Democracy Is All About Delivery

Marking the ushering of modern democracy in Nepal back in 1951 offers an opportunity to discuss briefly what it means, or should mean. Perceptions differ; so also do definitions. Some common features are, however, natural and acceptable.  Of prime importance are reducing poverty, meeting the basic needs of a maximum number of people and ensuring core freedoms that engage members of society in airing their views and desires without fear. Nursing animus against dissenting voices is no democratic approach. But democracy cannot be strengthened amid hungry stomachs. 

Educated unemployed represents a crude state of affairs, reflecting the victims’ depth of pain and anguish. Trouble breeds if multiple adults, if not all, in a family are without regular jobs. Extended families might help ease the situation slightly in meeting minimum needs but this cannot go on endlessly in this day and age. Suitable jobs for the employable age adults meet the most basic of requirements for a successfully functioning polity. 

An environment for free expression without consequences adds to the quality of the polity and also addresses an array of issues concerning participatory democracy. At a time when there is so much talk about democracy, it is in the fitness of things to dwell upon a debate on global democracy. Some countries commit themselves to promoting democracy in other states. They do not hesitate to become proactive in attempts at exporting their ideas of how states should function. 

Correction course

If the criteria set by some Western agencies concentrating their attention on conditions in various parts of the world are anything to go by, less than a quarter of the global community of independent states are advanced democracies. The United Nations could make significant contributions to promoting democracy worldwide. Its Security Council, however, does not reflect the spirit of universal representation in the new millennium without revamping its composition. The presence of a select five holding permanent seats constitutes a glaring contradiction. Moreover, the manner in which the five individual members exercise the veto power to quash initiatives robs the vast majority of the rest of the largest international body of their voice concerning vital issues. 

The practice goes against the principles of inclusive and participatory process. At the same time, no country from Africa and Latin America is represented. In terms of population and number of countries, the Security Council’s composition leaves much to be desired. In fact, the anomaly was pointed out right from the beginning after World War II ended in 1945, when colonialism was still at its height. If the UN had 51 founder member states, the total now has risen nearly four times at 193. Struggle for independence from colonial rule, and divisions of territories based on sectarian factors brought about many new independent nations. 

Of the “Big Five” holding permanent seats, Russia (formerly the Soviet Union) has used veto power 121 times, the US 82 times, the United Kingdom 29 times, China 17 times and France 16 times. France and the UK have not invoked their veto power since 1989. Animus against different ideas is no democratic approach. Use of intimidation, sponsoring of proxy war and inciting violence are to be denounced. Although an essential element in improving the living standards of the people in a given state, economic prosperity alone does not ensure democratic governance.  

Various groups list only a few countries as full democracies and the rest of humanity are graded partly democratic, flawed democracy and the like. Flawed voting affects voter participation even in advanced democracies. Minimising hassles and rigmaroles should be a priority. The new times of a fast-changing world cannot march forward smoothly and in the spirit of global cooperation without maximum participation of the largest number of people in setting agendas; defining and interpreting issues; and the like. Extended class culture, inherent inequality and depressing disparity that cut-throat capitalism cultivates do not aid functioning democracy. 

The good-doing group with hidden agenda is conspiratorial and complicit in manufacturing poison-drips. Traditionally dominant powers’ long-nurtured image of invincibility has begun to crack and risks collapse in the not-too-distant future. The stench of blatant expediency, which eats into state structures held by democracy’s self-declared champions, erodes much of the promised good governance. As a result, assertions of defining, interpreting and evaluating democracy for the entire world will sound empty. 

Attitude & approach 

Many sections criticise the US-led war in Iraq as a humanitarian crime. They worry about the lack of transparency in their elected representatives.  Carl Bernstein, of the investigative reports pertaining to the Watergate scandal, made in partnership with Bob Woodward for The Washington Post, notes: “Our democracy, before Trump, had ceased to be working well.”  A recent survey indicated that 49 per cent of Britons look back at their colonial rule as “good old days”. In the 1980s, US President Ronald Reagan sold weapons clandestinely to Iran through a circuitous route for circumventing senate’s directive not to fund the Contras who were fighting against Nicaragua’s ruling Sandinista leftists. 

Most Russians praise Putin for restoring their national pride as against his two immediate predecessors Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin — among the favourite Russians in the West — or Hamid Karzai and Mohammad Ashraf Ghani in Afghanistan. Putin is no less aggressive than his foreign counterparts when it comes to the question of national “security interests”. Many American analysts consider America’s support for the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights to be uncalled for. Without the near $ 4 billion in annual US military support to the Jewish state, events might have been drastically different from those unfolding presently in West Asia. 

Only if those in the seat of power play by the rule book does credibility get bolstered. Democratic governance can be improved and strengthened through regular and timely political debates that enable citizens to fulfil their social responsibility. Informed citizen participation helps in critical appreciation of state affairs at the mass level. At the end of the day, the quality of democracy is gauged by a delivery that meets the expectations of well-informed and proactive units of all sections of society. Most people in developing countries list health services, education, employment and law and order as top priorities.

(Professor Kharel specialises in political communication.)