CLASS 10 OUTCOMES OF DEMOCRACY (CIVICS 7)

OUTCOMES OF DEMOCRACY

1. Merits of democracy (Why we feel democracy is better form of government?)

^·          It promotes equality among citizens;

^·          It enhances the dignity of the individual;

^·          It improves the quality of decision making;

^·          It provides a method to resolve conflicts; and

^·          It allows room to correct mistakes.

2. Common practices in democratic countries

^·          Formal constitutions

^·          They hold elections

^·          They have parties

^·          They guarantee rights of citizens

While these features are common to most of them, these democracies are very much different from each other in terms of their social situations, their economic achievements and their cultures.

Democracy is seen to be good in principles, but felt to be not so good in practice

We often feel that democracy can address all socio-economic and political problems. If our expectations are not met, we start blaming the idea of democracy. We must understand that democracy is just a form of government that can only create conditions for achieving something. The citizens have to take advantage of these conditions and achieve those goals.

3. Political Outcome - Accountable, responsive and legitimate government –

Accountable –

In a democracy, we are most concerned with ensuring that people will have the right to choose their rulers and people will have control over the rulers. Whenever possible and necessary, citizens should be able to participate in decision making that affects them all. The most basic outcome of democracy should be that it produces a government that is accountable to citizens, and responsive to the needs and expectations of the citizens.

We often feel that democracy produces less-effective government. In non-democratic governments, the autocrats can quickly take decisions without bothering about the people, which leads to a more-efficient government and efficient decision making and implementation.

In a democratic country, ideas are negotiated, discussed and debated, which results in a comparatively less efficient government but the decisions implemented do not have any after effects on people. The democratic government will take more time to follow procedures before arriving on a decision. But because it followed procedures, the decisions may be both more acceptable to the people and more effective in the long-run. So the cost of time that democracy pays worth it.

Transparency: A citizens who wants to know if a decision was taken through the correct procedures can find this out. He/She has the right to examine and the means to examine the process of decision making. This is known as Transparency. A non-democratic government is less transparent than a democratic government.

Expected outcomes:

Regular, free and fair elections, open public debate on major policies and regulations and citizens’ right to information about the government and its functioning.

Democracies have more success in setting up conditions for debate and in setting up regular and free elections. But most democracies fail in contesting elections that provide a fair chance to everyone and in subjecting every decision to public debate. Most democracies do not have a good record when it comes to sharing information with the public.

In a democracy, one should expect a government that is attentive to the needs and demands of the people and is largely free of corruption. But in real life, democracies often frustrate the needs of the people and often ignore the demands of a majority of its population. Also democracy is still not free of corruption.

Democratic government is better because, it is a legitimate government. It may be slow, less efficient, not always very responsive or clean. But a democratic government is people’s own government. Because of this, democracy has good support all over the world.

Economic growth and Development

If we consider all democracies and all dictatorships between 1950 and 2000, dictatorships have high rate of economic growth.  The difference in the rates of economic development between less developed countries with dictatorships and democracies is negligible.

But, economic development depends on several factors like: country’s growth, population size, global situation, cooperation etc. Overall, we cannot say that democracy guarantees economic development.

But democracies should not lag behind dictatorships in this respect.

On an average, dictatorship regimes have had slightly better record of economic growth. But when we compare their record in poor countries, there is no difference.

Within democracies there can be a very high degree of inequalities. In democratic countries that South Africa and Brazil, the top 20% people take away more than 60% of their national income, leaving less than 3% from the bottom 20% of the population.

Reduction of Inequality and Poverty

One should expect democracies to reduce economic disparities. Democracies are based on political equality. All individuals have equal weight in electing representatives.

A small number of ultra rich have greater wealth. Their share in the total income of the country is more.

Those at the bottom of the society have very little to depend upon. A large proportion of voters come from the poor, but parties and elected governments do not take a serious stand in decreasing poverty and economic disparity.

The situation of poverty is much worse in other countries. In Bangladesh, more than half of its population lives under poverty. People in several poor countries are dependent upon the rich for even their food supplies and basic amenities.

