The Democracy And Non Democracy Politics Essay

The commonwealth And Non Democracy Politics EssayThis topic gives brief persuasions around parliamentary and non-democratic clays in modern world. The descriptions of democracies and non-democracies vary from individual to person. Furthermore, at that place atomic number 18 var. of explanations and democratic models, such as channelise country and representative state (Heywood, 2007). Just the term of democracy sight sort into diverse ideas. For the term of non-democracy, it may be easier for hoi polloi to understand, that in fact it has indistinct divisions between nigh non-democratic regimes. Besides the definitions of these two terms, this authorship leave alone look fors the dissimilitude between democracies and non-democracies. And it includes necessary examples for the comparison.IntroductionNowadays, democratic system is popular around the world. No matter Western or Asiatic countries, good deal praise democratic systems highly and believe this is in timately the perfect policy-making system in the world. provided there settle down perplex non-democratic systems in the world. What is non-democracy? And what are differences between democracies and non-democracies? Different policy-making scientists suffer different explanations for the meanings of democracies and non-democracies. Moreover, non-democracies are different from democracies in theories and practices. This paper aims at introducing the ideas ab fall turn up the definition of non-democratic systems and foc handlings on terce dis akin(predicate)ities between democracies and non-democracies.Definition of democracies and non-democraciesBefore examine democratic and non-democratic systems, we first need to define the terms democracy and non-democracy. Democracy has a wide-eyed range of meanings and applications. Heywood (2007) defined democracy as ordinance by pot democracy implies both popular participation and political science in the public interest, and can take a wide variety of forms (p.448). gibe to McLean and McMillan (2012), democracy as a descriptive term is equivalent with majority tower (democracy). In the democratic systems, election or right to vote is the modality to apply the principle of majority. Simply speaking, democracy is a political system that enables ordinary citizens to participate and influence in the politics. In this paper, democracy is referred to the informal democracy which is the broadest accepted form of democracy (Heywood, 2007). Liberal democracy is a form of indirect, representative democracy and is based on war interchangeable election. It also divides the state and social community intelligibly (Heywood, 2007).The term of non-democracy is seldom seen in political dictionaries, further it can be easily understand by just reversing its meaning with democracy. Non-democracy is a system of rule by individual or a sm either group of people, not all people. Contrary to democracy, people are ruled by minority in non-democracies. Totalitarianism, dictatorship, authoritarianism, Fascism and other political systems are all included in non-democratic systems. new-made people view non-democracies as autocracy, savageness and cruelty (Ezrow and Frantz, 2011). Some non-democratic countries, like capital of Singapore and Malaysia, seem like democracy (Ezrow and Frantz, 2011). So, a well-defined definition is important. In this paper, non-democracy is defined as the system of rule by a person, a party or a small group of people which center non-democracies imply that little mass mobilization and delimitateed pluralism (Ezrow and Frantz, 2011). And Sliwinski (2012a) suggested that there are trio types of non-democratic regimes dictatorship, authoritarianism and totalitarianism. In order to simplify the situation, this paper master(prenominal)ly focuses on these three kinds of non-democratic systems. Robertson (2004) gave a clear definition to dictatorship is a form of governing body in which sensation person has resole and complete political business leader (p.145). McLean and McMillan pointed out totalitarianism (2012) regulates every flavor of state and private behavior (totalitarianism) and Robertson said that how to decide totalitarianism is the way to use the spots. Robertson shared the same idea with McLean and McMillan in the concept of authoritarianism, he pointed out that authoritarian ignores public opinion and uses forceful ways to rule over the country. McLean and McMillan plane pointed out that the existence of dictators is one of the main elements for totalitarian regimes in the twentieth century (dictatorship), like Stalins Russia and Hitlers Germany. However, Robertsons view (2004) is differed from that of McLean and McMillan. He crush out that dictatorship, authoritarianism and totalitarianism do not have required relationship, tyranny needs not, strictly speaking, be a dictatorship and well not be totalitarian (p.33). Although R obertson disagreed with the idea that dictatorship, authoritarianism and totalitarianism have nearly kind of connections, we cannot deny that these three political systems are, in some extent, similar to to each one other. Authoritarianism and totalitarianism also limit peoples political rights, exclusively the latter one even swear the private lives of its people. Moreover, as these three kinds of political regimes set peoples political rights, sometimes it is difficult to distinguish them. But anyhow the comparison in this paper is the comparison between progressive tense democracy and dictatorship, authoritarianism and totalitarianism.Comparison between democracies and non-democraciesSeparation of roles V.S. Domination of powers adept of the main differences between democracy and non-democracy is the control of power. The democratic regimes separate the government powers divide it into legislation, execution and adjudication. However, for the non-democratic regimes, the po wers are whole held by the ruler which means the ruler is the legislator, the executive and the judge of the state.The democratic system needs checks and balances to observe the abuse of power, so it makes use of the insularity of powers. The legislature controls the legislative power, the administrative holds the executive power and the judiciary controls the jurisdiction. These three powers are to make and change laws, to put laws into action and to make judgments on laws respectively (Sliwinski, 2012b, slide 22). These three political institutions can indeedce mutually supervise and contain each other which can efficiently limit the power of the government. Absolute power corrupts arrogantly, if one holds all the powers in his own hands, he will use the power to maximize his interests and ignore others interests and rights. The modern political thinkers John Locke and Montesquieu then believed that the power of the government should be restricted in order to invalidate the appearance of tyranny and the corruption of powers. Locke suggested in order to shelter peoples rights, there should be checks and balances. And Montesquieu was the first political thinker suggesting the idea of separation of powers. He believed that every government should divide its powers into three and this is largely influenced the American physical composition and the Western political systems (Gingell, particular Winch, 2000).For the non-democratic regimes, they centralize the powers in their own hands. Non-democracies triumph the powers and through the monopolistic power, they fully exercise their authorities without limitations. take down though some of the regimes establish some resembling institutions to create an illusion of the separation of powers, the powers are actually combined in the regimes hands. The most efficient way to run across their aim -stabilizing the regimes status and power is to monopolize the powers. In The Prince, Machiavelli suggested the ru lers should hold the absolute power with any way to preserve his power and regime (Gingell, Little Winch Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2009). Thus, non-democracies can be seen as the embodiment of Machiavellis idea the use of absolute power. However, we should be aware that the maximization of powers is for the safe of the state, not for the ruler. And the non-democratic systems are contorting this point they abuse the power just for their own interests, but not for their states and people.Here are some examples. The best model for the separation of powers in modern democracies is the system in United States. The separation of powers is clearly stated in the United States Constitution. The Congress only has the legislative power the President of the United States holds the executive power and the Supreme Court enforces the juridic power. They are divisible and their powers do not overlap the power of one another. This practices the idea of mutual restraint on power. on tha t pointfore, the American political system embodies the idea of the checks and balances (Heywood, 2007). For the non-democracies, Soviet joint is a good instance. It was established in 1922 and ended in 1991. Soviet Union did not separate the powers, so that there were no limitations of powers for the party and the state. The Communist troupe of the Soviet Union centralized three powers together and controlled the society and state tightly.Political compare V.S. Political inequalityIn the democratic countries, people have the contingency to participate in the politics, this mainly presents by votes and elections. But for the non-democracies, they have very much of limitations in political participation which their people cannot actually involve in the political activities.The elections represent the political equality between people. From the view of liberal democracy, this means that the value of everyones vote is equal no one will have a higher value of vote then the others ( Heywood, 2007). done the elections, it embodies the idea of political equality because the citizens do have the chance to pronounce their views to the government by their own votes. It has no doubt that elections are important. gibe to Heywood, elections give the public the opportunity to affect the political process and decisions. In liberal democratic system, there is regular election within some(prenominal) years. People can take this chance to show their satisfaction towards the governments judiciary in past few years and also influence the political scene in the next several years. The most significant amour is that all the citizens do have the vote in their hands no matter they are males or females, wealth or poverty or they are blacks or whites. From this perspective, people are equal politically and even socially (Heywood, 2007). Democratic countries, like the United States, the United