Democracy is Rule by the People:
Liberal & Illiberal Democracy,
Revolutionary Democracy, Social Democracy, Christian Democracy… What should nations in Africa such as Ethiopia choose to follow?
Public Lecture
RP Vol. XII No 248 - MMXVIII
Costantinos Berhutesfa
Costantinos, PhD
President, Lem Ethiopia:
The Environment and Development Society
Professor, Public Policy
& Sustainable Institutional Reforms https://addisababa.academia.edu/CostyCostantinos
Abstract
Democracy is in retreat, so
assert influential voices in the West. With the rise of populism and hate
politics in relation to immigration, religion and colour. Three types of
threat to democracy: coups, catastrophes and technological takeovers. While
military
coup will become less common, other forms of “coups” will constrain elected
governments even while they remain formally in power. Further, there are many
looming threats to civilisation, including environmental crises and nuclear
warfare that could make democracy seem like an unaffordable luxury. Information
technology, which has ensured that “we have become dependent on forms of
communication and information-sharing that we neither control nor fully
understand (RTWT in Demdigest, 2018). On the other hand Daniel Treisman (2018) augurs on the fact that while influential voices in academia and the
media contend that democracy is in decline worldwide, using a variety of
measures, the global proportion of democracies is actually at or near an
all-time high; that the current rate of backsliding is not historically
unusual; and that this rate is well explained by the economic characteristics
of existing democracies.
Democracy is the active
participation of politically conscious citizens with the requisite
understanding of the meaning of democracy, as citizens of a political society
in a polity endowed with political rules and institutions. It is a system for choosing and replacing the government
through free and fair elections and one that protects the human rights of
all citizens and a rule of law, in which the laws and procedures apply equally
to all citizens. The classical Athenian democracy was direct democracy. Hence, this
lecture undergirds the fact that democracy has now many names - liberal,
illiberal, revolutionary, social, and Christian…democracy. What is in a Name? The
lecture asks what democracy is and what are the versions of democracy imposed
on people in today’s world? Democracy creates losers as well as winners. After
all, somebody has to pay the higher taxes it imposes and those who see their
monopolies disappear tend to be not too happy with it. These tensions,
especially when the losers are powerful enough to undermine democracy, are one
major reason why the fate of many democracies has been precarious
Key words: liberal, illiberal,
revolutionary, social, and Christian…democracy; democracy retreat, democratic
development
Read here or https://www.academia.edu/37072617/Democracy_is_Rule_by_the_People_-_RP_Vol_XII_No_248_-_MMXVIII.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment