29th Aug 2019 The Hindu Editorials Notes – Mains Sure shot
GS-2 Mains
Note 1. : Today’s other editorials apart from ‘Democracy and its discontents’ are either political, have insufficient content or have already been covered earlier.
Note 2. : Even the article ‘Democracy and its discontents’ doesn’t have much direct content. These are the main highlights with additional research:
What is democracy?
- Going by the basic definition, democracy is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. It is basically a system of government in which those in power to take decisions are elected by the electorate.
- So, we can say that it is the people who indirectly take the decisions through their representatives.
- There are two types of democracies – direct democracy and representative democracy. Further there are three systems of democracies – parliamentary, presidential and mixed.
- And just like any other form of government democracy too has its limitations. There is no perfect system of government.
What is meant by ‘state of democracy’?
- The state of a democracy means how effectively is the democratic system functioning in a country or the world at large.
- So, it describes the functionality of a democratic state.
What does the article argue?
- The article argues that democracy is not just a government of the people, by the people and for the people. It needs much more than that.
- It needs an architecture of institutions (i.e. a properly layered set of institutions).
- These institutions provide the vertical pillars on which a democracy stands i.e. the legislature, executive, judiciary and the press. But there are also the horizontal layers that help to strengthen these pillars and to bind them together so that they are stable.
- It says that there are three horizontal layers of a democracy. And all these three layers must work in harmony for the state of democracy to be stable.
- At the bottom layer is the public space and the media. In this public space people must be free to speak up if they want to. At the top is the layer of constitutional institutions like the parliament, courts, etc. And the third are the institutions that lie in between the public sphere and formal government institutions. These are the unofficial or semi-official institutions. For example, NGOs, civil society groups etc.
- It says that in the popular understanding of democracy too much attention is given to the vertical pillars but the horizontal layers don’t get much focus.
- But the horizontal layers are fundamental to maintain harmony in the society.
- For example, if the parliament (here indicating the executive), which is a vertical pillar, becomes more powerful then it will lead to a majoritarian democracy. In this kind of democracy, the government with a majority, especially a large majority, can turn out to be authoritarian. It can deny the minorities their rights.
- In this case the people who are dissatisfied by the decisions can go to the courts but the thing to be kept in mind is that the courts are to interpret the laws in the light of the constitution but not to make or change the laws.
- Some might suggest a solution as conducting referendums but referendums of the entire electorate just give an illusion of good democracy- that people have been consulted. Only a small minority determines how all must go. For example, in the case of Brexit referendum 52% wanted Britain to leave the EU while 48% wanted to stay.
- So, referendums become another problem of a majoritarian democracy rather than a good solution.
- So, this leads to democratic governance slipping into ineffectual log-jams, and in this case, it is tempting for the majoritarian government to close down the public space at the bottom, or to impose a majoritarian view from above to strengthen the government.
- And this is not how a healthy democracy should function.
Way forward/ what should be done?
- So, the article argues, what is needed is to strengthen the horizontal institutions, mainly the middle layer of institutions within democracies that lie between the open public sphere and formal government institutions.
- It also says that at present neither social media nor the government gives much space to such institutions to form and operate.
- For a healthy democracy, it is imperative for India to build a strong intermediate level, unofficial or semi-official institutions for non-partisan deliberation amongst concerned citizens. The government must give more space for such institutions to form and operate.
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