This paper gives short ideas about democratic and non-democratic systems in modern world. The meanings of democracies and non-democracies change from individual to individual. Furthermore, there are variety of explanations and democratic models, such as direct democracy and representative democracy (Heywood, 2007). Just the word of "democracy" can change into diverse ideas. For the term of "non-democracy", it might be easier for people to understand, but in fact it has indistinct divisions between some non-democratic regimes. Besides the definitions of the two conditions, this newspaper will explores the dissimilitude between democracies and non-democracies. And it includes necessary good examples for the comparison.
Introduction
Nowadays, democratic system is popular around the planet. No matter European or Parts of asia, people reward democratic systems highly and imagine this is nearly the perfect politics system in the world. But there still have non-democratic systems in the world. What is non-democracy? And what exactly are variations between democracies and non-democracies? Different political experts have different explanations for the meanings of democracies and non-democracies. Additionally, non-democracies are different from democracies in theories and techniques. This paper aims at producing the ideas about the definition of non-democratic systems and targets three dissimilarities between democracies and non-democracies.
Definition of democracies and non-democracies
Before assessing democratic and non-democratic systems, we first need to define the conditions "democracy" and "non-democracy". Democracy has a wide range of meanings and applications. Heywood (2007) defined democracy as "guideline by people; democracy means both popular contribution and authorities in the general public interest, and can take a multitude of varieties" (p. 448). Corresponding to McLean and McMillan (2012), "democracy as a descriptive term is synonymous with bulk guideline" (democracy). Within the democratic systems, election or voting is the best way to apply the basic principle of majority. In other words, democracy is a political system that permits ordinary individuals to take part and impact in the politics. In this paper, democracy is described the liberal democracy which is the broadest accepted form of democracy (Heywood, 2007). Liberal democracy is a kind of indirect, representative democracy and is based on competitive election. In addition, it divides the state of hawaii and sociable community clearly (Heywood, 2007).
The term of non-democracy is rarely seen in political dictionaries, but it could be easily understood by just reversing its meaning with democracy. Non-democracy is a system of guideline by person or a tiny group, not absolutely all people. Unlike democracy, people are ruled by minority in non-democracies. Totalitarianism, dictatorship, authoritarianism, Fascism and other politics systems are all contained in non-democratic systems. Modern people view non-democracies as autocracy, savageness and cruelty (Ezrow and Frantz, 2011). Some non-democratic countries, like Singapore and Malaysia, seem to be like democracy (Ezrow and Frantz, 2011). So, a well-defined definition is important. Within this newspaper, non-democracy is defined as the machine of rule by a person, a celebration or a little group of individuals this means non-democracies imply that "little mass mobilization and limited pluralism" (Ezrow and Frantz, 2011). And Sliwinski (2012a) recommended that there are three types of non-democratic regimes: dictatorship, authoritarianism and totalitarianism. To be able to simplify the problem, this paper mainly targets these three types of non-democratic systems. Robertson (2004) gave a clear description to dictatorship "is a kind of government where one person has singular and complete politics electric power" (p. 145). McLean and McMillan described totalitarianism (2012) "regulates every aspect of state and private behavior" (totalitarianism) and Robertson said that how to choose totalitarianism is the best way to use the powers. Robertson shared the same idea with McLean and McMillan in the idea of authoritarianism, he remarked that authoritarian ignores open public thoughts and opinions and uses forceful ways to rule over the country. McLean and McMillan even remarked that "the existence of dictators" is one of the primary elements for totalitarian regimes in the twentieth century (dictatorship), like Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany. However, Robertson's view (2004) is differed from that of McLean and McMillan. He mentioned that dictatorship, authoritarianism and totalitarianism do not have required relationship, "Authoritarianism needs not, firmly speaking, be considered a dictatorship and well not be totalitarian" (p. 33). Although Robertson disagreed with the idea that dictatorship, authoritarianism and totalitarianism have some kind of contacts, we cannot deny these three politics systems are, in some extent, similar to one another. Authoritarianism and totalitarianism also limit people's political rights, however the latter one even control the private lives of its people. Additionally, as these three types of political regimes limit people's political privileges, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish them. But anyhow the assessment in this newspaper is: the contrast between liberal democracy and dictatorship, authoritarianism and totalitarianism.
