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Global Systems of Democracy

 

            Since the days of the famous French historian, sociologist and politician Alexis de Tocqueville (1889), it has been repeatedly suggested that the development of forms of government inevitably and naturally leads human society to the democracy. Later, a number of influential political scientists promoted this idea in the public mind (Kaplan, 1997). According to them, democracy is a natural and inevitable condition that occurs immediately regardless of the support or opposition of individuals or groups of people (Slater, & Bennis, 1990). However, there were also a lot of opposing points of view (Dahl, 1989). When democracy has become a practical reality in most developed countries it also became a subject of fierce criticism (Almond, 1989). And instead of being a solution of a problem, democracy created new problems and contradictions. Nowadays question whether democracy should be used in each country or only in particular states is growing in importance. In order to answer, this essay will define the term democracy first. Then it will move on to the overview of main preconditions of democratic state and discussion the reasons why some countries could not reach it. Finally, it will be concluded with the idea that democracy cannot be imposed or adopted by force, it has to take centuries to achieve it in a proper form and today not all countries could afford it. .
             Curiously enough, "democracy" is one of the most controversial and undefined term in modern political study. While a variety of definitions of this term have been suggested, this paper will use the interpretation suggested by Schmitter & Karl (1991) first who saw it as a system of governance where methods and forms of democracy are embodied in the laws of freedom and equality of citizens who elect representatives to act in a public sphere. These representatives must be responsible first of all to people for their actions (Ibid.


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