Democracy - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

History

(translated and adapted part of anglophone Wikipédia)

Antiquity

The Western design of the democracy takes its principal roots in the committed reforms around the city of Athens in ancient Greece around the 6th century before JC. Although the Athenian Démocratie is today regarded as having been a form of direct democracy , it made coincide two political organizations very different:

on a side, formation of a Ball (equivalent of a council or a Senate) gathering approximately 500 citizens, charged to collect the private bills presented by the citizens, then to prepare the bills;
in addition, the assembly of the citizens (Ecclesia), typical example of the direct democracy.

All the Athenian citizens had the right to speak and to vote in Ecclesia, where the laws of the city were voted, but no political right nor citizenship was granted to the women, to the slaves, to the Métèques: of the 250.000 inhabitants of Athens, only approximately 40.000 were citizens and, on these 40.000, all the rich men (all citizens of the first and second classes, approximately 5.000) and the majority of the thètes (citizens of the fourth class, approximately 21.000) took part in the meetings of the ecclesia. Only the citizens of the second class often sent another person to the meetings. If a citizen did not come to the meetings from the ecclesia or did not send anybody, he saw himself receiving a fine.

One of the most recent traces of democratic civilization, although considered by some as an oligarchy, was found in the Republics of India, from which some were founded before the 6th century and the birth of the Buddha Gautama. These Republics were known under the name of Maha Janapandas and, among all, Vaishali (the current state of the Bihar) would be the first democracy of the History. The democratic systems Sangha, Gana and Panchayat were of use in some of these Republics. The system Panchayat is always in force in certain Indian villages. Later, at the time of Alexandre the Large one (4th century), the Greeks wrote about the States of Sabarcae and Sambastai (current Pakistan and Afghanistan) that " their democratic shapes of government and not monarchiques" , according to the Greek standards of the time.

The Roman Republic organized elections but, there still, the women, the slaves and a broad part of the foreign population were excluded from it. The vote of the rich person had more weight and the majority of the high positions were allotted to some noble families.

Devices in democratic matter were also distinguished in certain tribes from the Confederation from Iroquois. Only the men of certain clans could be named chiefs and certain clans were excluded, only the oldest women of the same clan could express themselves to choose or revoke the chief of this clan, which excluded a major part of the population from Iroquois. An interesting detail is that no decision was made without obtaining a consensus among the chiefs.

Certain reduced tribal companies (between 20 and 50 people), like the Australian bushmen , did not have a chief and made decisions by consensus within the majority.

The Middle Ages

With the Middle Ages, there were many systems based on the elections and/or a Parliament, like the election of the Gopola in Bengal, the Lituano-Polish Community, the Icelandic Althing , the Veche in the Slavic countries, the Scandinavian Things , and the autonomous commercial city of Sakai in Japan (16th century). For as much, the participation being often limited to a minority in these systems, they could just as easily be qualified oligarchies. The large majority of the areas in the world of the Middle Ages was controlled by a clergy or a seigniory, according to a feudal system.

The English Parliament was born from the restrictions of the royal capacity installation in Magna Carta. The first elected Parliament was the Parliament of Montfort in England in 1265. There still only a small minority had a voice: the Parliament was elected by a few percent of the population (less than 3% in 1780), and the system presented problematic provisions, such as the corrupted municipalities. The convocation of the Parliament was let with goodwill of the king or the queen (generally when that or this one needed money). After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the Bill off Rights English , act in 1689, codified certain rights and increased the influence of the Parliament. The electorate increased slowly and the Parliament seized more and more power until Monarchy becomes a simple figurehead.

Many areas at the borders of the great States had preserved a democratic operation. Between France and Spain there was thus what one named the Pyrenean Républiques.

Although they were not described like a democracy by the Founding fathers, the United States of America are regarded as the first liberal democracy, insofar as constitutional engagement (1788) were based on the natural principles of freedom and equality and especially in opposition to the modes Aristocratique S.

In France, the National Assembly resulting from the Revolution of 1789 was established on the basis of democratic principle, declined in the Declaration of the human rights and the citizen and in reaction to excesses of the Absolute monarchy of the Old Mode.

Principle

The rules or the principles which govern the modes of consultation of the populations are the elements key which characterize any democracy. “The democracy it is the government of the people by the people and for the people. ” (Périclès, taken again by Abraham Lincoln). This definition has two direct consequences:

in the democratic gasoline, the representatives of people come from this one, which basically opposes the democracy to any system of the aristocratic type, where the government is the fact of a elite ;
the government must be for the people and thus work in the direction of the general interest , in opposition to decisions taken for private interests or " in the superior interest of État". A democratic decision can thus not be not popular as long as it aims indeed and objectively to the interest of all; a contrario, a decision taken by a government or a State to guarantee its own stability can not be of democratic gasoline (what does not want to say that it is bad) if it does not concern the people.

