8/8/2019 To What Extent is Democracy the Best Form of Government in the World Today

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/to-what-extent-is-democracy-the-best-form-of-government-in-the-world-today 1/3

To What Extent is Democracy The Best Form of Government in The WorldToday?[1]

 Democracy has often been flattered excessively as the best form of government.The freedom it gives to those under the so-called democratic governments isalso viewed by those under  communism or authoritarianism as a panacea for theoppression they face.

 However, is democracy really worth of such worship? My answer would be a no.Firstly, democracy is defined as the rule of the majority in which people holdspower and exercises it directly or indirectly through a system of representationthat involves free elections. Thus, its flaws lie in its inability to protect the rights of 

the people and its susceptibility to election-oriented politicians, though it shouldalso be noted for its free media which allows progress. When comparing withrepublics and oligarchies using these three criterions, we can then conclude thatdemocracy is not the best form of government to a large extent.

 Firstly, pure democracy cannot safeguard the rights of the people and is actuallya “tyranny of the majority” in which the minority can lose all of its human rights tothe interests of the majority. When there is no limitation to the power that themasses have, the minority will actually lose all of its freedom that democracy has

promised. Hence, in pure democracy, the American middle and lower class caneasily split the wealth of the upper class by using their majority vote, while the80.5% of the population in India who are Hindus can easily ban Islam andChristianity with their sheer size. In a republic, however, the rights of all citizensare protected by a constitution which can never be changed simply by themajority. Those nations that are often thought to be democratic like America andmost of  European countries are actually republics, and this form of governmenthas proven itself to be much more stable and effective than democracy that hasnever really existed in any nation throughout history. On the other hand, anoligarchy does not give the people any freedom as well, since the people arepowerless and are subjected to the rule of the aristocracy or dictators. Therefore,

a democracy is not the best form of government since it cannot protect the rightsof the people.

 Secondly, periodically held elections result in politicians becoming more election-oriented rather than being service-oriented. The threat from such politicians isthat policies implemented are only aimed at garnering more support from the

8/8/2019 To What Extent is Democracy the Best Form of Government in the World Today

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/to-what-extent-is-democracy-the-best-form-of-government-in-the-world-today 2/3

voters for the election and have little or no benefits for the nation’s economic andsocietal progress. Take the example of the Taiwan Presidential Election in 2004,in which the President Chen Shui-bian was fighting for his second term in office.He and his party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), spent much of their political ammunition on accusations of the Kuomintang as being “betrayers of 

Taiwan”, due to their support on closer relations with China so as to improveTaiwan’s economy. It is an undeniable fact that the Taiwan economy is relativelyreliant on China, its giant neighbour; hence Chen’s confrontational electiontactics against closer relations with China actually worsens the economicproblems in Taiwan. These tactics only help him to win support from the voterswho were mostly supportive of the independence of Taiwan. Similarly, a republicinvolves presidential elections as well; hence such problems are inherent too. For oligarchies, however, the dictators’ grip on power is significantly stronger thanthat of democracies and republics due to an absence of political opposition andelections, hence the administration need not emphasize excessively on gainingsupport from people, instead it can channel its energy to the implementation of 

economic and societal programs for the better good of society. Thus, in thisaspect, it can be seen again that democracy is not the best form of government.

 However, we cannot deny all virtues of democracy, especially its freedom of speech. In a democracy, according to the Centre for Democracy andGovernance in America, free media ‘ensures that citizens make responsible,informed choices’ in elections, and also ‘[ensures that] elected representativesuphold their oaths of office and carry out the wishes of those who elected them.’In this way, corruption and failures of policies can be made known to the people

without any distortion of truth, thereby maintaining democracy by a well-informedpopulace which would have the power to vote an incompetent party out of power.Likewise, in a republic, freedom of media is, in most nations, granted and upheldby the constitution, though the extent of it varies from place to place. Despite thefact that the head of state can still ultimately censor certain news that areundesirable to his or her administration, it should be noted that democracy toomight not be able to bring about an entirely free media as it is not protected by aconstitution. Contrastingly, oligarchies do not tolerate any form of opposition thatmight threaten its survival; hence by silencing the media and blocking allconstructive comments, economic and societal progress will stagnate if theleaders of the nation are not competent. Therefore, democracy is indeed the bestform of government in this aspect.

 Based on the three criterions, which are the ability to protect human rights, thesusceptibility of governments to election-oriented politicians, and the extent of free media, we can then deduce that a republic is actually the best form of government. It differs with democracy in its ability to safeguard the rights of the

8/8/2019 To What Extent is Democracy the Best Form of Government in the World Today

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/to-what-extent-is-democracy-the-best-form-of-government-in-the-world-today 3/3

people through a constitution. Hence, democracy is, to a very small extent, thebest form of government.