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The major question that haunts most minds is the future of democracy in a world that is full of unanswered questions and a world that has been torn by religious and ethnic strife. It is a world that has been stained by globalization instead of creating a great sense of oneness among different people thus bringing up barriers to amplified political and economic integration. This paper aims to discuss two articles; a case for consolidating democracy that was produced byPolandandUSAgovernments and ‘has democracy has a future’ written by Arthur Schlesinger, JR.
‘A case for consolidating democracy’ is a document that addresses on the existence of a spreading democratic malaise and also it highlights on the actions that would help to consolidate the already established democracies and also promote the spreading of democratic government. The second article by Arthur, he points out on the fact that democracy’s main threat is the social, economic and political forces. Arthur maintains and affirms that racial, religious and ethnic differences do undermine the democratic states. According to Arthur’s argument, democracy is defective and does not solve all problems that people wants to be solved. He attributes his reasoning to Madison who wrote that the division of the poor and the rich in the society is a global happening and it leads to division of interests which later leads to violence. The only thing that can assure freedom in a democratic nation is only checks and balances.
The authors’ main perspective in the article ‘a case for consolidating democracy’ is the fact that democracy is quite important and it is not just a tool for the rich people but for all citizens. However, despite the fact that democracy is crucial, bad governance and irrational policies have undermined the economic development. Democracy helps to foster good governance and true democracies can help a lot to remove all the corrupt, bad and ineffective leaders. The author asserts that good governance helps in fostering development and therefore will need a clear, accountable democracy and not just a matter of representative democracy.
The major bias that does influence the author of this article is the fact that he has represented the rule of law to be weak. He affirms that vast corruption do undermine the government, threats the economic and political stability and also separates the citizens and the leaders. He affirms that corruption is the major problem that has affected democracy but this is biased because there are other major factors like poor governance, lack of unity among leaders and poor leadership among others. These are some of the main issues that the author of this article has missed out. The author should have at least told us that in order to get an invisible democracy then a system of cosmic process will help in producing successful results. The author makes it clear that the most important factor to all the democracies is political will to enhance governance.
It is amazing how the author to an extent has revered and praised the democratic government. There is too much cynicism towards the leaders which is understandable and also epidemic. The author of this article has left a lot of information on how democracy can be reformed and only concentrated on a few.
The first means to reform democracy is by pushing the states in order to mandate the voter registration. Everyone knows that the major barrier to voting is the fact that citizens ought to register themselves first. The second means of reformation is creation of a voter registration list national wide. The third means is by finding more prospects of introducing all the underrepresented groups to the voting system. Other forms of reform are reaffirming in the law that voting is a major and crucial right, helping the poor to also participate in the campaigns for the funding and others.
Arthur in his article has pointed out on all the failures of the democracy and the reasons behind its failure for example the economic, moral and the political failures of democracy which led to totalitarianism, the computerized nation which affects the democratic politics, capitalism and others. He has however pointed at all the negative issues to do with democracy and has failed to offer solutions to democracy and how it can be corrected. He asserts that though democracy has a future, it is not usually the great future that was predicted during the triumphalism moment and it might not survive the centuries to come (Arthur, 1997).
That is a biased statement on the grounds that the author is so sure that democracy will not survive in centuries to come. Who is he to allege that it will not survive? He should give on some of the solutions to save democracy instead of dwelling only on the problems. Some of the factors that he could have incorporated are the strengthening of laws, curbing of corruption, introduction of firm governance and others. His main perspective is that democracy must withstand all the pressures to do with technology, race, capitalism and spiritual frustrations.
The two articles have given limelight to the issue of democracy and one evident issue is the fact that democracy today is not as appealing as it ought to be and there are various issues that need to be addressed in order to have a democratic nation that people would approve.