Comparison between democracies and non-democracies
Separation of powers V. S. Domination of powers
One of the main differences between democracy and non-democracy is the control of power. The democratic regimes split the government forces; split it into legislation, execution and adjudication. However, for the non-democratic regimes, the power are only organised by the ruler which means the ruler is the legislator, the executive and the judge of the state.
The democratic system needs bank checks and balances to avoid the misuse of power, so that it makes use of the parting of power. The legislature controls the legislative electric power, the administrative supports the executive ability and the judiciary controls the jurisdiction. These three capabilities are "to make and change laws, to put laws into action and make judgments on regulations" respectively (Sliwinski, 2012b, slide 22). These three political institutions may then mutually supervise and contain each other which can successfully limit the energy of the government. "Absolute ability corrupts absolutely", if one supports all the forces in his own hands, he will use the energy to increase his passions and disregard others' interests and rights. The present day political thinkers John Locke and Montesquieu then thought that the power of the federal government should be limited to avoid the appearance of tyranny and the problem of power. Locke suggested in order to protect people's rights, there should be checks and balances. And Montesquieu was the first political thinker suggesting the idea of separation of capabilities. He believed that each government should split its powers into three which is largely inspired the American constitution and the European politics systems (Gingell, Little & Winch, 2000).
For the non-democratic regimes, they centralize the powers in their own hands. Non-democracies dominate the capabilities and through the monopolistic ability, they completely exercise their authorities without limitations. Despite the fact that a few of the regimes establish some resembling institutions to produce an illusion of the separation of capabilities, the powers are in fact mixed in the regime's hands. The most efficient way to fulfill their goal -stabilizing the regimes' position and ability - is to monopolize the powers. WITHIN THE Prince, Machiavelli advised the rulers should hold the absolute vitality with in any manner to preserve his electric power and regime (Gingell, Little & Winch; Stanford Encyclopedia of Viewpoint, 2009). Thus, non-democracies is seen as the embodiment of Machiavelli's idea - the use of absolute electric power. However, we ought to remember that the maximization of capabilities is made for the safe of their state, not for the ruler. Plus the non-democratic systems are contorting this point: they misuse the power simply for their own passions, but not for his or her states and folks.
Here are some examples. The best model for the separation of forces in modern democracies is the system in United States. The parting of powers is clearly stated in the United States Constitution. The Congress only gets the legislative ability; the Chief executive of america holds the professional ability and the Supreme Court docket enforces the judicial vitality. They may be divisible and their power do not overlap the energy of 1 another. This routines the thought of shared restraint on ability. Therefore, the American political system embodies the thought of the inspections and amounts (Heywood, 2007). For the non-democracies, Soviet Union is an excellent instance. It was founded in 1922 and ended in 1991. Soviet Union didn't separate the powers, so that there were no restrictions of capabilities for the party and the state of hawaii. The Communist Get together of the Soviet Union centralized three power together and manipulated the culture and state firmly.
Political equality V. S. Political inequality
In the democratic countries, people have the chance to take part in the politics, this mainly reveals by votes and elections. But also for the non-democracies, they have lots of limits in political participation which their people cannot actually entail in the politics activities.
The elections symbolize the politics equality between people. In the view of liberal democracy, this means that the worthiness of everyone's vote is similar; no person will have a higher value of vote then your others (Heywood, 2007). From the elections, it embodies the thought of political equality because the people do have the opportunity to communicate their views to the federal government by their own votes. It does not have any doubt that elections are important. Relating to Heywood, elections supply the public the possibility to affect the political process and decisions. In liberal democratic system, there exists regular election within many years. People can take this chance to show their satisfaction towards government's supervision in past couple of years and also effect the political field in the next several years. The most significant thing is that the residents do hold the vote in their hands; no subject they are males or females, riches or poverty or these are blacks or whites. From this perspective, people are equal politically and even socially (Heywood, 2007). Democratic countries, like america, the United Kingdom and France, have regular election system for his or her citizens to require in politics and to express their politics aspects. Therefore, the political equality also suggests the widespread politics participation.
