracy is currently not working. No single party can claim support from more than about a third of the adult population. One-party government is therefore a recipe for endless political confrontation, with its own polarising dialectic. At this present time trust in Parliament is at an all time low. Only one in 10 people in the UK think the Westminster Parliament "works well and is fit for the 21st century," according to a ComRes poll published today. The poll commissioned by the Sunday Express also shows that just 14% think Parliament is "sufficiently representative of the nation's views," and just 125 feel Parliament "can be trusted to do the right thing for country"
In France, the Gilets Jaunes have been demonstrating for seven months against a government indifferent to inequality and deaf to their voices. In Britain, the Extinction Rebellion (XR) has already altered the way we talk about the climate: no longer ‘change’ but an ’emergency’. But street movements cannot govern and protest alone cannot change the basic model of a capitalist economy governed by an allegedly ‘representative’ democracy. This fundamental structure, how we govern and indeed our whole way of living together, needs to change.
We need a new system where the few govern the many, the already privileged, the rich the corporate. Radical change must become the new order of the day, that would create a more harmonious society where all people are fairly treated and equally valued. We should demand this with all our might.It's time for power to be truly given to the people, and humanity to devise some new modes to overcome democracies present flaws and repairing Britains current damaged model. .
I will leave you with the following. an anonymous poem published in the Northern Star, a Chartist newspaper, in 1840.
“Hurrah for the masses,
The lawyers are asses,
Their gammon and spinach is stale!
The law is illegal,
The Commons are regal,
And the judges are going to Jail!”
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