Democracy in America

Modern American democracy is in the form of a democratic republic or a representative democracy. A representative democracy came about in the United States because the colonists were tired of taxation without representation and wanted a more fair system where the people had more say in the rule of the country. They did not desire the Athenian form of democracy however; as they feared it would give the people too much power and would lend control of the government to the uneducated masses. What they came up with was a representative democracy wherein elected representatives rather than direct rule by the people rule the government. These representatives are elected with the idea that they will accurately represent their constituents, but in case some don’t, the U.S. government is divided into three branches to keep corruption in check. These three branches are the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches. No one branch contains absolute power, rather, each branch is balanced off of the others creating a system of checks and balances to protect the principals of democracy. This system is in no way perfect, and this is why we must pursue a more perfect form of democracy and a more perfect union between our citizens, states and country (Pious; Sanford 20-27).

Current interpretations the term of "democracy" implies a certain power system; in essence it represents a form of organization of political life that reflects free and competitive public choice of any alternative of social development. With the participation of all segments of population in ruling activities the democracy is open for all variants of social choice. The democracy is a way of political system functioning, a way of social life organization based on recognition of people as the source of power, its rights to participate in solution of state and public affairs, and on vesting citizens with wide enough range of rights and freedoms.

The common features of democracy, as a modern constitutional order and regime of political system functioning, are as below:

- recognition of people as the source of the state power. The power of people implies that it forms the state power by elections and directly participates in its implementation (with the help of referenda, local authorities as well as through representative bodies);

- alternate electivity and replacement of central and local authorities with their accountability to the electorate;

- declaration and ensuring rights and freedoms of man and citizen. A specific meaning for the full-fledged functioning democratic political system ensures the rights of people of participating in management of state affairs – elective franchise, the right to form political parties and other types of associations, freedom of speech and opinions, information right, etc;

- decision-making by the majority and minority`s submission in implementing them;

- society`s democratic control of security ministries, used according to their intended purpose and within the law;

- domination of persuasive, coordinating and compromising methods, non-violence, non-compulsion, non-suppression;

- real implementation of principles of constitutional state including separation of powers principle.

Depending on the form of implementation of peoples` sovereignty, the democracy can be subdivided into direct, plebiscitary and representative.

The modern democracy is defined as pluralistic one and in this sense it is based on diversity (pluralism – from the Latin pluralis – multiple) of public interests (economic, social, cultural, religious, ethnic, group, regional, etc.) and forms of their expression (political parties, public organization, movements, etc.).

Pluralistic feature of modern democracy is in connection with the fact that people, as the supreme power bearer, represents itself as a totality of groups – social, occupational, ethnic, demographic, territorial, religious, etc. An individual as a constituent part of people realizes its political personality through the participation of various interest groups.

The politics is taken as a field of intergroup cooperation of competition, struggle, and compromises, while the democracy is seen as a form of governing that allows various social groups to express freely their interests and find out compromise solutions in competitive struggle. In this case the state is responsible for robust functioning of all sectors of social system and maintaining social justice. The state indeed as an arbiter that ensures observance of law, rules of the game in competition of groups, barring the power from monopolization.

Modern democracy has many advantages. Firstly, that is particularly important for the majority of modern states; the democracy supports civil society, i.e. under democracy any state cares about the rights and responsibilities of all the citizens. Secondly, the democracy gives each citizen a chance to break into the top echelons of power. Thirdly, the democracy ensures relative state stability (at this stage of history – world`s stability).

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 920