Final project DEMOCRACY AND ITS CHALLENGES Politics of South-East Asia

Submitted to: Sir Ateeq-ur-Rehman Submitted by: Namrah Ghani Shah Roll #: 153 Department of Politics & IR International Islamic University, Islamabad

Dated: December 30, 2011

DEMOCRACY AND ITS CHALLENGES

Outline
1. Democracy y y y Perspectives Definition Evolution of democracy

2. Features of democracy 3. Democratic countries 4. Challenges to democracy 5. Analyzing ASEAN 6. Recommendations

DEMOCRACY
Perspectives
According to Tom Atlee, there are at least three ways to view democracy: 1) the Power Perspective 2) the Participation Perspective 3) the Intelligence Perspective The power perspective sees democracy as an effort to balance social power. History is a chronicle of societies where social power has been concentrated in a few hands. Democracy proposes that social power be distributed as widely and evenly as possible and, where it must be concentrated, it is made constitutionally answerable to those over whom it is exercised. Not surprisingly, the power perspective on democracy is concerned with institutions, constitutions, and other formal arrangements that impose structure and balance on social power

relationships. It sees power as an essentially competitive phenomenon: we all seek more power to pursue our own interests. The theory behind this is articulated in John Atlee's article, "Democracy: A Social Power Analysis." On the practical side, Ralph Nader's "Concord Principles" offers specific proposals to further democratize American institutions. The participation perspective sees democracy as an activity through which citizens participate in their community. Participation is considered a basic human need, a natural outgrowth of our social nature. Public life in general and political activity in particular, allows us to partake in and shape a larger world beyond ourselves. Furthermore, democratic activity enables us to better understand and develop ourselves through active relationships with other people. Power is seen as a cooperative, rather than competitive phenomenon - something we get by working together. From this participatory perspective, democracy is something we do and live, not something we have or make. Improving our "living democracy" is a matter of developing and using democratic forums and learning democratic skills. This is the approach advocated in "Living Democracy."

The intelligence perspective sees democracy as a factor that supports the exercise of collective intelligence. By "collective intelligence" I mean a group's or society's capacity to respond, collectively, to its changing circumstances; to make creative use of opportunities; to articulate and pursue visions and purposes; and to evolve as a culture. This view is articulated in the articles listed at Co-Intelligent Political and Democratic Theory. The emerging political form at the leading edge of this perspective is the Citizen Consensus Council. Briefly, here's the logic of the "intelligence perspective" on democracy: Authoritarian groups can be no more intelligent than their leaders. Such groups tend to be less intelligent than democratic groups because excess power tends to distort the power holders' ability to think and feel clearly and appropriately. Furthermore, authoritarian systems tend to neglect or suppress the potential contributions of non-leaders. An intelligent group or society finds ways to utilize (and even enhance) the knowledge, perspectives and aptitudes of all its members. It knows how to combine these things to generate

wise collective understandings and actions. People advocating collective intelligence will, therefore, advocate balanced power relationships. They will also make a point of creating forums where fringe or emerging ideas can be explored, so that no potential resource for the collective intelligence gets overlooked. They're inspired not only by their love for justice but also by their love for their community's intelligent solutions, creative ideas, survival and success. From the perspective of collective intelligence, the reason we want a balance of power is to enable knowledgeable, wise mass participation in collective inquiry and decision-making. But participation, itself, is not enough. The quality of participation, the processes used, the group culture, the psycho spiritual maturity of the participants, feedback mechanisms, and numerous other factors can all be addressed to increase the quality of collective insight and action. The study of collective intelligence embraces everything that could influence a group, organization or society's ability to interact intelligently with its actual circumstances. While the power perspective on democracy focuses on institutions - and the participation perspective focuses on the democratic arts - the intelligence perspective focuses on collective dynamics and learning in groups, communities and whole societies. Things like consensus, dialogue, mediation, meditation, systems theory, holistic paradigms, the scientific method, therapy, tolerance, online collaborative tools and social networks and so on can all be used to facilitate collective intelligence.1

Definition
Democracy is government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system. (Oxford English Dictionary)

