This is the global news and analysis blog of Why Democracy House, part of the largest factual multimedia event in the world: Ten new documentaries about democracy broadcast worldwide between Oct. 8 and 18.
Or join us elsewhere on the web:
|
|
||||||
|
Democracy News
Topics
Subscribe to this site
 Australia and Italy are turning back the clock on Democracyposted by Charlotte Meyer at 13h58 GMT on Oct 12
 According to John Keane, a professor of politics at the University of Westminster, Italy and Australia are turning back the clock on Democracy. Keane tells ABC NEWS that voters are becoming disillusioned with democracy and politicians, and for the first time in a generation we are seeing an organized opposition to democracy. Professor Keane believes that after 1945 democracy took on a new role, defined by three developments. First of all, democracy was implemented globally, amongst others in India. Secondly, America became the first global power that acted in the name of democracy. Thirdly, a hoard of institutions were set up to keep checks and balances on the people in power. In recent years, the world has become disillusioned with the American crusade for democracy and critics have pointed to the short-commings of democracy in many parts of the world. Opposition to democracy still act in the name of the people. However, they use this disillusionment to revoke democratic institutions in their own countries. Keane points to Italy and Australia as troubling examples of this trend. He argues that in these societies, the basic rules of democracy have changed. The political systems supports winning as many elections as possible. They discourage public debate and opposition and enforce the idea that parliament makes laws for people to follow. Keane says that "This is not democracy, this is a bowdlerisation and degradation of democracy." 
Comments: |
 |
||||||
 |
 |
||||||
| Democracy News | About | Democracy Debate | Democracy Library | 10 Questions | Why Democracy on MySpace | |||||||
How democracy, not why
A concern which pointedly reveals the variance of the United States' form of democracy is without a well educated citizenry, democracy becomes the election of the celebrity de jour. With the merging of Hollywood and Washington, the fastest way into public office is to create your media persona and promote oneself. No leadership required. Check the polls often and adjust one's public voice. Promise what seems most popular to the masses and don't worry whether follow through is required if put into office. That's just stuff of opposing commenatator's fodder for later and makes for one's name appearing more often in the newspaper. Most voters cast emotional votes based on what they have been "fed" in campaign promises and biased newspaper reporting instead of seeking out the truth for themselves. That takes education, committment to government responding to you and not you responding to the false images supplied by government representatives.
Democracy? It is a form of government which demands educated, well informed citizens who want to lead themselves. Otherwise, power hungry ego driven professioinal politicians replace citizens who want to serve. Checks and balances can be voted out. Civil rights can be replaced by redefining words and creating new categories of persons outside of any legal protections. Erosion of laws and rights do not require revolution, just an uneducated citizenry not closely paying attention to the "adjustments" being made in the name of safety.
Democracy and its proponents
Some comments about the democratization debate
1. What amazes me about Western thinkers or commentators is the sheer arrogance they display. Australia and Italy are said to be backsliding on democratic norms, the Russians and the Arabs are said to be incapable of realizing democratic governments and a number of countries are labeled as failed states, but we (the Western nations) are supposedly the democratic paragons to be emulated. This at a time when the great paragon of democracy is waging an unprovoked and now unpopular war declared on a country that it has more thoroughly devastated than anything Nazi Germany did in World War II. That nation violates all the laws of man and God through officially sanctioned torture and keeps in power a highly unpopular leader who flouts popular will at will and we call that a democracy. Russia is called a flawed democracy because it keeps a highly popular leader in power through the perfectly legal and democratic device of changing jobs (something Western politicians are very familiar with), but George Bush’s America is to be emulated
2. The recent revelations of more torture and the use of renditions bring us to one more important question: Democracy to what end? If democracies conduct undeclared, unpopular and above all unjust wars on helpless peoples as the history of colonialism teaches us, is democracy that much superior to a peace loving monarchy or traditional regime.
2. As for the canard that for democracy to exist there has to be sufficient levels education (whatever that may be), India’s example contradicts that notion.
3. One more notion about democratization in the Arab world needs to be kept in mind “What would the natural evolution of institutions (toward secularism and democracy) would have been without the destabilizing effect of excessive and constant Western meddling in Arab states through oil politics, the state of Israel and US. Intervention?”
This said I still believe in democracy as a way of governance because as Aristotle said all other forms (on the whole) have such drawbacks. Yet a good democracy like a good marriage is something that has to be worked on. Democracy as practiced in the West seems to have fallen into some sad traps like complacency, lack of participation and arrogance. Above all there is a constant complaint among the populace in country after country that they do not feel as if the system is responsive as if decisions are made in their name by “the special interests” That should worry us and make us less arrogant, but it does not, as long as the GNP is increasing. Should we develop the concept of healthy as opposed to sick democracies?
Post new comment