Devolutionary Refractions: The 21st Century’s Delusional ‘Democracy’

What is gone wrong with democracy? 

Democracy was the most successful political idea of the 20th century. Why it run into trouble? What can be done to revive it? (The Economist, 2015)

Devolutionary Refractions:

The 21^st Century’s Delusional ‘Democracy’

Public Lecture, CCIX, MMXVI

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD,

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,

College of Business & Economics, AAU,

Abstract

  Ivan Krastev challenge us by saying, you believe that the government is not sufficiently transparent. You are mistaken transparency hurts democracy. If we reflect on the most important concepts in political science vocabulary (democracy, liberalism, authoritarianism, transparency, etc.), it is apparent that they are used with so many different meanings that it is easy to prove contradictory theses simultaneously. This is a source of renewable energy in the humanities, but it is considered dangerous by some, or even contaminated. Hence, repeated attempts distil the language of the humanities so that in the patiently anticipated future it will become a substitute for formal logic notation. At pivotal moments in the past, altering the rules of the political has been a defining trait of the organised left, able to project a new social order out of latent concerns, as well as develop the means to alter the grammar of politics. If democracy means rule by the people for the people, it has broken down (Amin, 2012). Democracy is going through a difficult time. Where autocrats have been driven out of office, their opponents have mostly failed to create viable regimes (The Economist, 2015).

The Chinese Communist Party has broken the democratic world’s monopoly on economic progress standards of roughly once every 30 years. China has been doubling living standards roughly every decade for the past 30 years. The Chinese elite argue that their model—tight control by the Communist Party, coupled with a relentless effort to recruit talented people into its upper ranks—is more efficient than democracy and less susceptible to gridlock. Hence, the central hypothesis is that the relative strength of political organisations determines the rules of the political game that are installed. Democratisation requires a plural set of political organisations, which promote and protect rules of peaceful political participation and competition. Together, democratic institutions (plural organisations plus rules of accountability) ensure control of the state executive.

Key words: democracy, elections, economic progress, authoritarianism,

See paper here or https://www.academia.edu/25575217/Devolutionary_Tangents_-_The_21st_Century_Delusional_Democracy