Henceforth is an analysis of democracy and instability, which included graphs and data (not included here). I'm not a political person, so this is the most politics you'll see me write.
This may come as a surprise to most people, but an autocracy, let alone a totalitarian regime, isn’t as bad as it sounds. It is the dictators who abuse the power that cause the system to become corrupt and instability to ensue.
That said, a democracy is also a great idea in theory. But again, it is the governing body that manipulates the system and its people, thus destroying what a democracy is meant to be. The greater the democracy within a society, the less instability there will be. This is the grounds for a successful future as long as politics, as it is today, avoids involvement in the government. If politicians were to respect the definition of democracy as it was best illustrated in classic Athenian times, then this would also be acceptable and beneficial for stability in the state. However, they will not, thus the theory remains just that: a theory.
In layman’s terms, true democracy brings power to the people. It is also referred to as “direct democracy,” in which all the citizens of the society are solely responsible for the decisions made in government. All citizens vote for the elected officials and vote on the laws to be passed. It follows the consent of the majority. But because of the heavy citizen involvement, it takes much time for results to appear. Details aside, this encourages the preferred “representative democracy.” Citizens still vote for the elected officials, but citizens have less interaction in the choices made by these officials. Citizens vote through, or are represented by, their chosen officials. Especially today, this is preferred because people are less obligated to participate; people are less obligated to follow the complex structure of politics. They trust their representatives to make the informed decisions for them.
In either case, the concept of democracy remains the same: the people, rather than one or a few leaders, make the decisions for the masses. Democracy promotes equality and freedom of choice throughout the citizens. This leads to a greater peace of mind, knowing each of their votes counted.
Instability refers to the entropy of a society. It’s inevitable, let’s start there. Instability is a good thing over the long course of time. Why? How on Earth? That’s it, the Earth! Entropy is a fundamental system in nature in which everything breaks down. This leads to new things to replace the old. It’s a cycle. In one word: Change. Instability promotes change.
This presents a very pleasant scenario. We want change? We want instability.
What is the problem? Overcoming change. But that is what we humans are best at: solving problems to overcome the “inconveniences” presented in our lives.
Instability is negatively viewed by those who are the inconvenience to others.
In which case, instability is bad. Whether or not these people are the cause, a breaking-down society is an alarm for two likely actions: run away, or defeat it. Defeat the destruction of your way of life by banding together, or pushing the responsibility to those who can defeat it. And thus, we are presented with direct and represented democracy. I fear as though I made this full-circle argument too early.
Basically, instability is synonymous with chaos and change. It depends on what side of the equation you’re on for whether “change” is good or bad, and for whom.
Some countries, which generally aren’t considered democratic countries, don’t lead me to believe that they are also “unstable.” They aren’t as stable, not in the sense we would want them to be (which is to be like us), but I would argue they are stable in different ways. Mainly, people would not admit to a happy lifestyle, but my assumption is that they would not admit to a chaotic lifestyle. Obviously there are exceptions, but upon arriving to any one of those countries, would you find yourself in present social unrest? Panic in the streets? For this analysis, “instability” would have to be revised to a more long-term, slowly active means of social unrest. Instability would have to pertain to a weak economic marketplace, lack of central sanitation and utilities, and a broken curriculum for education. These types of representations for an unstable country aren’t listed here, and would be difficult to measure. I recognize instability in an umbrella term, but this is why we can’t discuss it for these arguments: too broad, there’s not a simple encompassing term. Plus, if I were to broaden this term, I should also broaden what it means to be and have democracy. For the sake of my argument, it’s best to identify the core characteristics in order to keep the instability within this paper to a minimum.
Democracy is dependent on the involvement of its society’s citizens. If they don’t participate, it might as well be a monarchy or similar. And the same goes for how officials are elected, if at all: if the citizens don’t vote, then it’s not a democracy. Whether or not media has any freedoms has nothing to do with “democracy” itself; it’s a right granted to the people by the government. Freedom of demonstrations, organizations, religion, and protection from terror are important and do deserve recognition as factors of the equation, but they don’t define a democracy. The one that comes closest is freedom of demonstration, but the rest of the group holds it back. Perceived corruption (which will not be counted) least determines whether a society is democratic: indoctrination is the key element here, especially since we’re regarding “perception” as the variable. You can’t quantify that, therefore it’s of the least useful information for a strong argument.
The most valid measure of instability would be how well the government can support its citizens. When citizens are supported by the governing body, there is/should be stability. Table 8 shows how likely the citizens will protest, and Table 11 shows how threatening the protests will be. But the threat intensity doesn’t reflect the political structure: it reflects the determination and moral ties of the protestors. Therefore it’s not counted. Satisfaction, however, reflects opportunities (which can be controlled by the governing body) and indoctrination (media telling us what we should live up to). It’s mixed.
(...after several graphs and explanations...)
Despite concluding evidence I just assembled, I feel a bit cheated. I don’t think these results are… conclusive enough. I feel as though there are many more variables to affect these results, many more studies that have yet to be or cannot be done, and so little time this has taken to arrive as such a favorable conclusion.
Please, don’t assume I thought this was easy work. Lots of thought on philosophy and definitions and interpretations went into my beginning arguments for what democracy is, plus a global overlook as to how instability should be evaluated. Then the math, the tedious multiplying and adding of oh so many numbers, several times over when one small mistake is made: this was not a breeze. My dissatisfaction of my results is due in part to how little I was involved in gathering the data. I did not travel to witness the political and economic conditions of these countries, nor did I discuss these findings with the surveyors or the analysts that review this data for a living. I also don’t feel as though what I was given are the choice factors in determining “democracy” or “stability,” and I’ve already expressed my opinions on those previously. They are a good place to start, I don’t deny that, but it’s just too simple. For the purposes of accurate research, this small classroom activity has loads of potential.
I am satisfied with this being a small project, though. It wasn’t enough to drive me crazy; it just took time, that’s all. Seeing as how it could have taken more, I’m pleased that it didn’t. What was given was enough to provide thought-provoking illustrations as to how these complex systems work. That’s the job of these people: to condense these massive matters into fathomable collections of data that fit nicely on a page (or a hundred, if they incline to produce journals of this stuff). That is what I like most about topics like democracy: it has been discussed for thousands of years, printed into thousands of books and hundreds of websites, and influenced billions of people over the course of our time. The fact that we can gather this understanding and correlate it with yet another complex concept such as instability is a feat unto itself. I find that although it is difficult to quantify, it can be easily understood that democracy, a mutual agreement between people, leads to mutual happiness. Unstable groups of people are unstable simply because they don’t share a mutual bond; they don’t agree with each other. My thinking isn’t based on a thousand years of research, no: at this point, it’s only common sense.
Also, I have decided to move to Canada.
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