Democracy Essay Example

In the recent past, two major events captured my concern, one of which is the Turkish Gezi Park protests and the other the Hong Kong protests. After being exposed to Political Science at college for some time, I have a distinct opinion about these issues. I have got a few unanswered questions after reading 3 articles from the New Yorker and CNN, which I have listed at the end of this article.
Today, many countries around the world follow different versions of democracy to ideally suit their requirements. The question here is does democracy, even in its flexible forms, suit all cultures? Honestly, I don’t believe a true democracy ever existed in this world. Even the world-renowned advocate of democracy, the United States, is indeed a republican country against the popular belief that it is democratic. Winston Churchill was absolutely right when he made the statement, “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Before understanding the meaning of this statement, we have to understand what democracy means. In different time periods, people had different interpretations for the word democracy. In 350 BC, the comprehension of democracy of Aristotle was to rule by many in the interests of the citizens. But surly, today we have a different perspective of the word democracy. Did Churchill have a different definition for democracy from the perspectives of people of today? I don’t think so. In my understanding, Churchill meant that every ideology was only a dream. If a system of government does not improve and continues to stay in the basic form when it was constituted, it would be the worst form of government. Therefore, did Churchill mean mixed government was the best form of government? Hence, countries must frame right policies that are suitable for the people and culture.
Today, we have many countries in which regions develop and experience a particular form of democracy, and we observe that some countries have just started whereas some have run for a quite long period of time such as Turkey and Hong Kong. All the countries have issues with respect to their systems and policies. Even successful democracies do continue to face challenges and obstacles. After facing severe problems to continue with the democratic form of government, some scholars make comments on the failure of reforms, explaining that their government and the environment are not totally democratic. It is a fallacy because of two main reasons. Firstly, democracy and other forms of government are not suitable for every culture or country. Secondly, democracy does not completely exist in any country in the world. Nevertheless, democracy is the best choice of government because it provides better governance due to transparency, whereby legal restrictions and investigations are initiated upon the executives, particularly binding them to moral liabilities. For example, democracy allows the judiciaries, media, and the parliament to oversee the executives on the ways or usage of people’s money and other monetary resources. Democracy thus involves better governance by restricting the executives to ensure moral behaviors in performing their duties, thereby eliminating their illegal actions. Democracy supports transparency that further grants authority and power to different institutions to investigate the backgrounds of unethical dealings and immoral involvement of authorities that are hidden from the public eyes.
There are several problems and flaws in a democratic form of government that create obstacles in the economic development, policy making, political decisions, and national planning, particularly due to the people’s interference and opinions turning into negative comments and legal criticisms. Several nations and their states are still uncertain in adopting democracy as a leading form of government thus failing to give the people their due rights of affluence and freedom. Even the U.S. cannot claim itself as a democratic nation despite having a higher GDP, best college education, dominating a quarter of the world’s purchasing power and ideal goals for its nationals mainly because of the concerns for its citizens’ equality and rights. In fact, the nations of Turkey and Hong Kong that are experiencing a true democratic regime still face issues in their systems and policies, thereby determining democracy as the worst form of government for them in some way or other.

The New Yorker-

China’s Hong Kong Mistake
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/hong-kong-election-crisis

Beijing-style Democracy

http://www.newyorker.com/news/evan-osnos/beijing-style-democracy