Many people say that democracy is the best social and political system for a country and it is democracy that promotes stability as well as economic prosperity in a country. However, I do not agree with this idea.
Firstly, democracy cannot be achieved. There is no way for all the people to be satisfied at the same time. What democracy can do and what it is doing is just following the opinion of the majority to "violate" that of the minority. For example, in America, democracy not only failed to bring fortune to all the people, but also violated the rights of African American as the majority whites in the society are discriminatory towards them. In this case, democracy is deliberately used to deny the rights of the minority instead of satisfying all the members in the society.
Secondly, democracy is more and more often used as a tool by politicians or parties. Sometimes people do not care much of it because his vote is too small and negligible comparing to the whole society. Sometimes politicians can arrange their policy and make the majority think that it is more worthy voting for it instead of against it, and sometimes politicians even demarcate the voting area to ensure that they get the majority of votes in every voting region. Nowadays democracy is far more complicated than what it was hundreds of years before and it is always being used as a tool to satisfy the politicians or the parties’ needs but not the needs of the people.
Some people say that democracy produces the balance of all the opinions, ideologies and perspectives in the whole society, and thus it promotes stability. However, imagine a country that has just been established; the people in the country are now arguing for some issues and it can easily escalate to riots and conflict. It is democracy that gives the people the right to argue for their will and rights. In fact, it is not just a hypothetical situation but has happened or is happening now in the real world, just like in Sri Lanka, which is a country in great chaos. Therefore I think sometimes democracy does not create balance but controversy or even conflict, and of course it cannot promote stability in these cases.
Furthermore, some people say that democratic countries are usually more stable and developed than authoritarian countries. However, many countries, such as Sri Lanka, despite their democratic governments, are in great turmoil. Moreover, I think neither authoritarianism nor democracy is the reason for the poverty and famine in those countries. Authoritarian countries, like China, are usually established later than the developed democratic countries, resulting in the underdevelopment. In addition, those countries that are established later often choose authoritarianism instead of democracy, for democracy which appeals to the opinions of all the people may lead to chaos as the countries are struggling to develop. I cannot say that this statement is definitely right, but I think it is an interesting question to think about.
Hence, I do not agree that democracy promotes stability.
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