Autocracy and Democracy There Are Different Forms

Autocracy and Democracy

There are different forms of government throughout the world. Each nation decides how it will govern its people and in whom the power will be vested. It is expected that when the nation is established, either the citizens or those who led the efforts to create the new nation will find a system of governance that works for all considered. There are many different forms of government, perhaps as many different forms as there are governments to adopt them. Some nations have kings and queen who rule their monarchy, others are theocracies where the rulers are the clergy, and still others are meritocracies where those who are put in positions of power have been granted the honor based on their value to the rest of the society. Two nearly diametrically opposed systems of government are democracies and autocracies. In the former government type, the people are the leaders while in an autocracy power is vested in one chosen authority figure. The two governing types vary in many significant ways, but perhaps the greatest of their differences is in the ways the two government systems formulate legislation and enforce the policies of their administrations.

The word democracy itself means that it is a government of the people. Danziger (2013) defines democracy as "a political system in which governance is accomplished by leaders whose authority is based on a limited mandate and who are elected by a universal electorate. Such an 'electoral' democracy becomes a 'liberal' democracy when the population selects among genuine alternatives and also has significant rights to political participation, expression and opposition" (page 460). In a democracy, the government is supposed to formulate laws based upon the decisions of the people. Each person is entitled to a vote, either directly or through elected representatives who vote in their stead. It is hoped that a nation functioning within a democratic framework will therefore establish laws which are agreed to by the majority of the general population.

Democracy in its purest form, as was intended when the government system was created in the time of the Ancient Greeks, has people vote directly in all questions of national policy, but this is not really feasible in the modern era. People would have to vote on laws of all types, both in regard to criminality and in regard to social policy. With as large as most countries have become it is simply impossible to have a society functioning in this way; direct democracy or full participatory democracy would demand constant participation in voting which would allow for little other activity or work to take place (Danziger 2013,-page 172). Consequently, most countries with democratic governments are actually representative democracies, meaning that the general population votes in politicians who themselves are employed in voting on matters of legislation. More important perhaps than the freedom which democracy promises are the establishments of a political community and a style of life based upon the governance. Those born in democratic nations believe themselves to be living in a country of greater freedoms because they have either direct or indirect influence on the laws which are made in the country as opposed to nations without adequate representation of the people. They also have the power to repeal laws which are made by the government but which the majority of the people do not agree with. Laws which are proposed in a democracy must go through channels before they are enacted. First a law must be proposed and then it is voted upon either by the representative politicians who have been elected or by the general population itself. From there the potential law is handed over for judicial review to determine if the new law is countered by existing legislation. At every stage within the government, there is a check to keep those making the laws from subverting their occupations and obtaining more power than they have been granted by the people.

Different from a democracy is the concept of an autocracy. Governments with this form place all the authoritative power over legislation and the making of policies within a single person. This one person will decide all things within that government. According to Danziger's text, "A stringent definition [of autocracy] might be that a single ruler exercises absolute power and authority (independent of any consideration of the process through which power was acquired)" (2013,-page 173). Within an autocracy, one ruler decides everything and this means that he or she has total rule over the country. They have the right to make laws, to enforce laws, and to decide what constitutes justice within the borders of their country. Danziger makes a direct connection between autocracies and corrupt governments such as dictatorships, authoritarian regimes, and totalitarian regimes because all those forms of government invest national authority in a single person who ultimately takes that power and use it to deny civil rights and civil liberties to others.

An autocracy is a nation wherein the one ruler has supreme political power and his or her decisions are unrestrained either legally or morally. Also, he or she will not have to deal with any checks to their supreme power as might be found in other government types. While there is a difference between autocracy, totalitarian, and dictatorship in the level of power each leader has and whether there are any limitations at all to that power, they are similar terms in that each allows power to be vested in a single person (Danziger 2013,-page 174). There is an old adage that absolute power corrupts absolutely and this has been proven true repeatedly over the course of human history. Traditionally countries which have a single authority figure who rules without fear of reprisal or without any sort of way to balance out their power, have resulted in dictatorships or totalitarian states. This has proven to be a very dangerous thing. When one person has all the power, then he or she may choose to take away the rights of others, particularly if those individuals oppose the leader or have opinions which are counter to the policies of that leader. This person will be in control of all aspects of the government without having their actions checked by another body which leads to a situation where the whims of an individual become the actions of the state.