To state the term stability clearly, I would be discussing stability in society as a general trend of minimal conflict/discontent, peace and absence of revolt and an environment that is conducive for development.
Democracy, being one of the most popularly integrated political systems in the world currently. With its growing popularity, is stability necessarily a follow up results in societies which adopt it? Or is democracy just another faulty bandwagon?
The basis of democracy is the idea of freedom, equality and power of vote in deciding what people of that society wants for themselves and the society regardless of status of any kind. This is especially important to keep the trust of the people and let them feel in control of their own lives, whilst in the same time opening up the society to more ideas and point of views/ experiences, this in turn helps the government see its own mistakes or forcefully make them admit and change from their mistakes. This helps to straighten the road of the government with diverging criticism and enlightenment from its people, the ones roughing it out for them since they are unable to scoop low and have a first hand experience themselves.
It will prove much easier to develop and move forward in unity along any fields be it political, economic or social areas as it reduces discontentment within the population since most of them agree to it. This would provide less obstacles for the government as there would be no opposition force from the citizens in terms of petitions, boycotts etc. (forms of social protest) and the process would be smoother as well as faster since it gains support of the mass majority of the citizens. Not to forget, it is the citizen that makes or breaks a society, just as much as it is the government that governs it.
It also makes the people more secure as they know that their individual or community’s rights are protected with their right to vote as there are bound to be different people/communities within societies. This is ensured especially in representative democracy whereby each representative of a community has a say for their respective communities.
Looking at examples, stable and peaceful countries like sweden and iceland all adopt democracy while societies wrecked and warped in ideal, action and consequence such as Nazi Germany and Soviet Union denied its average citizen of rights to decision. Surely it is not just all pure luck and coincidence.
To be able to be settled on consensus within the majority of the population creates peace and contentment amongst the general population. This kind of environment is stable and less vulnerable to revolts as well as challenges as it unites the mass majority of the hearts of the people with an identity of their own society.
However, the vote of popularity is not always right, neither is majority always right in every other situation. When we consider that every individual within the society is entitled to that right to vote, there pose many problems. Firstly, the decision could be uninformed (they are uneducated and deceived by political bluffs), secondly, the vote could be selfish to the specific individual since what may be good for the country may not be good for the individual in the short run. Therefore people with short sight for the country would naturally make a wrong decision for the society and hinder its future development and stability. What we deal with here is lack of maturity of sight and education.
Take for example, in a scaled down version of a society, i.e. a classroom, the teacher is the one who is more matured in thinking and also informed as of compared to the students. Decisions regarding teaching ciriculum and classroom regulations would depend more heavily on the teacher's vote as of compared to the student's vote to in the best interest for learning of the class.
This is because the student body might not be well informed, equipped with the right knowledge and maturity to take on certain choices for themselves as of yet, therefore, applying democracy here could lead to a less productive classroom envrionment and lesson plan since students, especially the younger ones would be looking mostly into fun than knowledge and they definitely outnumber the teacher.
Not to say the voters of a country are young children, most voters are adults, but that some of them may not be politically/socially/economically matured and informed enough to make the best decisions for the country and their point of interest might be derived as an individual and not as a society as a whole.
Another danger is that democracy gives the majority community a too strong and powerful hold over the minority and there might be a case of abuse for the minority. Though it is not the case for Singapore, there are existing examples of minority suppression in Sri Lanka whereby due to a tilt in population size in favor of the Sinhalese, many policies are biased against the Tamils. This eventually raised anger in the Tamil community leading to the formation of Tamil Tigers and arouse of armed revolts.
By going with the wimps and fancies of the majority, the minority rights could be put at stake should the majority starts to adopt a domineering attitude. When overly suppressed, the minority might be forced to react and rebel, disrupting stability and balance within the society.
Therefore, though democracy unifies the mass majority of the heart of its people to move along the same line and proves to strengthen and secure a society, its success requires it to be kept in check with factors such as unbiased policies etc.
Thus, in order for democracy to be successful in creating stability in societies, the process of voting and regulation of rights should be transparent, mature and informed. The rights of minority should be protected, controlling the growth of the majority’s power. Even though it involves following the majority, the minority’s rights and opinions should be protected, represented and not ignored or blocked out by the tyranny of the majority.
Therefore, given majority of the circumstances to be present, i believe that democracy would be able to create stability in societies.
Jin Fu (14) 3B
