The statement “Democracy is the best form of government for all the world’s inhabitants” may sound good as a theory but in reality there are many complications standing on the way of a country fully run by democracy. Theoretically democracy is a political system in which common people have the right to choose their government through fair elections. People have sovereign power and they can decide who would represent them in the parliament and who would be their leaders in national and state level. Democracy is of three types - participatory, direct or referendums and representative. Many countries including USA, UK, Switzerland, Poland and India have democratic form of government. This essay will give a brief overview of the components required for sustaining democracy and the challenges in its implementation.
In order for democracy to be sustainable, there should be fair social, cultural and economic conditions in the country. Too much disparity in social structure or economic condition may harm the institution of democracy as wealthy and high status people may control the entire political environment. Further high ethnic fragmentation can jeopardize the ideals of democracy as we see in the case of African countries where the divergent groups with different cultures and traditions are eternally in conflict with each other. A properly formulated Constitution with the help of inputs from citizens is essential to democracy. Further a strong unbiased impartial judiciary system should be in place which would be fair in its judgments. People should be allowed freedom of speech and expression so that they can freely criticize an action of the government. Further media or press should have the freedom to disseminate accurate information to public. Elections should be free, fair and competitive with each competing parties propagating their political ideals effectively through mass media and directly. The voting process should be fair and not rigged. Every citizen should be treated as equal in the eyes of law and hence every opinion should be weighed in equal measure.
Sadly the theory of democracy is not properly implemented in its application. Democracy is functional in a country where there is no big gap in the economic conditions among people. But in case of extreme economic disparity power and money concentrated into the hands of few take the form of autocracy in a democratic country and all the human rights and the basic fundamental principles of democracy are violated. For example, in Syria Bashar Al Assad and his family have been holding the presidency since 1971 and have turned the system into an autocracy. They used unfair means to get support and amassed wealth beyond imagination when average Syrian people were left poor. This process created a huge disparity in economic condition between rich and poor. Finally a movement for overthrowing the government started in 2011 in which in last two years millions of people have been killed by the armed forces of the government. This shows that democracy is better than many other forms of government but like all other forms it also works under certain circumstances.
In conclusion, democracy though regarded as the best form of government in theory requires a fair social, cultural and economic condition for effective functioning in the absence of which democracy would turn into an anarchic autocracy in which all the fundamental principles of democracy will be breached and violated.
Works Cited
Catt, Helena. Democracy in Practice. Routledge, 1999. London. print.
Castoriadis, Cornelius. The Problem of Democracy Today, Web. 14th June 2013. <http://www.athene.antenna.nl/ARCHIEF/NR01-Athene/02-Probl.-e.html>
Shah, Anup. Democracy, Global Issues. 28 Jan 2012. Web. 14th June 2013. <http://www.globalissues.org/article/761/democracy>
Why Democracy is Wrong, 13 May. 2006. Web. 14th June 2013. <http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/democracy.html>
