Whether a Country is Democratic or Non-Democratic (Research Paper Sample)

Whether a country is democratic or non-democratic
Name:
Institution:
The word democracy means “rule by the people. It’s a decision-making model about collectively binding rules and policies over which the people exercise control, (Wong, 2011) and the best democratic arrangement to be that where all members of the collective enjoy effective equal rights to take part in such decision making directly. It’s a basic right of citizenship to be exercised (Marden, 2012) under conditions of responsibility, equality, transparency, freedom and, respecting the plurality of views, and in the polity’s interest. It is based on well-functioning and well-structured institutions on a platform of standards, rules and the will of society as a whole. In a democratic State, no one is above and all are equal before the law.
In non-democracy people are not participating in political process. They are restricted by central governing body which in almost all cases the ruling government (Marden, 2012). The government has absolute powers over its citizens and nobody has a right to freely participate in election, decision making process or any other activity in matter pertaining the country’s governance. (Marden, 2012)
These elements of democracy include and not limited to the following; Rule of law where the citizens adhere to common known laws which are unbiased for instance, criminal code; Political equity whereby all citizens from all works of life have an equal chance and right to either vote for a leader to run for leadership position in any public office (Jhankritsoni, 2011); Political freedoms where People can speak freely, form associations, run for office and vote without being intimidated; Personal freedom is where people enjoy many personal freedoms such as those of religions and expressions for instance the Churches to attend, places of worship, freedom of speech etc. (Wong, 2011)
Providing a basis of distinction between democracy and non-democracy, I choose to use two countries; (Jhankritsoni, 2011) Algeria and South Africa. The elements of democracy that I’ve explained above are the variables of democracy. Therefore, these two countries both exhibit completely differing status as per the variables explained and this difference builds the basis for analysis. Democracy is therefore the independent variable and the two countries are the dependent variables. This is to mean that in order to answer the question as to whether a country is democratic or not, an analysis of the elements of democracy is critical. The democratic state of these two countries is dependent on the analysis as discussed in the next paragraphs.
From 1989 until 1991, Algeria was seen as a model for democracy in the developing world, and that would transform an authoritarian regime into a liberal government. Unfortunately the democratic transition did not come to fruition and Algeria still remains an authoritarian state. (Jhankritsoni, 2011)
Algeria’s political ruling party and the military have been the same for many years and made some crucial mistakes that have led Algeria down a non-democratic path. Algeria lacks a national identity and this internal problem is one that hinders a strong democratic movement because the Algerian population is not unified under a “self’(Marden, 2012 Corruption and social upheaval are the harbingers for this movement and the government has not made real headway to realize the people’s wishes. (Jhankritsoni, 2011. The election system is misused. (Wong, 2011) But the military does not trust the common sense of the people. Transformative authoritarianism is better than what Algerians are experiencing currently, but bold steps have to be taken to liberalize the economy in order to spur investment and development, that in turn would lead to changes in the social status and perhaps a cultural shift toward democracy for Algerians. (Marden, 2012)
On the other end, South Africa is a nation that has been struggling to define democracy and to mound institutions and mechanisms to give expression to it and from this example; there are sufficient lessons of universal importance to be drawn. South Africans had to begin grappling with what should replace apartheid and they accepted that democracy needed to succeed apartheid (Jhankritsoni, 2011).
The South African Parliament has put much effort into opening the doors of the institution to ordinary citizens. On any given day, the public gallery of the National Assembly can be seen packed with groups of visiting schoolchildren, who, though not yet old enough to vote, (Wong, 2011) take an active interest in the governance of the country. In the new constitution drafting process, an extensive public awareness campaign was initiated informing people of the process and soliciting contributions to the Constitution. By the end of the process, (Marden, 2012) the Constitutional Assembly had received over two million different submissions from people around the country. This clearly shows that the constitution making was a democratic process because the citizens were given an opportunity to express their views. (Marden, 2012)
In quest of equitable distribution of national resources among regions with vastly differing levels of development and wealth, (Marden, 2012) the South African ...