Is Democracy the Only Legitimate Form of Government Essay Example
A legitimate state can be defined as “A state in which its citizens have little or no significant resistance to the public policy and leadership of the state in question due to the rightful/legitimate exercise of power. ” This Legitimacy of state is often a hard term to apply to any form of government in the modern political world due to the very differing cultures between the western and eastern world. However the general consensus of many political leaders is democracy is the only truly legitimate way of ruling any state.
Democracy in the words of Abraham Lincoln is a government formed “of the people, by the people, for the people” where the power of ruling the country is put directly in the hands of its citizens who elect representatives to lead them in the forefront
...of the country’s governmental systems. I feel that Democracy truly is not the only legitimate form of government. True democracy where the voice of the people counts for every decision in the ruling of the country is almost certainly unattainable for every country.
Take for example the United States of America arguably the most democratic nation in the world. In order for the United States to be wholly democratic the USA would have to put out every decision in terms of the country’s ruling to a national vote with every citizen regardless of Age, Gender, Social status etc having an equal say in every decision regardless of importance. We can understand that this is practically unattainable in any modern democracy and therefore democracy is now regarded as the selection of representatives to carry out our
interests in government.
I believe therefore that this makes Democracy less legitimate as the power is not rightfully exercised among all citizens. However I do note that legitimacy must not be confused with the viability or practicality of a political system and therefore Democracy does remain legitimate in its efforts to allocate the power Fairley among all living in the United States. Many countries such as Saudi Arabia are able to have a very stable governmental system without actively involving the people of its country in its governmental system.
The question that must be asked is “Is this exercise of power rightful? ” The stability of Saudi speaks for its self. Most citizens live in relative wealth with a good standard of living and a world class health and education system. Most Citizens seem happy to live under this government as they provide well for their citizens and this leads to a legitimate state where the power of the government is not questioned due to its success and the fact that it provides well for its citizens.
The Saudi government also protects the religious sacraments of the country which is a major factor contributing to the stability of the state, this combined with the quality of life provided by the government ensures that all citizens remain happy with the governmental system. I would very much argue that most modern democracies are not legitimate systems. Most democracies take the opinions of the weighed majority to be an accurate representation of the “Voice of the people” however this is not always accurate. Take for example the delicate political system that exists in Northern Ireland.
style="text-align: justify">For years Northern Ireland was plagued with politically motivated violence simply because one side of the political divide did not have a mean in which to express their view points and therefore felt repressed. Taking the views of only the majority is arguably not a legitimate system of government in fact quite the opposite. Should democracy be used in a situation where there are two very different and conflicting political views then not unlike Northern Ireland that situation will eventually lead to civil unrest and political failure?
We must question to what extent democracy relies on external factors of stability in order to be accepted as legitimate. I would very much argue that the wealth and stable economy of each democratic country plays a large part in its citizens accepting democracy as a legitimate governmental system. Let us first look at the UK, Britain has always had a strong democratic nature to the country and relies on the electorate to vote for the MP’S in the House of Commons.
However in late 2010 the London riots shocked the world and showed how the legitimacy of democracy relies on prosperity of the economic situation of a country and when this does not exist it creates a social backlash devaluing the legitimacy of the democracy. Similarly grease one of the oldest democracies in the world has also felt this effect and now the government there has all but collapsed all due the financial support of the democracy failing sending the country into mass chaos.
To conclude I feel that although democracy has its obvious flaws like all political systems it is most probably
the closest that we have yet achieved in creating a perfectly fair system of shared power. Those who live under a democracy have the responsibility to ensure legitimacy through their active involvement in making decisions by voting and talking to their representatives. If we are to assume that democracy is the only legitimate form of government then it should be questioned to why other countries have been able to remain stable under systems other than democracy.
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