September 28, 2018
Amidst ongoing debate on the
crisis of democracy, it becomes pertinent to pose a question: what
differentiates a good democracy from the rest of the political systems? All
democracies have not attained the same level of maturity and hence there would
be multiple answers. Nevertheless, some of the essential features that
differentiate advanced democracies from the evolving ones are the security of
physical and social spaces and supportive or helpful approach of the
functionaries of the state. In a democracy, people enjoy a higher degree of
sense of psychological security that the state would treat them fairly and
justly. Ironically, this trust has not gained much ground in most of the
democracies in the developing world or at best this has been inconsistent.
Another aspect of an
advanced or good democracy is the higher degree of trust enjoyed by elected
representatives and un-elected state functionaries that they would act fairly,
with integrity and to the best of their capability to protect all legitimate
interests of the people as a whole or society or state. It’s a different matter
that such trust quotient has started declining even in some of the most
established democracies, which is a key challenge today. Authoritarian systems, despite providing
certain efficient public services fail to offer this sense of security to their
people that a) the State would act with fairness; b) the due process of law would be observed;
c) their dignity, life and liberty are secure; and d) they can vent their
criticism of functionaries of the state or express their views on any political
issue. Today, many of these aspects are getting increasingly compromised subtly
even in some of the advanced democracies and missing in varying degrees in most
of the democracies in the developing world. If such a trend continues, there is
a serious possibility that we could soon come to a stage where the difference
between democracy and non-democracy could be reduced only in degree but not in
substance.
Different watchdogs and
similar institutions in different parts of the world, committed to the idea of
upholding, promoting and building democracy, have been measuring and evaluating
the quality of democracy and freedom in different parts of the world based on
well-devised criteria. Many of these are fairly good indicators of prevailing
levels of freedom and democracy in the societies they have surveyed. However,
if the challenge is building high-quality democracy or enhancing capacities of
democracies to provide optimal quality of governance, such evaluations or
measurement of democracies offer very limited perspective. Basic freedom and
rights of individuals and a high degree of media freedom, administered by an
independent judiciary, are critical but not adequate or strong enough in
themselves to sustain democracy. Democracy requires building such conditions
and institutions which can thrive and evolve on their own to provide optimal
conditions of life by mobilizing the collective energies of people. Optimal
conditions of life include round security - including personal, economic,
social and collective, apart from the dignity and equitable access to
opportunities.
Hence, Democracy, at its
most advanced stage of evolution, implies not merely selection of their
representatives through popular choice but also a right to select the most
suitable incumbents who can work without fear or hindrance in the collective
interests of the entire citizenry. The spirit and objectives of democracy get
defeated if people cannot select optimally good candidates who in turn are not
able to create optimally good institutions.
Further, democratic
political processes are expected to throw up wise men and women with integrity
and commitment to represent people to optimise overall governance capacity of
their society. Societies that have moved in this direction are certainly doing
better than the rest. Political leadership requires not merely capacity,
skills, and commitment to building institutions, but also broader acceptability
and credibility to lead. In fragmented societies, where people divided based on
their identities - ethnic, linguistic, religious or social etc- probably it
will be nearly impossible to have broadly acceptable leaders. If the objective
of democracy is to provide optimum choices to people to select the best
possible government, the very mobilisation of opinion in politics on these
lines strikes at the roots of democracy, undermining their overall governance
output. Hence, the threat to democracy from populism is something that can
potentially destroy institutions and create space for another form fascism or
totalitarianism.
Further, any society can
grow and evolve optimally only to the extent that they synergise individual
liberty, freedom and initiative with larger social or group interests. This has
been one of the key strengths of democracy that drove societies in the
developed Western countries to higher levels of economic, educational and
scientific advancements. Authoritarian systems suppress individual liberties of
an overwhelming majority of the people for the so-called larger social or
collective interests, democracies trust individuals to exercise their freedom
in a manner that contributes to larger social interests while preserving their
interests.
In the contemporary era, human sensibilities
disapprove of the idea of tyranny of the majority over the minority or
vice-versa. Hence, democracy is expected to envision the larger interests of
people as indivisible for purposes of governance. If multiple groups start
vying for promoting their respective identity and interests at the cost of
others, democracy may appear a war among contending groups through non-violent
means. In reality, it is difficult to define peoples’ interests in indivisible
terms, especially in larger heterogeneous societies. Issues like rule of law,
good criminal justice system and good regulatory and enabling capacity of
states in certain basic areas like healthcare, education, civic services etc
are something that cuts across requirements of people across all dividing
lines. Beyond these, people in different categories are indeed different and
equity warrants that they are treated accordingly.
Most contemporary
democracies, from developed to developing world, do extend special support to
identified vulnerable groups varying from economically and physically
challenged to other special groups like the aboriginal or tribal population to
socially vulnerable groups. However, the extension of privileges or special
status based on religious, ethnic or linguistic identity, rather than any
need-based welfare objective identified with the welfare state, is a different
issue. In many of the evolving democracies in both Africa and Asia, such
discrimination seems a reality in practice. These puncture the idea of
indivisibility of collective identity and interests of people as a whole for
political gains. Freedom House, V-Dem or other institutions, which are
committed to studying, evaluation or promotion of democracy, do consider it an aberration
or a form of political corruption or vote-buying. Mature democracies have done
better in reconciling such conflicting group identities and eliminating space
for political exploitation of such identity-based discrimination. Strong
institutional safeguards further help them in this direction, which remains a
challenge in many of the evolving democracies, where at times institutions
appear mute spectators to different forms of political gerrymandering,
undermining both the quality of freedom and governance in these democracies.
The counter-narrative to this proposition is forwarded by those who claim that
most of the established democracies are fairly homogeneous societies, where
smaller minority groups just didn’t matter in elections.
Democracy’s another strength,
at least on paper, lays in its ability to build up the high quality of human
resources and throw up equally high-quality leaders in every field. The principle of egalitarianism in the era of
welfare state empowers people by giving them a fair and equitable opportunity
to grow and evolve. If this process is genuinely strong and sturdy, with an
element of fair competition, then both the quality of population and quality of
incumbents in leadership roles improves. This should automatically push up the
very trajectory of all-round growth or progress of democratic societies to a
much higher level compared to those in the authoritarian societies. At least,
in theory, there are greater incentives and opportunities for people to excel
in a democracy compared to non-democracies. However, one of the prime
challenges confronting democracy at this stage is the saturation of some of its
existing practices and procedures to take democracy to a higher level of
governance.
