John Adams, the US’s second president, once pronounced: “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” He was clearly wrong. Democracy remains the most powerful and successful political idea — the great victor of the ideological clashes of the 20th century — embraced more pervasively than ever before in the world today. It should be an imperative therefore to shield “the great flame of democracy from the blackout of authoritarianism and barbarism”.
Despite its successes, the enthusiasm for democracy has periodically waned, particularly in emerging democracies, as people become unhappy and disillusioned with the direction and the state of their politics. Some democracies progressively become more selfish, failing to institutionalise the multiparty democracy system. The democratic process is thus reduced to the description offered by the satirist H L Mencken: “Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule, and both commonly succeed, and are right.”
Another reason why so many democratic experiments have failed recently is that they put too much emphasis on elections and too little on the other essential features of democracy. Circumstances have not allowed post-colonial democracies to avail the benefits many western countries have of extending the right to vote long after the establishment of sophisticated political systems, with powerful civil services and entrenched constitutional rights, in societies that cherish the notions of individual rights and independent judiciaries. Successful democratic systems require fair, free and contestable elections, the separation of powers, an independent judiciary, civilian control of the military, the rule of law with justice, equality of citizens before the law, freedom of thought, expression and congregation, political checks and balances, safeguarding of the rights and liberties of citizens against state manipulation and arbitrary impositions, and opportunities for all to fulfill themselves to the best of their abilities and live in dignity.
There is also a widespread perception that political and business elites enjoy the real fruits of democracy. It is true that in many ‘democratic’ countries, the political elite is a self-perpetuating and self-serving clique. Political power frequently falls into the hands of self-centred individuals, dynasties, clans and elites. Democracy has been geared to those who are perhaps best positioned to take advantage of its opportunities, while leaving significant numbers of disadvantaged people. A frequent rap heard against democracy is that it is susceptible to cronyism and making simple things “overly complicated and frivolous” and allowing “certain sweet-talking politicians to mislead the people”. Moreover, nascent democracies struggle to contain corruption, the bane of developing countries. Political systems have often been captured by interest groups and undermined by anti-democratic habits.
However, being able to install alternative leaders offering alternative policies makes democracies far better than autocracies at finding creative solutions to problems and rising to existential challenges, though they often take a while to get to the right policies. But to succeed, fledgling democracies must ensure they are built on firm foundations. Democracy is a powerful but imperfect mechanism, something that needed to be designed carefully in order to harness human creativity but also to check human perversity, and then kept in good working order, constantly polished, adjusted and worked upon. Nascent democracies, just like mature ones, require appropriate checks and balances on the power of elected government.
Democracy is not an event or process that can be rushed but rather a journey, involving several transitional phases before it can reach maturity over a period of time. It is not a winner-takes-all system, and requires the creation of a political order that is participatory and pluralist. It also needs a society that is tolerant, humane and equitable, based on the rule of the majority but with protection and safeguarding of the rights of minorities. Building the institutions needed to sustain democracy is very slow work, which dispels the once-popular notion that democracy will blossom rapidly and spontaneously once the seed is planted.
The other challenge for democracy is to continually fight the culture of authoritarianism, and the ensuing political exclusivism, divisiveness and distrust that it generates. Democrats are time and again outflanked by autocrats and also by extremist oppositions that act under the guise of religious ideas and are able to attract popular support with their simplistic agendas. Autocratic populist rulers tell the public that there are other ways to make people happy besides providing them with the mechanisms of democratic participation and self-government.
Democracies must continue to nurture the growth of critical thinking and expression, the degree of intellectual diversity and free discourse that are so vital for the innovative, pluralist development of societies. A successful democracy must not only ensure effective governance but also allow freedom of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship. It has to deliver in terms of reducing poverty and improving the quality of life. It ought to allow an orderly and peaceful transfer of power from one popularly mandated leader or party to another, without the upheaval and bloodshed that often characterises such a transfer in non-democratic systems. Democracy coupled with economic development and the equitable distribution of resources is the only effective long-term antidote to authoritarianism and anarchy.
The writer can be reached at [email protected]