Democracy According to Dahl; Schmitter

Democracy According to Dahl; Schmitter & Karl

1. In the article by Schmitter and Karl, the political theorists address with relative optimism the opportunities which seem to suggest a global thrust toward democratic reform. They noted that "the wave of transitions away from autocratic rule that began with Portugal's 'Revolution of the Carnations' in 1974 and seems to have crested with the collapse of communist regimes across Eastern Europe in 1989 has produced a welcome convergence toward a common definition of democracy." (96) Of course, with the passage of only a small space in history, we can now critically assess the failure of democracy to truly take hold in many of these contexts, most saliently in Russia herself. Here, it is clear that the incapacity of democracy to immediately restore stability and prosperity to a crumbled way of life would ultimately allow many of these former nations of Eastern Europe to slide back into political corruption or economic ruin, disrupting the optimism of western capitalists which seems to be echoed in the comments of Schmitter & Karl. It is thus, however, that we can glimpse the primary distinction between the possibility of democracy and the feasibility of democracy. Indeed, it is only the former which would appear to have been represented in the 1989 fall of the iron curtain. Quite to the point, the possibility of democracy would peek its head out from the rubble of a collapsed totalitarian and imperialist regime. Its possibility would exist only by virtue of the fact that prior governmental systems had failed, stretched thin by a combination of economic mismanagement, military decline and international pressure. All of these gave way to what many might have predicted would be a burgeoning push for democratic values. Today, we can recognize that it is perhaps the feasibility of democracy which may still be subject to debate in Eastern Europe. Nations here provide differing examples of why democracy does and does not succeed. For instance, we find that in Germany, the East/West division had long levied a cultural pressure on the oppressed peoples of East Germany to enjoy the same liberties availed to those in West Germany. The fall of the Berlin Wall would show the genuine commitment to that goal as those recently liberated coalesced to the democratic orientation of the larger nation. For Russia, by contrast, a public's absence of exposure to the systems and conditions of democracy has rendered a people today deeply susceptible to exploitation, with the current Russian leader, former chief of the Soviet KGB, Vladamir Putin, imposing suppression of political opposition, journalistic freedom and social liberties. Here, democracy has proven less-than-feasible due to an absence of internal will to or resource to seize on the opportunity. A history of oppression has rendered democracy abstract and unattainable, even in the face of charades such as Russian free elections. In an article by Dahl, we are presented with an argument recommending certain ground rules for the effective adoption of democratic order. Among them, the author makes a strong case in favor of the maintenance of normalized electoral periods and processes. As the author argues, "if we accept the desirability of political equality, then every citizen must have an equal and effective opportunity to vote, and all votes must be counted as equal." (94) This point drives one of the basic assumptions of democracy, which is that proper public representation comes from the proper and effective entitlement of the public and its various sectors to take a direct part in placing such representation. To play devil's advocate, one might present the argument against Dahl's claim by remarking that elections, when too frequent, can diminish the focus of our elected representatives on effectively meeting the nuanced responsibilities of the office. An over-emphasis on electoral procedure may well diminish the availability of time, interest and priority for policy affairs.