Advantages And Disadvantages Of Democracy

Being the most popular form of political governance, the democracy is often described as liberating, equality providing and superior from one side and as controversial, economically inefficient and suitable for manipulations from the other. Nevertheless, the discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of democracy has ever been a topic of vital importance for every single country in the world.

The definition of democracy includes equality of all citizens, freedom and common rights and obligations. All these ideas present the positive side of this concrete political form of governance. First of all, equality of all citizens means that the whole population of a given country is considered to be of an equal quality, capabilities and respectively must not be divided into groups of different treatment.

That is why in most countries equality before the laws, equal access to resources, equal right of treatment are embodied in their constitutional law. However, when talking about the advantages and disadvantages of democracy it must be discussed the downside of the equality. Probably, the most used argument of the negative impact of the equality, granted by the democracy, is that of moral degradation and distortion of the common values. Being equal provides people with power to disrespect and disobey to the cultural norms and traditional family values. No-one is obligated to respect seniority of the society. This is considered to be driving force behind for example divorces, workers disobedience and political riots. In a simple way of expression, it is considered that the equality embodied in the democracy leads to instability and moral recession.

Secondly, in every discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of democracy, the freedom which it represents is brought into consideration. Basically, in the democratic countries, population is granted to the so called “political freedoms”- freedom of confession, freedom of speech, freedom of choice – being a typical example. The positive side of granting freedom is undisputed. Via this instrument of democracy people are provided with a desired degree of independence and capabilities.

In such way, citizens have to obey their own will and create a life path. Being free in their choices and believes, individuals are expected to act in favor of themselves and the society as a whole. Nevertheless, when naming advantages and disadvantages of democracy, exactly this expectation is considered as the most convincing downside of the freedom embodied in the democracy. Being free to choose, citizens are free to make mistakes. From economic point of view, this freedom of making mistakes describes individuals as irrational, resulting into the failure of the political form democracy to fully utilize all the resources available. In other words, individual choices of people result in waste of resources, which makes the democracy economically inefficient.

To finish the brief discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of democracy, the rights given to the individuals must be taken into consideration. Undoubtedly, the individual rights such as right of property, right of privacy and right of political entity are foundations of the democratic process. Basic freedoms are strongly connected to those individual rights. There can be no right without freedom and vice versa. That is the reason why in most democratic countries, individual rights are given as a starting point of their civil laws. The most important advantage of the personal rights is that they are also connected to the equity embodied in the democracy. This implies that people are equal in their rights and no-one can suppress or violate the rights of other citizen. This principle provides personal safety, equal treatment in justice or injustice. Nevertheless, the whole topic of advantages and disadvantages of democracy is based on contrasting sides of all the aspects of the democracy. When talking about personal rights, it should be considered the right of political entity as one example of negative side of democracy. Every single citizen has the right to vote, elect and to be elected in a political party. However this principle creates an open space for corruption, vote buying and political instability as a whole. Basically, the governing part of the population is tempted to assure their election win at any praise available. To maintain their political influence and power, the governing elite has strong incentive to manipulate the individual rights of the citizens. The advertising election campaigns, political speeches and electoral promises are just the upper layer of a whole body of instruments. Vote buying, terror and suppression are used hand-in-hand with the above mentioned legal instruments.

Whenever talking about advantages and disadvantages of democracy it must be confessed that legal and democratic process is often violated in order to retain power. Nevertheless, every single individual has right to be elected, so every single individual is free to seek power in democracy and must treat all the other people equally no matter whether in justice or injustice.

Picture- Emilia Tjernström [Arriving at the horizon]