Accommodation of Social Diversity

Democracy accommodates social diversity and produces harmonious social life. No society can fully resolve conflicts between different groups, but we can respect the difference, and negotiate with the difference. A democracy results in this. Non-democratic regimes often try to suppress the minority. Ability to handle social divisions, differences and conflicts is a plus point of democracy.

But in some places like Sri Lanka where democracy is practiced accommodation of social diversity has failed.

Two conditions that a democracy must fulfill in order to accommodate social diversity:

Democracy is not simply rule by majority. The opinions of minority also matter to a great extent. The majority needs work with the minority so that the government functions to represent the general view.

Majority should not only contain members of one religion, region, caste, race or linguistic groups. Different persons and groups may form majority. Democracy remains democracy only as long as every citizen has chance of being in democracy at one point of time.

Dignity and freedom of Citizens

Democracy promotes dignity and freedom of the individual, but this is often not realized.

For example: Equal treatment of women. Almost all societies all over the world are patriarchal in nature. Long struggles of women have now resulted in increasing sensibility towards women.

Equal treatment of women and minorities are necessary ingredients in a democracy. Democracy has strengthened the claims of the minority and women, which is impossible in a non-democratic set up.

1.      Democracies in different countries have different outcomes

i .  It is just a form of government.

ii  . It is only a means to achieve, not the end

iii   It can only create conditions to achieve something.

iv  . Citizens have to take advantage of those conditions and then achieve those set goals.

v . To judge democracy we need to examine the records of democratic setups.

2. The most basic expectations a citizen can have in a democracy

i.             It should be a govt. that is accountable to its citizens

ii.             Responsive to the needs and expectations of the citizens. Should follow the procedures and norms

iii.             Mechanism for to hold the government accountable

iv.             mechanism for citizens to take part in decision making

v.             The government has to be attentive to the needs and the demands of the people

vi. Should be largely free of corruption

3. Decision Making – Critically Examined

i. Democracy is based on the idea of deliberations and negotiations.

ii. Democratic government takes more time to follow procedures before arriving at a decision.

iii. Those decisions are more acceptable to the people and are more effective.

iv. The cost of time that the democracy pays is more but is worth it.

4.   The main non-performance areas of Democracy

i. The record of democracies is not impressive on these two counts –

      a) Corruption

      b) Frustrating people by ignoring their needs on morality grounds

ii. But at the same time there is nothing to show that non-democracies are less corrupt or more sensitive to the people.

iii. Most democracies fall short of elections that provide fair chance to everyone and allowing all decisions for public debate.

iv. .Democratic governments do not have a very good record on sharing information with the citizens.

v. Mixed record on free and fair election and not successful in sharing records with people, however in India we have RTI as a fundamental right .

5 .  The three bed rocks of democracy

A.  Accountability / transparency

i.         Democracy ensures that decision making will be based on norms and procedures,

ii.          The citizen can check whether the government is working in accordance with the correct procedures or not.

iii.          Transparency - They have the right to examine the process of decision making.

iv.          This factor is often missing from the non-democratic government.

B. Legitimacy

i. A democratic government is a legitimate government which may be slow, less efficient.

ii. Not always very responsive or clean but it is peoples own government

iii. People wish to be ruled by the representatives elected by them

iv. They also believe that democracy is suitable for it has an ability to generate its own support is itself an outcome that cannot be ignored.

v.       Various South Asian countries show support for it.

C. Responsiveness

People want the government to pay attention to their needs, demands and issues which require urgent notice.

6.                        The basic parameters to evaluate democracy- critically examined

a)      Regular free and fair elections,

b)      Open public debate on major policies and legislations,

c)      Citizen’s right to information about the govt. and its functioning.

Actual record

i.            Democracies show a mixed record on the above grounds

ii.          Democracies have had greater success in setting up regular free and fair elections and in setting up conditions for open public debate.

iii.        Government not very good in sharing records with the public however, In India, citizens have RTI as a fundamental right.

