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Weakness and strength of the presidential system
Five principles of democracy
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Democracy has been defined by many political theorists who concluded that it is more than just having elections. However, Philippe Schmitter and Terry Lynn Karl have gone further than just defining what democracy is, they defined how it actually functions. Schmitter and Karl identified three key points that make democracy functional. Firstly, after an election representatives must not use their powers to limit or bar opposition parties from being elected, in order to have political competition for power and place. The “momentary losers” in return will respect the outcome of elections and the winner's authority and right to make decisions dealing with matters of the state. Secondly, citizens should accept and respect decisions that proceed from representatives after elections, as long as they are open and fair. Lastly, there must be cooperation and competition among civil societies and interest groups to form effective boundaries of power in a democracy. This paper will utilize Schmitter and Karl's criteria needed for a democracy to function in its analysis of two countries, the Federative Republic of Brazil and The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela The Bolivarian Republican of Venezuela is located in South America and is bordered to the north by the Caribbean Sean and the Atlantic Ocean and to the east by Guyana, to the south by Brazil, and bordered by Colombia by the west. The country was formed in 1830 and first discovered by Christopher Columbus during his third voyage to the New World in 1498. After 1498, the Spanish Empire began colonization of Venezuela in 1521 and founded settlements such as Valencia in 1555 and Santiago de Leon de Caracas in 1567. From the 16th century to the early... ... middle of paper ... ...ated by Philippe Schmitter and Terry Lynn Karl in order to have a functioning democracy. The Workers Party has been in power since 2002 and has not try to weaken other opposition parties to stop them from being complentive, rather the opposite. Under Presidents Lula and now Rousseff they were elected on a ticket with a coalition of different parties and must share power in order to govern because their party does not have a majority in Congress. In the recent election of Dilma Rousseff, Brazil passed the second key point made by Schmitter and Karl. Rousseff was elected with 56% percent of the vote and her opponent Jose Serra, conceded to her and there were no riots or protests after the election. Lastly, civil societies are engaged in Brazil and as there are many neighborhood associations and representatives from trade unions who advocate for their own interests.
The first, and possibly most difficult concept to define ¬¬¬¬¬is democracy itself. Beetham[1] suggests that in order to reach a definition from the many contested options, one must understand that there are core principles of democracy, which can be used to create a definition concurrent with the majority of those posed in the academic field. He identifies these principles as being those of majoritarian rule, consensual rule, representation of ‘public good’ or ‘popular will.’ He also identifies the importance of political equality and the furthering of public good over private interests. The ability to express counter-arguments to pose different points of view are also said to be integral to democratic processes. Representative democracy, Beetham says, goes further requiring the equal opportunity of all citizens to stand for election, the equal accountability of those elected, that the democracy must be representative of the electorate and that citizens are able to participate in political processes through organizations and access to their representatives.
The legitimacy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and its institutions has therefore, emanated from the expanded “decisionary power” of the people (Spanakos, Political Order). Ciccariello-Maher (2013) has argued the people, or what he refers to as “constituent power” preceded and enabled the Bolivarian Revolution. This has been evident in salient court rulings, in which the judiciary has stood by its commitment to such a participatory democracy. This will be evident in the rulings discussed infra regarding referendums in 1999 (calling for a constituent assembly) , and 2004 (calling for the CNE to enable a recall referendum on President Chavez), the former, case showing a court that ensured its own demise after the Constituent Assembly rewrote the constitution and deposed it). Such is precisely why, the court’s obstruction the expression of the en masse demand for political change is puzzling, namely because a self-pronounced participatory government has truncated the articulation of constituent power using liberal arguments to protect the “minority” or ensure “procedure.” is the court acting legitimately in its protection of minority rights (a reading of judicialization of politics could find this acceptable) or has the
Venezuela was one of the richest countries that emerged from the collapse of Gran Colombia in 1830 (the others being Colombia and Ecuador). For most of the first half of the 20th century, Venezuela was ruled by generally benevolent military strongmen, who promoted the oil industry and allowed for some social reforms. Democratically elected governments have held sway since 1959. Current concerns include: a polarized political environment, a politicized military, drug-related violence along the Colombian border, increasing internal drug consumption, overdependence on the petroleum industry with its price fluctuations, and irresponsible mining operations that are endangering the rain forest and indigenous peoples.
In making this argument this essay seeks to five things. Firstly, to define democracy within the contemporary context offering the key characteristics of a modern re...