Evolution of democracy Origin of Democracy

www.co-intelligence.org/CIPol_Index.htm

The word "democracy," as well as the concept it represents, can be traced back to the area surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. The beginnings of democracy can be credited to the Greeks of the sixth century BC. The word comes from two Greek words: demos, meaning "the people," and kratein, meaning "to rule." These two words are joined together to form democracy, literally meaning "rule by the people. The Greek system of government was perhaps closer to a true democracy or rule by the people than any other in history. The Greeks viewed dictatorship as the worst possible form of government, so their government evolved as the exact opposite. Their civilization was broken down into small city-states (never more than 10,000 citizens), and all the men voted on all issues of government. There were no representatives in the Greek system of government. Instead, they ruled themselves directly; each man was a life long member of the decision making body. This was almost a total democracy except for the fact that women and slaves (over 50% of the population) were not considered citizens and were not allowed to vote. Despite this, no other civilization has come as close to democracy as its creators, the Greeks, and many later civilizations have incorporated this Greek idea as part of the foundation for their government. Ideas of democracy similar to that of the Greeks were used by the Romans, though not to the same extent. The Roman Empire took some of their governmental ideals from the Greeks. Their government was a representative democracy, which had representatives from the nobility in the Senate and representatives from the commoners in the Assembly. Governmental power was divided between these two branches and they voted on various issues. Many Roman political thinkers were fond of democracy. The Roman Statesman, Cicero was one. Cicero suggested that all people have certain rights that should be preserved. He and other political philosophers of the time taught that governmental and political power should come from the people. After the trend of democracy was started by the Greeks and carried on by the Romans, it has been seen in many later governmental systems throughout history.

Democracy in the Middle Ages

Though democracy was not directly instituted in the Middle Ages, many democratic ideas were prevalent throughout the period. Because Christianity, which taught that men were created equal in the eyes of God, was deeply ingrained into the society of the middle Ages, the democratic idea of equality was understood by many of the people. The middle Ages, however, utilized another

form of government, which was developed during this period called feudalism. Feudalism stressed that all people have certain rights and developed a system of courts to defend these rights. From these courts came the modern day judicial branch of the American government along with many of the ideas such as kings councils, assemblies and eventually parliamentary systems.

Democracy in England
In 1215 AD, the Magna Carta opened the door to a more democratic system in England. Nobles forced King John to sign this "Great Charter" that created the English "Parliament", or lawmaking body, and stated that the written laws held a higher power than the king, thereby limiting the power of the Royal family and giving some of that power to the people. Later, the Petition of Right stipulated that the King could no longer tax without parliaments permission and the Bill of Rights provided freedom of speech and banned cruel or unusual punishment. These strengthened Parliament further and gave the people more right to express themselves. Though these reforms did not make England a true democracy in any sense, they did incorporate democratic ideals, which would later be used to form the government of the United States.

The Path to Modern Democracy

The American Revolution is another important event in the history of democracy. The first step, of course, in Americas pursuit of democracy was the Declaration of Independence in 1776. In this great document, written by Thomas Jefferson, many ideas are taken from the aforementioned philosophers, Locke and Rousseau. From Locke, Jefferson borrowed the idea that all men are created equal, and he altered the right to life, liberty and property to "the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Jefferson borrowed a little from Rousseau as well when he said that all men should have the right to take up arms against the government if it did not respect these rights. In the French Revolution, a similar cause was espoused. Political thinkers and philosophers such as Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau inspired the people by building off of American ideas and insisting that freedom comes only after the legislative, judicial and executive branches of the government are separated. The people of France overthrew the king, then set forth the

"Declaration of the Rights of Man," which changed Lockes right to life, liberty and property to the right to "liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression." These ideas, like the ones in the American Declaration of Independence, lended themselves to a partially democratic system where the powers of the king are limited and the people have some say in their government. All over the world, revolutions began to spring up against monarchies, and democratic governments began to develop. Before the end of the 19th century, almost all of the Western European monarchies had adopted a constitution limiting the power of the Royal Family and giving some power to the people. Parliamentary type representative legislatures were also developed in many of these countries, giving the people more power to rule. With the growing success of democracy in the United States and in other countries throughout the world, democracy became more and more popular. By the 1950s, almost every independent country on the planet had a government that embodied some of the principals and ideals put forth by democracy. The model nation for these principals became the United States.

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 dont, 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.2

Features of democracy
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 - 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, noncompulsion, non-suppression - real implementation of principles of constitutional state including separation of powers principle.

Democratic countries
These are the democracy supporter countries of the world.

www.nipissingu.ca/department/history/muhlberger/.../index.html library.thinkquest.org/26466/history_of_democracy.html

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Benin, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cape Verde, Chile, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jamaica, Kiribati, , Latvia, Lesotha, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Mexico, Micronesia, Mongolia, Namibia, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Palau, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Suriname, Sweden, Thailand, Taiwan, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, Soviet Russia.

CHALLENGES TO DEMOCRACY
According to the United Nations spokesperson; While democracy continues to be upheld as a universally relevant set of principles and an optimal social and political system, the challenges to consolidating democracy around the world remain formidable and numerous. Restoring or building new democracies, preserving fragile democracies and improving the quality of even long-established democracies requires commitment and hard work.