7.  ECONOMIC GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT

i .Democracies does produce good governments but are not always able to produce development.

ii  .Dictatorships have slightly showed higher rate of economic growth between 1950-2000. Though the difference is negligible

iii. It is also been noticed that when two poor countries, one being democratic and other being non-democratic are compared, then the difference in their economic growth is not at all alarming.

iv. In developed countries, the poor class which is on the higher side of population tends to have a reasonable share in the national income.

v. For example Denmark and UK have a higher percentage share for bottom 20% of population. Where as in South Africa and Brazil top 20% of population take away more 60% of national income.

vi. But we expect democracy not to lag behind dictatorship in this respect. Therefore it is better to prefer democracy as it has several other positive outcomes.

Factors on which economic growth is dependent

i.            population

ii.            size,

iii.            global situation,

iv.            endowments

It can conclude that democracy is not a guarantee of economic development.

8.   REDUCTION OF INEQUALITY AND POVERTY

Expectations

i.            To reduce economic disparities

ii.            Equitable distribution of wealth

iii.             Justice in distribution of goods and opportunities

Actual record

i.            Democracies ensure political equality but fall short on economic front

ii.            a small number of ultra-rich enjoy highly disproportionate share of wealth and incomes

iii.             most resources and wealth is owned by handful of rich population

iv.             Gap between rich and poor in terms of income distribution is widening

v.            major proportion of population is not able to meet their basic needs

vi.             the poor constitute a large proportion of our voters and no party likes to lose their votes

To conclude

i.            Democratically elected governments do not appear to be as keen to address the question of poverty as you would expect them to.

ii.             Example in Bangladesh, more than half of its population lives in poverty

Question

“Democracy has failed to reduce inequality and poverty” Examine.

9 .  Accommodation of social diversity

Expectations

a )   Democracy should produce a harmonious social life.

b)      Accommodate all differences and divisions in society

c)      It should have mechanisms to resolve conflicts peacefully

Actual record

i.            No society can permanently resolve conflicts among different groups

ii .      We can evolve mechanisms to negotiate the differences.

iii. Democracy has the Ability to handle social differences, division and conflicts.

iv. Non-democratic regimes often turn a blind eye to or suppress internal social differences.

v . But we also need to learn from what happened in Sri Lanka

10.  Majority minority significance in a democratic society

i. Democracy is not just rule by majority opinion but the majority always needs to work with the minority so that government functions to represent a general view.

ii. It is necessary that rule by majority does not become rule by majority community in terms of religion or race or linguistic group etc.

iii. Rule by majority means that in case of every decision or in case of every election, different persons and groups can and may form majority.

iv. It is important that every citizen has a chance of being in majority at some point of time.

iv.                 If someone is barred from doing so then democracy ceases to be accommodative.

11 . Dignity and freedom of the citizens

Expectation

a)      Every individual wants to receive respect from fellow beings

b)      Should promote dignity and freedom amongst its citizens

Actual record

i.            It seen that worldwide democracies have recognized and adopted this feature at least in principle

ii.             Dignity of women- after long struggles, equal treatment to women has become a key ingredient in democratic societies

iii.             Once the principle is recognized it becomes easier to make morally and legally acceptable.

iv.            Unlike in non-democracies where moral and legal force is not present, many non-democratic governments do not equal status to women and men.

v.             Case of caste inequalities- India has strengthened the claims of the disadvantaged and discriminated

castes for equal status and equal opportunity.

· Example – India claims to provide equal status and opportunity to discriminated groups

12. DISTINCTIVE FEATURE OF DEMOCRACY

i. Its examination never gets over; as it passes one test it produces another test

ii  .  as people get one benefit they ask for another and better one

iii   . people will come up with more expectations, and many complaints

iv  . The fact people are complaining is itself a testimony (evidence) that people have developed awareness and ability to expect and judge.

v .  This transforms them from a status of 'subject' to that of a 'citizen'.

vi  . Most feel that their vote makes a difference to the way government is run and in turn to their own self-interest.

Question

`Most distinctive feature of democracy is that its examination never gets over. ‘Support the statements with three appropriate arguments