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Different democracies

12:34 / 24.02.05

On the back of US President Bush’s recent pressure on the Russian President Putin on the subject of democracy in Russia, I’ve been thinking about the diversity of democracy…

Putin points to Russia’s long history of strong leaders and that Russians were accustomed to government playing a strong role in their lives, a notion that Bush does not recognize. Both claim to be committed to democracy, but each man appears to have very different ideas as to what democracy entails…

Which leads us unto another question – is democracy such an absolute term or are there different shades of it?

Is the type of democracy practiced in the US like that of Britain? How does it relate to the kind of democracy in practice in France, the Wider European Union, Israel or Pakistan?

How diverse is democracy? What do people think?

19:46 / 24.02.05

One of the wiseass things I've pointed out on other messageboards (and accomplished not very much) is that before the US invasion, Iraq was a democracy. They had parliamentary elections and different parties and everything.

You can read more about that here and here.

OK, so only one party was actually allowed to run, and after Saddam took power, everyone was appointed, but still -- there was a wider ethnic diversity in representation than you'd expect, and women were allowed to vote.

So that might be one, uh, pole of democracy.

Officially, North Korea's a democracy too. It's in their name and everything.

22:14 / 03.03.05

This is true. I think another illustrative point is that, OK, obviously the old iraqi elections did not constitute democracy (no choice), but the latest election had 250 parties, 750 candidates, the ballot was (aledgedly) one meter by 50 centimeters, most candidates were afraid to publicly admit their campains, and in adition to saddam's old soviet tanks rumbling again throught the streets there were plainclothsed men in SUVs, wearing Balaclavas and carying machine guns. Were they terrorists? No, elections oficials.

Meanwhile, the US election has 2 candidates (who can be seriously considered. Lenord Peltier ran from prison, Jello Biafra has run before, I think, but even the greens are too marginalized to be considered). does that mean they're twice as democratic as Iraq under Saddam? Canada has 4 1/2 parties (the PQ seperatists only run in Quebec, where they do fairly well). I just joined the Aboriginal party, who are trying to reach 250 registered members to be officially recognized by electiona canada. So we're 5 times as democratic as saddam?

That's how i prefer to frame the issue. Not: are we democratic or not; but: how democratic are we?

asking: What kind of democracy do we have here? makes it way more complex, and really subjective, but it's important to ask too, despite the lack of any firm answers once we plunge off the deep end into this area.

the real question is: what criteria do we judge democracy by? The greek's system was based on slaves doing all the worst jobs, and limiting voting citizens to 5000 elite white males. they had fewer voters than we have appointed goverment officials. what is the standard?

The Iriquoi round table of tribal councils bears more attention, if you ask me.

Also, India has 600 million adult voters, but every balot can be traced from when it's cast untill its counted. How?
We don't do that. How come?

15:15 / 09.03.05

Yes indeed - the standard by which democracy is judged is indeed the question.

How is democracy reconcilable with a state religion?

Tryphena Absent

15:37 / 09.03.05

And does it depend on the specific institutions that the religion leaks in to? For instance the ceremony surrounding the opening of parliament involves the Defender of the Faith but does that really influence the democracy itself? On the other hand swearing alleigance to a god in school every morning...

22:54 / 14.03.05

I'm not sure how much of a distinction there really is there since MPs have to pledge allegence to the Queen who is also the Supreme Governor of the Church of England the nominal head of the Church - it could easily be argued that MPs are effectively also swearing allegence to the Church when the swear allegence to the Queen...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

05:32 / 15.03.05

While I firmly believe religion should have no place in politics, it's arguable that in the UK, that's largely irrelevant these days, British Christianity tending to be such a pick'n'mix affair (the majority of Britons who identify as Christian don't even go to church)- I'd like to see the two totally separated, but it's not something that worries me overly much at the moment. (I'm just talking about the UK, mind- Islamic nations aside, this is something I feel is terribly wrong in the US).

In my personal definition (and yes, sorry for boring you with this one again, but it's recently become something of an obsession) British democracy is a sham. Yes, we have a choice of parties, yes we're free to vote for them without too much strongarming- but we have no credible opposition. I'd argue that without an opposition democracy is actually fairly pointless, the government being answerable to nobody. This seems to have come about as a result of circumstance, rather than any one faction's machinations (though that's not to say that Mr Tony WOULDN'T have got Ali to sort it out like that if he could) and is something that really needs to be addressed, both in ourselves and in the system itself, if we're gonna go round imposing democracy on people elsewhere.

14:29 / 17.03.05

canada has four and a half parties, as mentioned above, but only one wins (the mafia...i mean liberal party). we are free to vote for anyone we like, but we are not picking a government. we are deciding how much opposition the liberal party has to deal with. i think the uk is a lot like this.

the united states has two, but they arent choices, theyre frames. americans are picking a winner, but from the president down to the sherrif (or whatever), its an individual winner, not a political winner. both parties answer to the same gods.

china is a democracy too. they elect a body of 5000 people who rubber stamp the communist partys ideas. each administrative district has a dual power structure: the elected 'government' official and the party official. the job of the popularly elected official is to carry out the instructions of the party official, who is elected/appointed by a party committee.

maybe a real democracy in the internet age would involve universal participation in each decision through online voting. the job of the elected officials in this case would not be to vote on bills of law, but to edit proposals from the people and submit them to popular vote. i see parallels here with china, where the elected government is merely an administrative body, but the ideological body is not an elitist party, but the willing participants among the entire population. the problem i see is that few people take online polls seriously, so there might be a terrible period of adjustment.

Withiel: DALI'S ROTTWEILER

18:22 / 17.03.05

maybe a real democracy in the internet age would involve universal participation in each decision through online voting. the job of the elected officials in this case would not be to vote on bills of law, but to edit proposals from the people and submit them to popular vote. i see parallels here with china, where the elected government is merely an administrative body, but the ideological body is not an elitist party, but the willing participants among the entire population. the problem i see is that few people take online polls seriously, so there might be a terrible period of adjustment.

That's a very interesting idea indeed. Of course, it presumes that either everyone has access to a computer with an internet connection or that even greater voter apathy won't take over with more frequent voting. Futhermore, the voting systems would need to be well-nigh flawless, because everyone knows that Computers Are Bad And Unreliable And Much Less Trustworthy Than Human Counters. It'd be sort of like traditional democracy amplified, perhaps, with all the benefits and problems increased a thousandfold. Hmm.

It does seem that the number of different parties to choose from is a factor in determining how the extent of democracy present in a state, but there's also the matter of variety and effectiveness: in current UK politics, there's very little choice (imho) between the two "main" parties, and in states where a coalition government is necessary (late C19th Italy, for example), little actually changes between governments because of the watering-down of bills that's required to pass anything. It looks like the ideal model of a democratic state is one with a reasonably large, diverse number of electable parties prepared to form a government. Which means we need more dedicated politicians with wildly differing viewpoints. I think.

21:19 / 17.03.05

The other problem that exists with the use of computers in voting is one of transparency. With a ballot box its harder for the company that provides the boxes to manipulate its contents. The same is not true of electronic systems.

On the participation level what do people think about making voting compulsory as it is in Australia. Failure to turn up and vote results in a fine. This ensures that people who don't want to vote for any party at least have to participate in the democratic system even if that participation is to spoil their ballot...

Tryphena Absent

11:09 / 18.03.05

The thing is that the tie between religion and the state in this country... well I'm sure it's doing much for the state but I do think it tames the religion and the relationship between people and that religion very nicely.