Democracy Essay -Teoh Ye Oon

“Democracy creates stability in a society.”

Democracy comes in many forms, and like all other political systems, varies in definition from person to person. However, a general agreement about the definition of democracy is that it involves the public voting and deciding on the way the country is run. For this essay, we shall only focus on the concept of the citizens being able to vote for what they want, instead of branching into different types of democracy such as representative or direct.

Stability is largely tied to the satisfaction of the citizens, either politically, socially, or economically. Fulfillment of this three would create a stable society.

Firstly, politically speaking, a democratic government is a double-edged sword, with potential benefits or disadvantages. For the disadvantages, due to the voting system, we face a few problems. Firstly, as the citizen’s choices may vary over time, they may vote for laws that do not benefit the country in the long run. That will result in political stability as leaders are deemed “useless” and replaced constantly. Each leader’s differing views will result in an unstable political climate.

However, this same policy can be a benefit. Leaders in representative democracy who produce consistent results will stay in the leadership position for a longer time and thus have a politically stable society. If the public is well-educated and pragmatic, they too will vote for policies that improve the country in the long run, leading to satisfaction throughout all three fronts.

Secondly, socially speaking, there are potential advantages/disadvantages. The main problem with relying on a majority vote is that the minority’s views are not taken into account. For example in the Sri Lanka conflict, the Tamils were outnumbered and thus if a democratic political system was used they would probably be oppressed by the Sinhalese This results in violence and bad social stability.

However, once again the majority vote can be a benefit instead. This would ensure that a large amount of people are happy- you can’t please everyone anyway. Rather than other political systems (such as dictatorship, where one person imposes his views on the rest), democracy ensures that the maximum number of people are satisfied. This leads to minimum social unrest.
Another advantage is that democracy promotes individual rights and a certain degree of freedom. This generally pleases the public, and thus with greater freedom to do what they want (without invading the rights of others) they would be more satisfied, leading to greater stability.

A few economic benefits do come about from being democratic. Firstly, there are better relationships with the UN, with mature, well-off, democratic economies.. This leads to better trade opportunities with them and better economic prospects. Secondly, investors tend to favor countries with better social stability, so in this sense economy is related to social stability.

In conclusion, I feel that democracy does lead to stability in a society. The disadvantages mentioned earlier are often caused by a less-educated public, and since democracy is a system generally practiced by countries with well-educated citizens these problems would not surface.