Often used to describe the form of government of a country , the term of democracy can qualify the operation of any body or social organization: human society, deprived public agency or, associations, company, family, etc In each case, the concept of people must be included/understood like the whole of the members of the social organization.

In a democracy the whole of the Citoyen S (term often treated with a culprit ambiguity, Critical cf of the democracy) holds the to be able sovereign and expresses its will by the Vote, according to the principle “ a Man, a voice ”; this principle can be regarded as the principal theoretical base besides of the democracy. (There exist unvoiced comments: if the word " homme" in its general direction including the women it is included/understood today was not the case in the beginning, the necessary minimum age remains last under silence…).

There does not exist however official criterion internationally recognized to state that is a democracy or what it is not. The countries of the Eastern bloc were said before 1989, for example popular democracies . The China says democratic . The European modes, which practiced the Colonisation, were regarded as democracies, just as the United States which practiced slavery then the segregation. And all the countries have bodies (like the secret services, even of the " officines" without legal existence) from which operation escapes any control Parlement surface.

For lack of an official homologation established by an independent organism (for example UNO) and reliable, one can discuss without end on the fact of knowing if a country “is” a democracy or not. One could however agree to consider that a " véritable" democracy respects the following criteria:

real Equality and concretes of all the citizens in front of the choices of company. In the largely widespread case of a Representative democracy, where the people delegate his sovereign power to representatives, that implies that the aforementioned representatives can be selected by the means of free elections or by any other equitable system, for example the drawing lot (cf Stochocratie);
Guaranteed effective of the Fundamental freedoms, in particular: freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, right to meet and association, Freedom of the press, absence of arbitrary arrests, etc;
Existence of a legal system based on laws, freely established by the people or his representatives, and respected by the government and its managed;

In addition to these elements, other similar criteria are confusedly associated with the concept of democracy: Multi-party system, respect, equality in front of the law, property right, freedom of worship, refusal of the corruption of the civils servant and the elected officials, attenuation of the variations of richness by the tax (often named civil laws).

These principles recognized like necessary in the contemporary Occidental culture , are considered

by the ones, like universal;
by others, like specific to this culture and thus deprived of universality, debatable, even (with the great indignation of the first) like fallacious tools of cultural Impérialisme on behalf of the Occident.

In this quarrel, elements of nonWestern culture but taking again the same principles take an particular importance, thus for example that the universal declaration which made consensus with UNO.

The democracy is a political horizon , an ideal (in a strict sense of the term) towards which tighten methods of government. In the facts, no political system is completely democratic because such a type of government would suppose total and transparent information, a level of education and/or homogeneous instruction in the population citizen, the constitutional prevention of any abuse of power even of any risk of concentration of the capacities…

It is noted however that any democracy is formed around 3 principles:

Debate: free exchange between people in order to make decisions,
Institution: to allow the debate and to implement the decisions,
Justice: so that the application of the decisions is done with the most possible Justice.

Thus a state which has an effective Parliament and a government which applies the decisions with measurement are a democracy.

Accounting of the democracies

In a report/ratio which makes authority on the matter, Guerre and peace with the 21e century , Human Security Center, in 2005, operated a neutral classification between the modes (with an aim of showing the relationship between human safety and democracy, inter alia). They determine three categories of modes:

democracies;
anocraties (modes of transition or to the unstable institutions);
authoritarian regimes.

To define the democracies, as all the modes have different criteria (so, most of the time, asserting itself as a democracy), they retain a beam of indices establishing a " polity score" , which translates the quality of the institutions and the political processes. It is in particular:

the way in which the executive is recruited (election, nomination, hereditary capacity, freedom of the voters…) ;
average of control on the action of the executive (other capacities: legislature and legal…);
the way in which is treated political competition (opposition of the political parties, countervailing powers as the press or the public opinion…).

According to these calculations, in 2005, there were 88 democracies in the world (countries lower than a half million inhabitants not being entered), knowing that UNO recognizes 195 States today. That is a Net progress with respect to 1946, where there were only 20 of them. This progress is due in particular at the end of the Cold war (democratization of the countries of Eastern Europe) and to the democratization of the South American continent since the end of the year 1980.

Representativeness

a degree of democracy is measured: while considering in particular which is excluded from it.
a democracy evolves/moves in time: thus France of 1938 was a democracy, but the women could not vote. In 1944 the women could vote, but not the inhabitants of the colonies. In 1958 certain inhabitants of the colonies could vote, but not Moslem French of Algeria. Maintaining any person of French nationality can vote, but not the foreigners living in France (except for the nationals of the European Union for the European and municipal elections).

