History; Evolution of Democracy and some of the world’s Strongest Democracies today

Democracy refers to a system where the power lies in the hands of the citizens of a country who participate in making laws and public policies. The term is derived from the Greek word‘dēmokratiā’, which was coined from dēmos (“people”) and kratos (“rule”). Compared with autocrats and nondemocratic states, democratic governments guarantee fundamental individual rights and a broader range of personal freedom, allow for a relatively high level of political equality, foster better quality of life for their citizens rarely engaging in war with each other. The state of local (seen here as national) democracies evolved over time. Certainly, there were short-lived abnormal mutations in the form of repression and dictatorship, but in the grand scheme of things the direction has been a forward, positive trend.

The Sumerian citystates are believed to have had some form of Democratic setup initially. They became monarchies over time. One of the earliest instances of democracy in a civilization was found in republics in ancient India, which were established sometime before the 6th century BC, and prior to the birth of Gautama Buddha. These republics were known as Maha Janapadas.

A relatively recorded democratic form of government was introduced in the city-state of Athens. Cleisthenes of Athens is regarded as the founder of Athenian democracy, serving as chief archon (highest magistrate) of Athens. Athenian democracy, was based on selection of officials by lot, and decisions by majority rule. The assembly of all male citizens in Athens voted on decisions directly. Ephialtes of Athens had a law passed severely limiting the powers of the Council of the Areopagus, which deprived the Athenian nobility of their special powers. Few checks on or limits to the power of the assembly existed, with the notable exception of the graphe paranomon, which made it illegal to pass a law that was contrary to another.

France was the earliest nation-state in the mid eighteenth century to fuel an uprising for the abolition of monarchy in Europe. After a long struggle, it became a republic. Famous philosophers like Montesquieu wrote that the main purpose of government is to maintain law and order, political liberty, and the property of the individual opposing the absolute monarchy that was practiced in France. Rousseau’s central argument in his ‘The Social Contract’ is that government attains its right to exist and to govern by the consent of the governed.

One of the most notable political developments in the nineteenth century was the rise of American democracy. Whereas the founders of the new nation envisioned the United States as a republic, not a democracy and had placed safeguards such as the Electoral College in the 1787 Constitution to prevent simple majority rule, the early 1820s saw many Americans embracing majority rule and rejecting old forms of deference that were based on elite ideas of virtue, learning, and family lineage. As the will of the majority became the rule of the day, everyone outside of mainstream, white American opinion—especially American Indians and African Americans—were vulnerable to the wrath of the majority.

Since the 20th century, colonies and monarchies changed themselves into democracies through struggle, revolution or rebellions turning democratic form of government as the most popular form of government in the modern world. There are basically two forms of democratic government systems, namely presidential and parliamentary. The salient distinction between the two systems is that in a presidential system in the United States, executive power is constitutionally vested in a single individuali.e., the president whereas in a parliamentary system in India, executive power is vested in the legislature i.e., parliament which chooses a prime minister.

Unitary system of the democracy gave way to federalism in most democracies where the countries where divided into coming together federations or holding together federations, divided into tires governing the same citizens but at its own jurisdiction in specific matters of legislation, taxation and administration.Some institutions such as the panchayats in India, German tribal system described by Ttacitus and theFrankish custom of the Marzfeld or “March field”introduced the contents of local democracy adding up a third tier in some countries into federalism.

Switzerland is a rare example of a country with instruments of direct democracy (at the levels of the municipalities, cantons, and federal state). Citizens have more power than in a representative democracy. In a strong democracy, citizens govern themselves to the greatest extent possible rather than delegate their power and responsibility to representatives acting in their names.

The Democracy Index is an index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the research division of the Economist Group, a UK-based private company which publishes the weekly newspaper The Economist. The index is self-described as intending to measure the state of democracy in 167 countries based on 60 indicators grouped in five different categories, measuring pluralism, civil liberties and political culture. In addition to a numeric score and a ranking, the index categorizes each country into one of four regime types: full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes and authoritarian regimes.[Refer to fig.1] The top five democratic regions are listed as:

1. North America

2. Western Europe

3. Latin America and the Caribbean

4. Asia and Australasia

5. Central and Eastern Europe

The best and the worst democracies were observed to be Norway and North Korea respectively. [Refer to fig.2]India falls to 51st position in EIU's Democracy, it’s overall score falling from 7.23 in 2018 to 6.90 on the Index of 2019.

Citations

1. Dahl, R. A. (2021, February 11). Democracy. Encyclopedia Britannica.https://www.britannica.com/topic/democracy

2. Schools Wikipedia Selection2007.History of democracy.https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/h/History_of_democracy.htm