The Transition to Democracy Proceedings of a Workshop (1991) / Chapter Skim
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Threats to Democracy: Plenary Session IV
Threats to Democracy: Plenary Session IV
Pages 74-83
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From page 74... ...
This means rule by the people, and that involves some kind of regular procedures whereby citizens can hold their leaders accountable. This probably means regular free elections that are meaningful, in which almost all people can participate as voters and as potential candidates.
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From page 75... ...
Some studies have suggested that overall economic performance in countries is inhibited if there are too many special interests because these interests, out for their own benefit, impede the development of coherent national policies leading to effective performance. One might make the argument that this is the case with American economic performance.
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From page 76... ...
The experience with governments around the world certainly supports one generalization in political science -- Lord Acton's famous aphorism that power tends to corrupt. And looking at the experience of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe, we see them as evidence for the strong version of Acton's aphorism: absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.
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From page 77... ...
What that means is that we are unavoidably dealing with large, complex political units. It also means that when we talk about democracy, we probably have to talk about representative democracy.
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From page 78... ...
It means that democratic politics is not rational decision making, not balancing costs and benefits, not planning for development. Democratic politics is conflict, it is coalition building, it is log rolling, it is messy.
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From page 79... ...
A long, long time ago, I wrote a book called Civic Culture in which we found that educated people were more committed to democratic values. And we wrote a conclusion saying, "Isn't it wonderful that the world is getting more and more educated, therefore we're going to get a citizenry that is going to participate more, be more satisfied because they'll understand what's going on, and they'll play a greater role in society." But that was a long time ago, and since then the citizenry, certainly in this country, and most democracies, has become much more educated.
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From page 80... ...
A simple comparison may be between Northern Ireland and the United States. Northern Ireland, with a government that is roughly parliamentary (and therefore where almost all decisions are made by one institution)
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From page 81... ...
Democracy is based on a very clear principle: equality, on the notion that each individual is of equal worth. It is also based on the somewhat weaker notion, which I think democrats accept, that not only is each individual of equal worth in terms of interests, each is equally competent to know what his or her own interests are and express them in the political process.
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From page 82... ...
The second is: "Do not expect too much." Some of the underlying features of things that we know foster democracy, such as higher levels of education or more autonomous social groups within a society, reduce conflict between intensely antagonistic groups. These clearly foster democracy, but they are very difficult to design and to implement.
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From page 83... ...
support, but whatever grows probably has to grow uncontrolled and grow outside our control in ways that are sometimes negative. So, I suppose what we do is to help and to hope for the best.
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