Polymorphism of the democracy

There are certainly as many forms of democracy than social organizations who want to be to be democratic. The idea even of “democracy” is perhaps in this polymorphism.

The democracy étasunienne, often taxed with “dictatorship of the majority”, is also the possibility for an ordinary citizen of facing the State in justice. The cinema returned celebrates Mr Smith (played by James Stewart in Mr. Smith with the Senate or in original version Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ) to plead with the Senate.

“The imperfection pushes with progress”, said Flaminio Bertoni. The Constitution of the United States is made of a succession of improvements in lawsuits in justice by citizens or groups of citizens against the government. Such is the " Case Korematsu " for the injustice towards a category of citizen.

Implications

This mode implies:

principle of Freedom, like that of expression, of thought, of gathering, of religion, etc (even if it is regulated),
the principle of equality, in particular political equality of the citizens, but this mode functions better when its citizens, by the means of the instruction, also acquire basic knowledge necessary to the achievement of their civic duties (social equality).

These two principles cannot in no case to be excluded one the other, it is necessary that they are both present. But the democracies can stress more on one or the other.

For example, during the Cold war,

the block of the West stressed freedom;
the Eastern bloc stressed the equality.

Each of the two blocks denied with the other the character of democracy. Thus, for the United States, the USSR did not respect any the most fundamental freedoms (press, opinion, religion…) and for the USSR, the United States did not found any equality between its citizens (apartheid until in the years 1960; feminist movements in same time also).

Political equality

However, even when this principle in theory recognized and is defended, it is only seldom applied, because its use would be for certain

not very effective: even if it were technically and economically possible to consult whole Belgium to know if such city must or not rebuild a swimming pool, there is little chance that the national interest gains something there.
for the minorities.

The equality can be also measured with the importance which the object of the political decision has really for the voters.

To solve this problem by preserving the principle “a person = a voice”, the solution generally employed is to carry out a geographical cutting, and an estimate of the relevant level:

thus the annexations or independences will be subjected to double vote, total and reduced to the inhabitants of the territory concerned;
thus the inhabitants of a city will vote as regards “municipal”;
etc

For the sensitive topics, (very recently in France: GMO, homosexual marriage, CPE, establishment of a factory of incineration, an airport, etc), there are often conflicts of competence, each one wishing to protect its personal interests before those from the others. These problems take time to be solved, and undergo sometimes power struggles and of inequality on behalf of a party not making a point of respecting the choice of the others.

More serious, even if theoretically “a person = a voice”, in practice and finally a decision is taken, and the minority must undergo the choice of the majority, with the contempt of the posted principle. But it is also the case for the other existing political systems and the solution is to tolerate the decision of the others vis-a-vis his.

Is it possible to ensure a political equality? It is necessary that each one engages itself in each subject with proportion of the importance that it grants to him, neither more nor less. And it is necessary that it does not impose on the other its decision, but that he negotiates with him, by granting a compensation to him: it is the Dutch model said model of the polders.

The democracy is a system which requires of each one to be open and to discuss its arguments with its opponents to conclude on an equitable solution for the two “camps”.

Duties

The democratic system implies also two duties :

to express its opinion, or to get information if one misses elements to have one of them;
to respect the expression of the other opinions (what by no means obliges to respect these opinions themselves).

These are fundamental rules, that summarizes the sentence apocryphal book of Voltaire: “I am not agreement with what you said, but I will fight so that you can say it”.

The democracy cannot thus be conceived like simple Dictature of the majority and, excludes consequently any idea from suppression of an even minority party , except in the very specific case where this one preaches explicitly the recourse to the Violence and with undemocratic actions. Even in this case, the Communist party which preached before Georges Marchais a theoretical goal of inversion of the institutions and dictatorship of the proletariat was never formally worried, and renonça in the final analysis of itself with these objectives of not very democratic appearance.

Any political system is a system of being able which comprises Exclusion S and Différenciation S; the democracy is thus not necessarily absolute…

A democracy as the Athenian Démocratie had a restricted notion of the citizenship, excluding the voices from the women and the slaves.

a democratic system does not claim to guarantee that the choices carried out will be the best for the future of the citizens (no system, to tell the truth, claims it). It should on the other hand ensure that the decisions are made with the agreement or the approval of a majority

In the case of a representative system, the democratic principle should guarantee that no one will not be called with the capacity without to have made the effort convince the population of the cogency of its program, and there be partly parvenu. This consideration one of criticisms is also addressed to the elective democratic systems because the borders between conviction, persuasion, demagogy and… the pure one and simple fraud are not always clear.

