Strengths And Weaknesses Of Democracy
US president Abraham Lincoln described democracy as a “government of, for and by the people” (as cited by Jud, n.d., para. 1). In particular, it is a form of government “in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly (…) by their elected” representatives (“Democracy”, n.d., para. 1). It constitutes and guarantees “basic personal and political rights, fair and free elections and independent courts of law” (Jud, n.d., Modern Definition section, para. 2). Focusing on the individual, democracy is often regarded the best form of government. The purpose of this paper is to assess the strengths and weaknesses of democracy and evaluate the aforementioned consideration.
Firstly, a widely discussed aspect of democracy is economic well-being and potential for economic growth. Those factors are not necessarily dependent on the form of government and sometimes might be even hindered by the bureaucratic mechanism of democracy. In India, a democracy in common understanding, for example, especially infrastructural projects have failed many times and subsequently decelerated economic growth and discouraged (foreign) investment (Xu & Albert, 2014). The economy and infrastructure in China, a one-party state, by contrast, has boomed since the 1990s (Gowing, Bremmer, Hollis, Jacques & Shevchenko, 2014). In this regard, the economic circumstances and wealth of the individual in an autocratic country might be superior.
However, economic growth depends on creativity,
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