Does Democracy Create Stability in a Society?

Because the one that I wrote at the very beginning was more than a thousand words, I have chosen to post the newer version which is just more than 500 words long and I really am sorry that I did not post it initially, I really did not know.

Democracy is defined as a form of government where the people decide who runs the country and how it is run. I will, as much as possible, look at both whether it creates stability and whether it creates instability.

Democracy gives universal suffrage, where everybody is given the right to vote and choose their government. Therefore people tend to feel that democracy create stability in a society assuming that everyone in the society would be agreeable to the government and its policies. It is almost impossible to have one candidate or government winning 100% of the votes. Democracy is often called the tyranny of the majority because only the majority of the people will be satisfied while there will always be a minority with differing opinions. And in extreme cases, they might even be segregation. This is prevalent in countries divided by race and with individual parties or candidates representing the individual races or religions. What democracy does is bring these differences out into the open, where conflicts might occur. A good example is Sri Lanka, where even though democracy arguably existed, the government was naturally majority Sinhalese as the population was majority Sinhalese. This led to conflict between the two races. This shows how the majority can manipulate democracy to their advantage.

Few countries really have an absolute democracy. Our democratically-elected government has often been accused of jerry-meandering, giving other parties absolutely no chance. However, I am really grateful that they have done so 'in order to create stability'. How many democratic countries seriously have free, fair and regular elections? Many parties resort to unscrupulous methods to ensure that they stay in power. Asia holds countless examples, from India to South Korea. In Thailand, money politics was used by ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Sinawatra in order to gain the support of the poorer working class. These are results of democracy. Many campaigns are sponsored by private companies and are such that it benefits a certain group in order to gain those votes. An example would be in the US, where the presidential candidates try to win the pink dollar and the support of the gays. There are bound to be people who are unhappy with the policies made to favour these people and companies and conflict will arise among the people, causing instability.

Competition brings out the best in political parties pushing them to work harder to gain people’s support. When political parties try to outdo each other, the people would benefit. Stability results as the lives of the people are improved.

Democracy encourages transparency as people prefer to vote for such parties. The Singaporean government has often been lauded for its transparency and interaction with the people with ‘meet the people’ sessions in place. As a result of this, the populace knows what the government is planning and the government knows what the people think about their plans, eventually being able to work together to forge a more stable society.

My conclusion is democracy can create stability but can create instability instead. I have talked about how democracy can create stability and then countered my own statement by looking at how democracy can create instability. From every perspective, democracy is a double-edged sword. However, it really depends on the way democracy is implemented, the situation and how well the people accept election results. Democracy by fostering free expression of support of competing factions can make an already unstable society even more unstable.

All in all, implementing democracy in a society is like putting the society on a scale, it could tip towards stability as easily as it could tip towards instability and its success really is a culmination of many factors.

Regards,
Yan Xun