Demo Cracies

The term democracy has its origin from the Greek because, in the mid-fifth century, such a political system existed in Athens and some other adjoining cities around the area. The concept of nations as such did not exist at that time. Since then, the theory and practices of democracy have changed considerably over time, naturally as it should have. The concept of nation-states and sovereign states evolved from the early eighteenth century. Many countries, particularly in northern Europe and America, embraced democracy as a model of their political system.?

Typically, in a democracy, people are supposed to directly participate in framing policies. But because of the large number of people in a particular country, it becomes impractical and impossible to work it out that way. To overcome this limitation, people of a specified area are allowed to choose their representative. The representatives thus elected to form different constituencies/areas of different parties participate in the decision-making process to formulate policies for the public good. This type of democracy is called a representative democracy. The essential characteristic of democracy is freedom of assembly, association, speech, equality and liberty of individual citizens.?

Theoretically, there are many types of democracies, but in reality, there are mainly two forms of democracies in the world currently, the presidential form of democracy and parliamentary democracy.?

Parliamentary democracy is a system where the executive derives its power from the parliament to which it is accountable. In this system, the head of the state is distinct from the head of the government. Ahead of the cabinet committee is the head of the government. The parliament system of democracy is the dominant form of government in 32 out of 50 sovereign states in Europe (Figure-1). It is also practised in 10 out of 13 Caribbean islands and Australia and New Zealand. This system is also followed in erstwhile British colonies.?

The presidential system of government is a form of government where the head of the government, with the title typically, President, leads the executive that is separate from the legislative. Mostly the head of the government is also the head of the state. In the presidential system, the head of the government is directly elected by the people and is not responsible to the legislature. The presidential system of government is prevalent in mainland Americas in 19 out of 22 sovereign states, the exceptions being Canada, Belize and Suriname. This system is also present in Central and Southern Africa and Central Asia.?

‘We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both. Louis D. Brandeis, U.S. Supreme Court, 1916-1939

Theoretically speaking, the fundamental premise of democracy is the empowerment of the individuals and their say in the governance as one person, one vote. However, the situation is far from it on the ground in real-life situations. On the other hand, the individuals who are powerless have little or no say in the decision-making process because various malpractices have crept in over time that has reduced an individual to just a number, a vote. This erosion in the importance of the individuals, making them meek, vulnerable and helpless in actual practice is one of the main reasons for democracy falling from grace, its relevance and decay. The other major reason is the corporations usurping the power or rather handing the governance to corporations on a platter by the politicians. This aspect and the role of corporations are discussed elsewhere in this book.

‘Aristotle’s objection to democracy was that it was inherently unstable. It transmuted naturally into tyranny. It is not law or constitutions that have prevented this from happening in the century and a half during which democracy has been the prevailing system in Europe and North America. It is a shared political culture. Like most cultural phenomena, shared political culture is spontaneous growth. It is difficult to create. But it is very easy to destroy.’ Jonathan Sumption.

The democracies are under attack the world over simply because the leaders are going for populist policies at the cost of pluralism and gaining unchecked power at the expense of minorities by presenting the minorities as perceived enemies. The leaders seem to be indulging in such unethical and insidious practices just to retain power by generating fear psychosis by creating such bogies leading to set up people against people for their authoritarian and dictatorial designs.?

These authoritarian leaders are getting bolder and bolder each year. The number of countries with declining political rights and civil liberties is consistently growing. This is particularly noticeable in the world's oldest and largest democracies, the United States of America and India. In India, the Hindu Nationalist government, headed by Narinder Modi, since he took over in 2014, is pressurising human rights organisations and intimating the civil liberties groups, academicians and journals with a spate of bigoted attacks like the lynching of Muslims.

The COVID-19 epidemic has provided these authoritarian leaders timely handle to grossly abuse power and oppress dissent and civil liberties by suppressing the dissent and spreading misinformation and propaganda, arm-twist media to fall in line and frequent use of internet shutdowns.?

The democratic decay is accentuated by the democratically elected leaders in increments tactically by using seemingly legal mechanisms like impairing the ability of the opposition leaders to question or disqualify and harass them and hold the government to account, to weaken the democratic institutions by bringing about changes through legal channels, to cripple or block the media, impair the free and fair elections and weaken the rule of law by overseeing the judicial system.?