Democracy — the Best Form of Government?

Abstract

Is democracy the best form of government? By Leo Rogers Since the end of the cold war, democracy’s position as the world’s dominant political ideology has seemed unassailable, and today the global number of democratic governments is at an all-time high. Many in the West hail a new age of freedom, and a consensus has formed that democracy has won the battle of ideas. However, this consensus is increasingly fragile: Brexit and the election of Donald Trump have arguably exposed democracy’s chaotic nature, and some argue that ‘people power’ is simply tyranny of the majority. China’s ascendancy, say critics of democracy, proves the superior efficiency and planning of an autocratic government. Democracy is certainly flawed, but is there a better system? Or is democracy ‘the worst form of government, except for all the others’? Firstly, democracy is arguably the best form of government in terms of guaranteeing the rights and freedoms of the majority. In the older democracies, America, France and Britain, the ballot box freed society from the power of the monarchy and aristocracy, in ‘rights-setting acts of epochal importance’. In the 20th Century, democratic movements and ideas smashed Europe’s colonial empires, freeing hundreds of millions from exploitation. In India for example, nearly two centuries of British rule was overturned: where armed uprisings had failed, the language of peace and democracy offered a solution. In recent decades, many oppressive dictatorships have been toppled by democracy; in the Eastern bloc, Popular Fronts removed brutal regimes such as Ceacusescu’s in Romania, and the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings produced a handful of new democratic states. Democracy has arguably been so