Political issue: democracy create stability in society

Since there are more and more people asking for social stability. “Democracy” becomes a hot topic worldwide in recent years.

So, what is democracy?

Democracy is the system of rule by the people. It is also known as the rule by majority. The ideas of ‘majority wins’ and ‘power to the people’ are the main ideas that are upheld in democracy. However, there is always an argument about whether democracy creates stability in society.

There are a lot of people disagree with the opinion that democracy may creates stability.Democracy is the rule by majority. Therefore the whole society may be dominated by the majority group. And it is obvious that a government which belongs to majority cannot completely satisfy the needs of minority. The minority may get no benefit or only a little. And the majority may make policies that harm the benefits of the minority. It cannot help to maintain harmony between majority and minority group. Hence a conflict may be caused because of inequality in economic, social or political aspects between those two groups which decrease the stability of whole society. This is also one of the key why the conflict between majority Protestant and minority catholic in North Ireland happened and is still no longer solved.

Even though this may seem threatening the stability in society, democracy still has its own advantage to create stability. In a democratic society, all the people have equal access rights and most of policies are agreed by most of members in society. Therefore there will be less argument against policies that are published. Even more it can prevent “super power” in society. Civilian control of the society is often seen as necessary to prevent dictatorship and interference with political affairs. Comparing with the other kinds of social systems such as authoritarianism or totalitarianism, democracy protects human rights of the members of society much more. For example, in military-authoritarian Myanmar, human rights are abused by the authoritarian government. People in Myanmar find no ways to protect their own rights, which can cause instability in whole society. It is also the reason to explain the religion conflicts in totalitarian Iraq. And it can also to explain why the most of western democratic countries have much better human right record.

Also, democracy has freedom of speech. This means that all the members of society can publish their opinions as they want. Newspaper, television, these kinds of mass media can act as “supervisor” in society and can help to protect benefits of members of society. Those kinds of factors all can help to create stability in society.

It is true that democracy may be abused by some of majority groups. But we can choose limited democracy instead of unlimited democracy. Limited democracy is the one where the members of society only vote for those things which are acceptable within the framework of a constitution. This kind of democracy not only prevents the illegal events of government, but also can help to protect benefits of minority. Hence a relatively stable society can be created.

In my opinion, limited democracy can create stability in society. Maybe in short term democracy does not create stability as efficiently as those kinds of authoritarian or totalitarian society and it is much harder for government to control society in limited democracy. But in long term, it will be much more stable in democratic society. Freedom and equality will be flying in the sky of democracy.