Essay Sample on Democracy: A System of Governance for a Fair, Just World

Introduction

Democracy is the most typical system of government around the contemporary world. It can be defined as a system of governance whereby power is exercised by the citizens of a country through the process of fair votes casting. The voted candidates represent the needs of the majority who voted for them, inclusive of the minority who did not vote for them. In light of this, the people have a voice on who should represent their matters to the government, making this system of governance fair and promoting equity. However, the system of governance has been researched to be in a state of dying, therefore, making this a contentious topic of discussion. Due to the political development that has been felt in some countries over recent years, democracy has been reported to be dying in these countries, or rather, oscillating between liberal vision which promotes equity, and a communitarian vision which is aimed in cherishing democracy in collectivist terms. Less political developed countries do not experience the latter, and such, argue still that democracy is not dying. This paper aims at shedding light on this contentious issue.

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A majority of countries in the European region agree with the contentious matter that, it is indeed true, democracy is dying. Such countries include the United States of America, the country where democracy originated from Britain, China, among others. These countries are politically developed, and hence, oscillates between democracy and liberalism as mentioned earlier. However, countries where democracy is still intact, including India, Germany, Netherlands, Mexico, Malawi, among others.

An article written by Daniel Oberhaus states that researchers misunderstand the concept if democracy dying in the contemporary world. As such, he sheds light on the matter through the use of the complex systems theory which defines how democracy is dying and the reasons leading to the death of this stable form of governance. In his article, he discusses that in the last decade, democratic has been under crisis due to the fact that there has been a registered increment in right-wing populism in countries that democracy is dying. Some of these countries include Brazil and the United States. The elite group in these nations have considered their concerns more vital than those of the other normal citizens and in this manner, equity cannot be achieved which is the basic principle for democracy. As a result of populism, democratic countries have become the handmaiden of the corporate people located in the country. This information is true based on the current political conditions that are prevalent in the United States of America today. Politics in the country is dominated by the corporate minds who dictate the people who are going to rule the country.

The complex system theory focuses on two features, stability ad feedback loops. In studying these features, its clearly evident why democracies have been experiencing backsliding. Despite the role that corporates have in backsliding of democracy, the citizens also play a crucial role as they have been destabilizing democracy through abandoning the norms and institutions that have been key in upholding democracy. The citizens themselves are attracted to autocratic regime types of governments, which infringe directly on equity. This article has a balanced view to the concept of democracy dying since it gives a balanced cause of factors that undermine democracy to be both the citizens and the corporates in the country. As such, everyone is to blame for failing democracies around the World today.

The evidence provided for the dying of democracy in countries aroundthe World by Freedom House is undeniable as it measures the democracy index of a country of interest. The index takes into account several factors that are related to democracy, for instance, fair elections, civil liberties, free press, among others. Results from the House proves that almost half of the countries worldwide have reported cases of dropping democracy index for a twelve years in a row since the establishment of the index. The following map shows proof of the declining democracy index, especially in the United States the author of democracy.

According to last year, it is evident that the United States democracy was in the flawed region according to the map that is provided above. This is concrete evidence about the dying state of democracy worldwide.

According to Daniel, democracy is also dying as a result of the political and socio-economic systems that are prevalent in contemporary world. The factors are directly connected to the feedback loops feature of complex system theory which was mentioned earlier. For instance, Daniel discusses how healthy democracy and economic inequality are related. When economic inequality is great, that is, the economic gap between the poor and the rich is big, democracy commences declining. An example of such a scenario is the Great Depression which took place back in the year 2008. This can be marked as the year where democracy was affected significantly, hence started dying.