Essay about Democracy
Speaking about equality and modernism it must be mentioned one more important concept as democracy as it is based on those two previous concepts. Thus “Green Book”, written by Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddaf depicts such an idea that mass participation of people in the political government guarantees the successful development of the society at the heart of justice, freedom and equality. But it must be underlined that the concept democracy itself is historically determined.
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It is possible to speak about originality of democracy understanding in the ancient Greek policies, in medieval cities or in the days of French bourgeois revolution and the USA acquisition of the national independence in the XVIII century. But in our century the most actual is correlation of democracy as the scientific category with socio-political tendencies, peculiar for our century.
Examining democracy as an ideal, a theoretical model, it is possible to speak about the mechanism of democracy display, correlation of majority’s and minority’s will, priority of the collective (Rousseau) or individual beginning (Hobbes) in the principles of public self-government. The role of antipode of democracy is given the state. The example of such a model of democracy is presented in A. Lincoln’s pronouncement: “the people’s constitution, the people’s government; made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people” “power of people, power for people, power by means of people”.
The competitive beginning, fight between groups in distributing of material and social welfares, role statuses in the society, in the spheres of power prevail at the rationally-procedural approach. The main attention is concentrated on making a decision by a dominant group. In that way there is alienation of electorate from the direct participating in power. The prevailing form of democracy is representative democracy. State, higher political power play the role of an arbiter, regulating activity of those groups. The role of executive power increases notably.
If to appeal to the normatively-empiric model, here legal norms, constitutional principles come forward on the first plan, within the frameworks of which, a population chooses one or another alternative of community development, or, using the words of Joseph Alois Schumpeter, there is a principle of the «structurally - organized competition». The constitutional principle Priority becomes the priority one. There is combination of representative and plebiscite forms of democracy, the equilibrium of legislative and executive authorities is also provided.
In the light of the adopted triad it is possible to examine the numerous theories of democracy: elite, pluralistic, liberal, collectivistic and many others. Here are the most general approaches to the essence of democracy.
Examining democracy as the power of people, it is necessary to comprehend a concept «people» itself. It is possible to interpret it in a demographic (population), ethnopolitical (ethnos, nation) and in civil-political aspect. In this case people equate with a civil-state union, the component parts of which to a different extend participate in the public state life. Consciousness of state unity, will to the political solidarity, high civil sense of justice are peculiar to this part of society. That part of the society, which has no general interest and sense of civil solidarity and aspires only to satisfaction of the narrowly-private, mercenary interests, is named a rabble.
In this connection it is competently to define the universal values of democracy, its inalienable properties. So, reading the works by Plato and Aristotle we meet such generally valid criteria as civil equality of rights, equality before a law and equality in rights for legislative initiative. Ambiguous interpretation of these values is given in modern researches, because, as it seems to us, mixing of criteria of approach to the bases of democracy essence and mechanism of its realization. If to make an effort to generalize the valued bases of democracy, it is necessary to select at first the table of contents of democracy ( equality of rights, freedom, political and ideological pluralism, humanism, social order), secondly, functional intercommunication of the state with people (constitutionalism, co-operation of power and people, electiveness and under-control of authorities, participating of people in the management, freedom of civil associations, openness and publicity of information freedom), thirdly, principles of realization of democracy (competence and responsibility in making a decision, consensus in permission of conflicts, priority of collective will, equilibrium of civil and national interests).
__________________________________________________________Examining democracy as an ideal, a theoretical model, it is possible to speak about the mechanism of democracy display, correlation of majority’s and minority’s will, priority of the collective (Rousseau) or individual beginning (Hobbes) in the principles of public self-government. The role of antipode of democracy is given the state. The example of such a model of democracy is presented in A. Lincoln’s pronouncement: “the people’s constitution, the people’s government; made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people” “power of people, power for people, power by means of people”.
The competitive beginning, fight between groups in distributing of material and social welfares, role statuses in the society, in the spheres of power prevail at the rationally-procedural approach. The main attention is concentrated on making a decision by a dominant group. In that way there is alienation of electorate from the direct participating in power. The prevailing form of democracy is representative democracy. State, higher political power play the role of an arbiter, regulating activity of those groups. The role of executive power increases notably.
If to appeal to the normatively-empiric model, here legal norms, constitutional principles come forward on the first plan, within the frameworks of which, a population chooses one or another alternative of community development, or, using the words of Joseph Alois Schumpeter, there is a principle of the «structurally - organized competition». The constitutional principle Priority becomes the priority one. There is combination of representative and plebiscite forms of democracy, the equilibrium of legislative and executive authorities is also provided.
In the light of the adopted triad it is possible to examine the numerous theories of democracy: elite, pluralistic, liberal, collectivistic and many others. Here are the most general approaches to the essence of democracy.
Examining democracy as the power of people, it is necessary to comprehend a concept «people» itself. It is possible to interpret it in a demographic (population), ethnopolitical (ethnos, nation) and in civil-political aspect. In this case people equate with a civil-state union, the component parts of which to a different extend participate in the public state life. Consciousness of state unity, will to the political solidarity, high civil sense of justice are peculiar to this part of society. That part of the society, which has no general interest and sense of civil solidarity and aspires only to satisfaction of the narrowly-private, mercenary interests, is named a rabble.
In this connection it is competently to define the universal values of democracy, its inalienable properties. So, reading the works by Plato and Aristotle we meet such generally valid criteria as civil equality of rights, equality before a law and equality in rights for legislative initiative. Ambiguous interpretation of these values is given in modern researches, because, as it seems to us, mixing of criteria of approach to the bases of democracy essence and mechanism of its realization. If to make an effort to generalize the valued bases of democracy, it is necessary to select at first the table of contents of democracy ( equality of rights, freedom, political and ideological pluralism, humanism, social order), secondly, functional intercommunication of the state with people (constitutionalism, co-operation of power and people, electiveness and under-control of authorities, participating of people in the management, freedom of civil associations, openness and publicity of information freedom), thirdly, principles of realization of democracy (competence and responsibility in making a decision, consensus in permission of conflicts, priority of collective will, equilibrium of civil and national interests).
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If you need a custom essay, dissertation, thesis, term paper or research paper on your topic, EffectivePapers.com will write your papers from scratch. We work with experienced PhD and Master's freelance writers to help you with writing any academic papers in any subject! We guarantee each customer great quality and no plagiarism!
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