How do You Define Democracy?

Elected representatives at the national and local levels should listen to the people and respond to their needs and suggestions.

Elections have to occur at regular intervals, as prescribed by law.  Those in power cannot extend their terms in office without asking for the consent of the people again in an election.

All parties and candidates must have the right to campaign freely, to present their proposals to the voters both directly and through the mass media.

For elections to be free and fair, they have to be administered by a neutral, fair, and professional body that treats all political parties and candidates equally.

Voters must be able to vote in secret, free of intimidation and violence.

All parties and candidates must have the right to campaign freely, to present their proposals to the voters both directly and through the mass media.

Most countries today are formal democracies. An astonishing political transformation has taken place around the world over the past threedecades. By the end of 2011, the only countries considered autocracies were: Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Laos, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Swaziland, Syria, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, and Uzbekistan.

Voters must be able to vote in secret, free of intimidation and violence.

Over one in three live in authoritarian systems (but over half of them are in China).

Independent observers must be able to observe the voting and the vote counting to ensure that the process is free of corruption, intimidation, and fraud.

Elections have become almost universal: elections have been held in all but five countries with populations >500k from 2000-2012: China, Eritrea, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates.

There needs to be some impartial and independent tribunal to resolve any disputes about the election results.

Most leaders in Africa are replaced by ballots, not bullets: While in the 1960s and 1970s approximately 75% of African leaders were ousted through violent means (coup d’etats, rebellion), in the period 2000-2005 this number had dropped to 19%.

This is why it takes a lot of time to organize a good, democratic election.

But elections are not always peaceful: between 1990 and 2007 one in five elections in SubSaharan Africa suffered significant violence and only about 40% were entirely violence-free.

Any country can hold an election, but for an election to be free and fair requires a lot of organization, preparation, and training of political parties, electoral officials, and civil society organizations who monitor the process

The quality of many of these democracies remains deeply flawed: Only 15% can be described as ‘full democracies’, with 31% counting as ‘authoritarian regimes’. The rest are in-betweeners, either ‘flawed democracies’ or ‘hybrid regimes’.

Alternations of power remain remarkably limited in Sub-Saharan Africa: Since 2000, only fourteen of 51 states have seen power transferred between political parties.

The Role of the Citizen in A Democracy

The wealthiest countries tend to be democracies: outside the petro-states, the top 25 richest countries in the world (as ranked by the World Bank) are also fully established democracies. In fact, a democratic regime has never fallen after a certain income level is reached (US$6,055 per capita) – which was Argentina when it fell to bureaucratic authoritarianism in 1963. But correlation does not (in case you were wondering) mean causation……

The total number of women elected to parliament has almost doubled since 1997 (OK, only to 21%, but still…) As of April 2013, the top 10 countries in descending order in terms of the percentage of women in the lower or single House are: Rwanda, Andorra, Cuba, Sweden, Seychelles, Senegal, Finland, South Africa, Nicaragua, and Iceland.

The key role of citizens in a democracy is to participate in public life.

Expensive elections are not necessarily better: at $6bn, the 2012 US elections cost 120 times more than the UK 2010 ones. The costs of the 2007 elections in Kenya (messy, violent – see pic) were US$13.74 per registered voter (or US$ 29 per cast ballot). The elections in Ghana in 2008, (v civilised by comparison), came to US$0.70.

Citizens have an obligation to become informed about public issues, to watch carefully how their political leaders and representatives use their powers, and to express their own opinions and interests.

Voting in elections is another important civic duty of all citizens.