Criticisms of the democracy

The democracy is a primarily Western design of the political ideal. She is not universally regarded as a desirable Utopia. Among the critics who are addressed to him, one can quote:

the risk always present of a blind and changeable dictatorship of the majority, which can be, on certain subjects, a whole of wills, motivations and opinions particularly heteroclite and moving;
no reasoning valid can result in affirming that the majority is right necessarily: a democratic decision is not inevitably a good decision for the future of a company; this report founds for some the difference between democracy and République;
in a company which tends to individualism, the sum of the private interests necessarily does not tend towards the general interest;
the statute of Citoyen is too often granted only to contrary conditions with the principles founders of the democracy. Any member of the city should be citizen of right, but concretely a segregation is established in the majority of the " démocraties" on criteria of Birth and/or nationality, Fortune, Capacity supposed, Sex, Race, etc
more largely, no company " démocratique" was not sufficiently for tightening it with the universal one: many a " démocraties" put up themselves with the Esclavage, of the Cens, the Colonisation, the segregation and the Apartheid, which lets think that a social group never thinks it although in its own interest and with the detriment of the others; this criticism, which one can estimate, in oneself, unfounded as for the principle even of democracy, however recurring and is generally evoked to disqualify the " openings démocratiques" impelled or imposed " extérieur" ;
democratic rhetoric is sometimes employed like spearhead or Trojan horse of the universalization, favorable to the the United States, in the direction where an democratic society is by liberal definition on the economic plan, and thus opened with the economic universalization wanted by this country. The classification carried out by the United States or its allies among the Western countries would be established according to this rule; this discrimination would be established while considering, in a nonequitable way, like nondemocratic of the countries anti-American however democratized partially de facto (Russia for example), and of partially democratic of the countries pro-American however far from respectful of the Human rights or freedom of the press (Saudi Arabia for example). The democratization wanted by the Occident for certain areas of the world would not be as well as a weapon intended to keep the economic and political capacity on the powers in (D) emergence (China, Russia,…).
in the representative democracies, the principle even of the election encourages with the Démagogie and distorts the democratic game while giving a considerable capacity to the media of mass;
a pure democracy can lead, on subjects however crucial, with indecision and the inaction by absence of consensus or more simply absence of majority;
concrete conditions (cf higher) of a completely democratic system never not being able to be joined together, supposedly " Démocratie" would be a lure where the most beautiful rhetor (or more the manipulator) would carry popular adhesion, whatever the relevance of its proposals - this report led Voltaire to call upon a enlightened despotism more readily .
a strict compliance with the democratic rules can bring to the victory with the elections and the capacity of nondemocratic parties (example of the victory of NSDAP in Germany in 1933, victory of the MADE in Algeria in 1991, or threatens of the islamist parties in Turkey). The army has in these two cases been used as defender of the democratic system.
“the best criticism of the democracy is a five minutes maintenance with an average voter” (W. Churchill), to see the quotations.

Typology of the democracies

Two forms of democracies traditionally are opposed: the direct democracy and the representative democracy. There exist however mixed modes.

Direct democracy

In the Direct democracy, the capacity is exerted directly by the citizens, who are assembled and establish the laws.

See the article on the Direct democracy

Representative democracy

In the Representative democracy, intermediaries are necessary. The citizens elect representatives whom they charge with establishing the laws.

See the article on the Representative democracy

Analog and digital systems

Semi-direct democracy

The semi-direct democracies borrow from the two forms of democracies.

The citizens elect representatives whom they charge with establishing the laws, but the citizens can also have to make laws by referendum (or to refuse them).

It is the case, for example, in France or Switzerland; more in Switzerland, where the referendum is the standard, which in France, where the referendum remains exceptional.

Article 3 of the Constitution of October 4th, 1958 (France): national sovereignty belongs to the people which exerts it by his representatives representative or by the way of the referendum direct.

The referendum can take several forms: it can be a question of a legislative referendum or component (which are the two most used forms). The initiative of the referendum belongs then to the representative institutions. In certain cases, however, there exists also a popular referendum of Initiative, which is the case in Suisse or Italy for example. As its name indicates it, the initiative belongs to the citizens then.

In France, since the constitutional revision of March 28th, 2003, even if this popular initiative still does not exist formally, it is possible to distinguish it through the articulation from two articles from the Constitution. It would then be a question for the citizens of making use of their right of petition (article 72-1 subparagraph 1), then to vote on this local reform through the local referendum (article 72-1 subparagraph 2). It is thus not excluded " that the petition has the aim of requiring the inscription of the day order of the assembly deliberating on the question of the organization of a consultation of the électeurs" on a concerning precise subject the competence of a territorial collectivity.

