Rights

WHY DEMOCRACY? TWELVE ADVANTAGES IN SUMMARY

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In twelve recent posts, I have listed the Twelve Advantages of Democracy. Those advantages, taken together, are my answer to the Why Democracy? question. They are powerful advantages, the reasons people take to the streets and risk their lives for the blessing of living under democratic order, as currently in Iran.

There is a divide between regimes that are (more or less) democratic and those that are (more or less) autocratic. The difference is not in perfection or beauty. Democracy is often messy and always unfinished. Autocratic regimes can be impressive in strength and performance. But there is a difference for the people who live under the respective regimes.

If your country is democratic, you are

  • less at risk of tyranny
  • more likely to possess rights
  • more likely to enjoy autonomy
  • more likely to be protected by rule of law
  • more likely to experience political equality
  • more likely to handle citizenship duties
  • more likely to benefit from effective governance
  • more likely to live in an environment of prosperity
  • less at risk of suffering poverty
  • more likely to live in peace
  • more likely to experience managed disagreement
  • more likely to enjoy a culture of tolerance.

These are real, practical and tangible advantages of real democracy as we know it. There is nothing abstract or theoretical about it; this is the way things play out for real men, women, children and families in today’s world. If you live under an autocratic regime, the risks and likelihoods all fall differently. You are then more at risk of tyranny, and so on. If you have a choice, your best bet by far is democracy.

Still, the advantages are only probabilities, not certainties. Democracy does not guarantee any of it. The theoretician Alexis de Tocqueville, for example, observing American democracy in the 1830s, warned of possible “soft despotism,” a kind of tyranny under a surface of democratic forms. The Greek philosopher Aristotle warned, as have many others, of the danger of mob rule. In his city of Athens, the world’s first democracy only lasted about two hundred years.

Today’s democracies are not always impressive. In Britain, the home of the Westminster Model, rather than effective governance we are in a long run of misrule. In the United States, the home of the American Constitution, the ability to managed disagreement and tolerance is going lost.

None of that negates the advantages of democracy. It only suggests that we are not alert enough to what democracy does for us to stand guard over the democracies we have. If we allow them to wither, as in Athens, we will soon enough know what we have lost.

For more detailed analysis, see How Democracies Live.

WHY DEMOCRACY? FOURTH ADVANTAGE

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The fourth advantage of democracy: rule of law. In democracies, the law prevails. Governments cannot do what is not authorised in law. Retribution cannot be brought down upon citizens that is not sanctioned in known law and managed through due process. People do not live in fear that someone will come knocking in the night and take them away. Property has legal protection and cannot be expropriated except by due process and with compensation. Contract is regulated by law. Public policy, policing, surveillance, land management, punishment – none of these are at the discretion of the governors. Citizens have protection and predictability in life and business. In short, there is rule of law.

Under autocracy, the rulers are above the law, not the law above the rulers. There may be rule by law, but not rule of law. One reason a regime needs to be autocratic is that it cannot prevail with rule of law.  

Rule of law is not impossible in political systems that are not democratic. Hong Kong has until recently benefitted from a rule of law regime, including with an independent judiciary and freedoms of speech, information and assembly. That, however, proved intolerable to the autocrats in Beijing. Since Hong Kong liberties were not embedded in robust democratic institutions, they could be wiped out the moment the men in Beijing decided to take control. But rule of law without democracy, if not impossible, it is very unlikely and unlikely to prevail. Democracy without rule of law, on the other hand, is not possible.

For more detailed analysis, see How Democracies Live.

On China and Hong Kong, see The Perfect Dictatorship.

On democratic quality, see What Democracy Is For.

WHY DEMOCRACY? SECOND ADVANTAGE

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The second advantage of democracy: rights. What enables the people to control their governments, is that they have rights. Under democratic constitutions, citizens have the right to life, the right to speak, the right of assembly, the right to discuss, the right to information, the right to criticise, the right to worship (or not to worship), the right to publish, the right to property, the right to fair trial, the right to vote. Furthermore, democratic constitutions impose on the state a duty to respect the rights of citizens and to maintain institutions dedicated to their protection, such as an independent judiciary. If a constitution does not enshrine basic rights and ensure institutions for their maintenance, it is not democratic. Under autocracy, governments have rights, not people, or at least power from above trumps rights from below.

For more detailed analysis, see How Democracies Live.

On the absence of rights under autocracy, see The Truth About China.