Discussions of which constitutional form of government best serves the growing number of democratic nation’s are being debated around the world. In the essay “The Perils of Presidentialism”, political scientist, Juan Linz compares the parliamentary with presidential systems as they govern democracies. As the title of Linz’s essay implies, he sees Presidentialism as potentially dangerous and sites fixed terms, the zero-sum game and legitimacy issues to support his theory. According to Linz, the parliamentary system is the superior form of democratic government because Prime Minister cannot appeal to the people without going through the Parliament creating a more cohesive form of government. By contrast, a President is elected directly by the
This paper examined general questions in which I tried to enhance in the concept of democracy, in evaluating the challenges through distinctive spheres of ideas and developments. All in all, democracy comprise of four essential principles; “a political system for choosing and replacing the government through free and fair elections. In a democracy, the citizen vote in free and fair elections, for their leaders who after being elected are accountable for their policies and their comportments in office. In a democracy, the people are sovereign; maintaining active participation, as citizens, in politics and electing their civic rights. In a democracy, the society must become knowledgeable about public issues and must participate in elections. However, the society should not be obligated to participate in elections nor to join a political party or an organization against their will. A democracy must persevere the human rights of all citizens. All citizens have essential rights that the government cannot take away from them. Those rights are freedom of religion and to express your own opinion and interest. Democracy and pluralism in the mass media. The right to form and join organizations as to associate with other people; to assemble freely and protests against the government. As well the right to move in and outside the country and no one can interfere or oppose those rights. However, everyone must exercise these rights concerning the law and for the rights of others. The rule of law, in which all laws must be applied equally to all citizens. For democracy to work, a system of regulation by statutes must be obeyed and not a system by individuals. The rule of law must protect the rights of citizens and limits the power of government. Still, after the critical review of theory and concepts, this paper proposed a research strategy using references from the readings of Richard
Voting often refers to the collective action where the peoples’ preferences, ideologies and wills speak out for themselves. Even in non-democractic, authoritarian regimes, elections do exist and voter turnouts tend to incorporate a large percentage of the population. Even more commonly in authoritarian regimes, candidates are repeated for years and even for decades and the results are often predetermined. Elections in non-democractic regimes exist in different levels; however, they rarely offer opportunities for changing the existing regime. According to Lisa Blaydes, a professor in the Department of Political Science in the University of California, Los Angeles, elections in these non-democractic regimes are essential for several reasons. Egypt, for example, chooses to hold elections due to constant pressure from the United States and global institutions to be more democratic. Furthermore, elections are crucial for the survival of the regime on its own. Furthermore, elections also allow the regime to find out its’ supporters against its’ opponents (Magaloni, 2006.)
In comparing the average citizen in a democratic nation, say the United States, to that of a non-democratic nation, for instance Egypt, it will be found that the citizen in the democratic nation is generally better off – free of persecution, free from fear of the authorities, and free to express his opinions on governmental matters. And while national conflicts occur everywhere, incidents like violent revolts have shown to be more prevalent in nations where citizens are not allowed to choose who governs them. It is slightly paradoxical that democracy, so inherently flawed in theory, can lead to such successful outcomes in practice. The question, then, becomes: “If democracy has so many weaknesses, why does it work?”
There have been enormous efforts to spread democracy as a political system throughout the world by the developed democratic countries and the international development organizations including the World Bank. By the late 1990s the United States alone spent over a half billion dollars to promote democratic expansion throughout the world (Diamond, 2003). These were done considering that the democratic system leads towards development. As a result in the late 20th century we saw a huge political transformation towards democracy. During the last few decades a huge number of countries adopted democracy as their political system. However, it retain a big question how far democracy is successful in bringing development of a country? At this stage, some people also criticizes the effort of democratization arguing that it is done without considering the context of a country, sometimes democracy is not ideal for all countries and it is an effort to extinct diversity of political system. In studying the literature regarding the debate, we found a paradoxical relationship between democracy and development. Some argue that democracy has failed to ensure expected outcomes in terms of development. While others confronted that democracy has a considerable impact on development. Another group of people argue that form of political system actually does not have any impact on development process. On the verge of these debates, some development institutions and academics throw light on why democracy is not working properly, and what measure should be taken to make it more successful in bringing effective development of developing countries. Consequently, this writing is an effort of revisiting the different views about impact of democra...
Discussions of which constitutional form of government best serves the growing number of democratic nation’s are in constant debate all over the world. In the essay “The Perils of Presidentialism”, political scientist, Juan Linz compares the parliamentary system with presidential democracies. As the title of Linz’s essay implies, he sees Presidentialism as potentially dangerous and sites fixed terms, the zero-sum game and legitimacy issues to support his theory. According to Linz, the parliamentary system is the superior form of democratic government because Prime Minister cannot appeal to the people without going through the Parliament creating a more cohesive form of government. By contrast, a
...uaranteed to create democratic stability, or even make better and more insightful decisions than their Presidential counterparts, but he does state the “vast majority of stable democracies in the world today are Parliamentary regimes” (Linz 1989, p.52). Using this hypostasis, I have constructed the essay in a way that hopefully shows the advantages of the imperfect systems’ of Parliamentarism over Presidentialism. Admittedly, mainly because of word count restrictions, the paper is not a comprehensive examination of the different democratic environments, and is very much open to debate, but by taking this approach of loosely contrasting Parliamentarism and Presidentialism, I have attempted to show the flexibility and inherent benefits of Parliamentarism. Which I feel ultimately affords a more pluralistic, policy balanced and stable approach to the democratic process.
It is no secret that the modern civilized world is trying to build on the foundations of democracy. Democracy is the mode of the West, as well - the goal of the most developing countries of the East. Philippe Schmitter and Terry
Firstly, K. Isbester mentions that democracy has a different meaning for everyone, as some can define democracy as a good aspect for development, on the contrary other believe that it is nothing more than voting after several years. Although, Latin America see democratic g...
Some would say that democracy has existed in Latin America for some time. As Harold E. Davis wrote in his article titled “Democracy in Latin America”, the people of Latin America are democratic but their democracy is expressed differently than other democratic countries. When people ask the question about democracy they tend to compare Latin America to the Unites States. There is a big difference in culture between the two and it is difficult to make a fair comparison. Davis believes that Latin America people express their democracy differently through their behavior and institutions. Democracy can exist in many different forms and you see all these different forms around the world. In Latin America there are diffe...
Democracy, in its truest sense, does not exist. There is no political authority currently existing where every person contributes an equal amount to the decision-making process of the authority’s directives. The election of officials and representatives by the populace does not, in itself, automatically result in the most democratic and widely accepted directives being enacted. However, this does not decrease the political power of the authorities, nor does it limit their practical power over their jurisdictions.