Nevertheless, it should be noticed that the right of petition was very framed (in particular by the mayors refusing the dedication of the right to take initiatives local, which would have encroached on their functions).

Participative democracy

In the Participative democracy, the citizens are associated with the decisions taken by the representatives, as of the development and until their application. Various means are then used for that.

See the article on the Participative democracy

Abusive confusions and extensions

The relationship between democracy and République maintains sharp intellectual debates. According to some, there is no automatic or consubstantial bond between the two insofar as:

the democracy characterizes the principles of operation of a social group
the Republic characterizes as for it the constitution or the principles founders of a State-Nation, generally in opposition to a Monarchie or with a Empire.

A Republic can be of democratic inspiration (it is even often the case) but it is not a question of a necessary condition . In the same manner, any democracy is not obligatorily a Republic (see the United Kingdom).

The concepts listed below use the term democracy but, in their conventional use, even pervert some denature the direction basically:

People's democracy
democracy of opinion (recourse to the investigations and surveys to direct the policy options)

Quotations

Χρωμεθα γαρ πολιτεια… και ονομα μεν δια το μη εσ ολιγουσ αλλ' εσ πλειονασ οικειν δημοκρατια κεκληται.

(“Our political regime… has as a name democracy because, in the administration, the things depend not on the small number but on the majority. ”)

- Périclès, speech brought back by Thucydide -

I look like irreligious person and hateful this maxim, that as regards government the majority of people has the right to do everything, and yet I place in the wills of the majority the origin of all the capacities (…). At the time thus that I see granting the right and faculty to do everything with an unspecified power, that one calls people or king, democracy or aristocracy, that one exerts it in a monarchy or a republic, I say: there is the germ of tyranny, and I seek to go to live under other laws. What I reproach more the democratic government, such as one it organized in the United States, it is not, as much of people claim it in Europe, its weakness, but on the contrary its irresistible force.

- Alexis de Tocqueville, Of the democracy in America -

the love of the democracy is that of the equality.

- Montesquieu -

Democracy is the worst form off government, except for all those other forms (“the democracy is worst modes, except for all the others”).
The best argument against democracy has five-minute conversation with the average to vote (“the best criticism of the democracy is a five minutes maintenance with an average voter”).

- Winston Churchill -

the democracy claims God's people! or If there were God's people, it would be controlled democratically. A so perfect government does not agree with men.

- JJ Rousseau -

According to any probability, no other mode can give rise to tyranny that the democracy; extreme freedom is born the most complete constraint and most terrible.

- Plato, the Republic -

the people, by an absolutely inevitable consequence, will seize, one day or the other, of all the capacities which one recognized that the principle was in him. Will this be to keep it? Not. After a few days of madness, it will throw them, by lassitude, with the first soldier of fortune which will be on its way.

- Maurice Jolly, Dialog with the hells between Machiavel and Montesquieu -

I always thought that the democracy known as representative is not a true democracy. To say: somebody will represent to me during five years in an irrevocable way, that amounts saying that I undress myself of my Souveraineté as people.

- Cornelius Castoriadis -

If an educated man, at the end thirty years of work, manages to determine the perfect social system and that the comprehension of this one takes several months men as educated as him, I wish him pleasure well to be able to make it ratify by a vote of the people!

- Ernest Renan -

To give up the fight for socialism, it is to give up at the same time the labor movement and the democracy itself

- Rosa Luxemburg -

What attracts towards this confused future, intellectuals, middle-class man, employees, unemployed, it is that they feel in the party which promises it to them, a force. This force bursts everywhere, in the processions in uniform, the attacks, the aircraft used for propaganda; and all these weak goes towards this force like flies towards the flame.

- Message in connection with the mode hitlérien, written by Simone Weil returning of a voyage to Germany, in the review the émancipée school on December 18th, 1932 -

the dictatorship imposes on its protestors silence. The democracy is satisfied to tell them " Always cause! "

- unknown Author. Begun again in close forms by various chansonniers, then whimsical - Michel Audiard had made an alternative: " The dictatorship it is " firm your mouth! " , the democracy it is " always cause! ".

the democracy, it is the capacity given to the lice to eat the lions.

- Georges Clémenceau -

the democracy it is not: " 5 minutes for the Jews and 5 minutes for the nazis" ; the democracy it is: " the Nazis are transfered, and after one can discuter".

- Jean-Luc Godard -

Sources

See too

Internal bonds

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