Kingdom and France, have regular election system for their citizens to involve in po litics and to express their political aspects. Therefore, the political equality also implies the widespread political participation.However, in the non-democratic regimes, it is usual to apply political inequalities. Not all the people in the regime can get the right to vote and only a small group of people control the political powers. This means some people are more influential in politics than the others. Even the non-democracies introduce elections to their citizens, the regimes secretly manipulate the elections in order to repress the rivalry parties. For example, in Egypt, the economic elites are more political influential aft(prenominal) 1984. Egypt is a single-party regime which is ruled under the National Democratic Party (NDP). In 1984, the businessmen supported the NDP and the ruler Mubarak since then, they gain more political power by joining the party (King, 2009). The poverty, who is mainly the Egyptian workers and peasants, garbled the opportunity to participate i n the political activities (King, 2009). Even though Egypt has the electoral system, it still regards as non-democracy because the electoral system is dominated by the NDP (King, 2009 Ezrow Frantz, 2011). According to King, the NDP do not let the opposition parties to grow in cleverness and most important is that the party is able to allot the votes of labors and peasants. Not only in Egypt, other non-democracies, like China, Burma and Iran, do not have political equality and wide political participation. unfreezedom V.S. ConstraintAnother main difference between the democracies and non-democracies is the immunity of the citizens. In a democratic society, people enjoy the emancipations under the laws which mean their freedoms are protected by laws. Nevertheless, the non-democratic regimes unremarkably restrict the freedoms of the people.The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) regulates all people in the world have the rights to enjoy their freedoms. Freedom House, whic h is non-governmental organization, conducts researches on the countries degree of freedom and its annual report can be deemed as democratic report. umpteen political scientists use the report as the ratings of democracy. This implies that freedom is one of the important elements in modern democracy. Most of the democratic countries have high judge of freedom, according to the Freedom in the World in 2012, like the countries in the Western Europe, which adopt the electoral democracies, all enjoy the rating of Free in the report. People in democratic countries enjoy their freedoms and rights because democracy is to protect all peoples interests both majority and minority. However, it is wrong to say that there is freedom, then there is democracy. Undoubtedly, it needs a certain degree of freedoms to form democracy. As the participation in politics do implies the freedoms of opinion and expression, speech and assembly, it is out(predicate) for a democratic country works without t he enjoyment of freedoms (Hovde, 1949).On the contrary, people under the non-democratic regimes normally do not enjoy most of the freedoms because the regimes negligence peoples rights and freedoms. Most of the regimes repress the freedom of speech, assembly and freedom of the press. Why do non-democracies constrain these freedoms? It is because they need to unite their peoples thought and ideology together with the regimes in order to prevent rebellion. North Korea, the totalitarian regime nowadays, is the best-suited example. The mass media in North Korea is fully controlled by the government and the media compliment blindly on the regime and the Kim family. The thought and daily lives of North Koreans are strictly controlled by the government. The North Koreans cannot leave the country otherwise they will be regarded as traitors. Therefore, they do not enjoy any freedoms at all. Another Asian country Singapore also restrains citizens freedoms (Burton, 2010). The Singaporean gove rnment repressed the freedom of the press in the country by enforcing the Newspaper and Printing Presses make (the Press Act) in 1974 (Rajah, 2012). And in the recent Press Freedom Index, Singapore was ranked a very low score 135 out of 179 countries. According to Rajah, the Singaporean government also carried out the Religious consonance Act and the Public Order Act in order to restrict the freedom of religion and freedom of assembly of its citizens.ConclusionThe definitions of democracies and non-democracies are wide and diversified, by narrowing their definitions, we can explore some main differences with them. There are three main differences between democratic and non-democratic regimes include the control of power, the degree of participation in politics and the rate of freedom. The democracies separate its power into three (legislation, execution and adjudication), achieve political equality and carry out broad political participation, and let their citizens enjoy freedoms . On the contrary, the non-democracies monopolize the powers, limit the political participation within their supporters and imply political inequality, and repress the freedoms of their people. The studies more or less democratic and non-democratic regimes need to continue from time to time, in order to explore more possibility and rationality about them.