Democracies Challenged
Southeast Asia's diversity makes the political development of each country in the region sui generis to some degree. Nevertheless, some commonalities can be seen at this juncture. Overall, Southeast Asia's authoritarian and semi-authoritarian systems are fairly stable, and do not seem to be approaching major changes. Participants agreed that, despite more than a decade of international pressure, Burma's regime does not appear close to reform or collapse. On the contrary, the purge within the government last fall only illustrated that the hard-line ranks can be easily replenished. Economic reform is encouraging greater openness in the Vietnamese system, but there is little doubt that the party system will endure for the time being. Many of the world's semi-authoritarian systems have lasted for decades, as Singapore and Malaysia have demonstrated. Their democratic procedures allow for some degree of political pluralism, particularly in Malaysia, but these same procedures are employed to keep the dominant party in

power. After more than a decade of struggling to graft an internationally designed democratic system onto a Leninist political structure, Cambodia, too, seems to be settling into semi authoritarianism. But US policymakers should not view this relative stability as a reason to ignore these systems and should consider new approaches to encourage democratic gains. This is difficult, because Americans are often uncomfortable with the shades of gray in semi authoritarian systems. At this point in time, Southeast Asia's democracies appear to be the most politically dynamic, for better or worse. Indonesia is still in the process of consolidating a democratic system that has developed fairly rapidly, after 30 years under Suharto's rule. Political parties are still weak, as is the judiciary. Corruption continues to eat away at democratic legitimacy, and successful economic growth will be essential to the continuation of the democratization process. Two questions about Indonesia's democracy are still outstanding: (1) is democracy working at the local level and (2) can and will the Indonesian armed forces reform? Although the military is considered to be removed from politics, it has yet to be brought fully under civilian control, and some consider it to be a political party awaiting an opportunity. On a different plane, Indonesia has not fully defined democracy. From an Islamic perspective, a task that is all the more important in an era of heightened extremism and terrorism. Thailand and the Philippines, Southeast Asia's oldest democracies, appear to be switching places, with Thailand moving closer to a pres- identical system and the Philippines contemplating a change to parliamentary rule. However, political trends in Thailand may be temporary and tied to the management style of Prime Minister Thaksin, who has been successful in bringing minor parties into the ThaiRak Thai party and in shuffling the cabinet to keep its core close to him. This consolidation puts pressure on opposition parties to become better organized. At this time, Thaksin's greatest challenge is the increasing violence in the Muslim south. Resolving tensions in that area is a long-term undertaking, and some elements within the Thai political community see the emergency powers that have been conferred upon the government as counterproductive in that regard. The Philippines appears to be in a protracted political crisis of a broader kind, and some observers believe that the traditional political class in the country is on the verge of extinction. The government is increasingly beleaguered, and splits are emerging in civil society as well as between the executive branch and the Senate. One participant described the present political conflict not as a two-sided one, but as a "circular firing squad." In an attempt to extricate the country from this crisis, public debate has centered on the possibility of adopting a

parliamentary system, on the theory that it would help strengthen and stabilize the political party system and make relations between the executive and legislative branches less confrontational. Many observers believe that the instinct is to adhere to a pres-idential system, but the current debate has at least identified some of the weaknesses in that system that needs to be addressed.3

Analyzing ASEAN
Is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) a pluralistic security community? Does community cause security in Southeast Asia? In a PSC, member states are sovereign. So are the members of ASEAN. Before concluding that the ASEAN region is a PSC, however, one should distinguish between two versions: a thin or descriptive PSC, whose members share both a sense of community and the expectation of security, and a thick or explanatory version in which community has actually been shown to cause security. Depending on how a sense of community is defined, one may say that at certain times in its history, ASEAN probably has been a thin PSC. More recently, however, the cooperative identity of regional elites may have frayed, as democratization, especially in Indonesia, has incorporated non-elites into public life. Meanwhile the proposition that the assurance of security in Southeast Asia has resulted from this sense of community, that ASEAN is a thick PSC, remains to be proven.4

Recommendations
Despite heavy emphasis on spreading freedom and democracy in the National Security Strategy of 2002 and other policy instruments, there is little to suggest that the United States will reorder policy priorities to downplay conventional security and counterterrorism and make democracy promotion a central theme in Southeast Asia policy. Indeed, democracy commands only 8 percent of the present budget of the United States Agency for International Development, essentially making it a discretionary item. However, considerable improvements can be made in current policy with a number of paradigm and operational changes. Taken collectively, participants' recommendations advocate a more vigorous and disciplined approach to democracy

www.stanleyfoundation.org/publications/pdb/SPC05SEApb www.fule.at/documents/APISA 4 www.gmanews.tv/.../analysis-the-asean-charter

promotion, but one that is also more indirect, in recognition that political development in Southeast Asia is an intensely internal affair in the great majority of countries.