However, in the non-democratic regimes, it is common to apply politics inequalities. Not all the people in the regime can obtain the right to vote and only a tiny group of folks control the politics powers. This implies some people are definitely more important in politics than others. Even the non-democracies add elections with their residents, the regimes secretly change the elections in order to repress the opposition functions. For example, in Egypt, the monetary elites are more political influential after 1984. Egypt is a single-party routine which is ruled under the Country wide Democratic Get together (NDP). In 1984, the entrepreneurs supported the NDP and the ruler Mubarak; since then, they gain more politics power by becoming a member of the get together (Ruler, 2009). The poverty, who's mainly the Egyptian staff and peasants, lost the opportunity to take part in the politics activities (King, 2009). Despite the fact that Egypt gets the electoral system, it still regards as non-democracy because the electoral system is dominated by the NDP (King, 2009; Ezrow & Frantz, 2011). Corresponding to Ruler, the NDP do not let the opposition parties to expand in strength and most important would be that the party is able to allot the votes of labors and peasants. Not only in Egypt, other non-democracies, like China, Burma and Iran, do not have politics equality and huge political contribution.
Freedom V. S. Constraint
Another main difference between your democracies and non-democracies is the liberty of the people. Within a democratic culture, people benefit from the freedoms under the laws which imply their freedoms are secured by laws and regulations. Nevertheless, the non-democratic regimes usually restrict the freedoms of the folks.
The General Declaration of People Protection under the law (UDHR) regulates all people on the globe have the privileges to take pleasure from their freedoms. Liberty House, which is non-governmental business, conducts studies on the countries' degree of freedom and its annual report can be deemed as democratic record. Many political researchers use the statement as the scores of democracy. Therefore that independence is one of the fundamental elements in modern democracy. Most of the democratic countries have high rates of flexibility, according to the Freedom on the planet in 2012, like the countries in the European Europe, which take up the electoral democracies, all enjoy the score of "Free" in the survey. People in democratic countries enjoy their freedoms and privileges because democracy is to safeguard all people's pursuits - both majority and minority. However, it is wrong to say that there is freedom, then there exists democracy. Undoubtedly, it requires a certain amount of freedoms to form democracy. As the involvement in politics do means the freedoms of judgment and expression, conversation and set up, it is impossible for a democratic country works minus the excitement of freedoms (Hovde, 1949).
On the in contrast, people under the non-democratic regimes normally do not enjoy most of the freedoms because the regimes disregard people's protection under the law and freedoms. Most of the regimes repress the liberty of speech, set up and flexibility of the press. Why do non-democracies constrain these freedoms? It is because they need to unite their people's thought and ideology alongside the regimes to be able to prevent rebellion. North Korea, the totalitarian regime nowadays, is the best-suited example. The media in North Korea is totally controlled by the government and the advertising go with blindly on the regime and the Kim family. The idea and daily lives of North Koreans are firmly controlled by the government. The North Koreans cannot leave the country; otherwise they'll be regarded as traitors. Therefore, they don't enjoy any freedoms whatsoever. Another Asian country - Singapore also restrains citizens' freedoms (Burton, 2010). The Singaporean authorities repressed the flexibility of the press in the country by enforcing the Paper and Printing Presses Action (the Press Action) in 1974 (Rajah, 2012). And in the recent Press Independence Index, Singapore was rated an extremely low credit score - 135 out of 179 countries. According to Rajah, the Singaporean administration also completed the Religious Harmony Act and the general public Order Act to be able to restrict the liberty of faith and freedom of set up of its individuals.
Conclusion
The definitions of democracies and non-democracies are vast and diversified, by narrowing their definitions, we can explore some main distinctions with them. There are three main differences between democratic and non-democratic regimes include: the control of electric power, the degree of participation in politics and the pace of flexibility. The democracies distinguish its electricity into three (legislation, execution and adjudication), achieve political equality and carry out broad political participation, and let their individuals enjoy freedoms. On the other hand, the non-democracies monopolize the forces, limit the political participation of their followers and imply political inequality, and repress the freedoms of their people. The studies about democratic and non-democratic regimes need to continue every once in awhile, to be able to explore more probability and rationality about them.
