The origin of the term ‘Political Development’ can be traced to the late 1950’s when many political scientists were attempting to study the political dynamics of the newly emerging countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Large quantities of quantitative data and statistical information on the demographic, social, political, and economic aspects of these newly formed countries were collected to understand and analyse trends in people’s attitudes, values, and behaviour patterns.
Some political scientists, such as Samuel Huntington, Daniel Lerner, W. W. Rostow, and Edward Shils, have linked the concept of political development to modernisation. Even though definitions of political development are varied, most share two closely related characteristics. According to Samuel Huntington, the first characteristic of political development is that growth is synonymous with modernisation. As such, political development is also defined as political modernisation. The second is that there are many ways to measure political development, as modernisation and development are broad topics that span many areas. Additionally, definitions of political development tend to itemise many different criteria. Even though the rules defining political development vary, the characteristics that make up political development are all features of modernisation. Four categories appear in all definitions of political development. The first characteristic is rationalisation, which emphasises a focus on functional differentiation and achievement criteria.
The second criterion is nationalism, which emphasises nation-states and nation-building as fundamental aspects of political development. The third criterion is democratisation, which essentially focuses on competition and the equalisation of power. The last criterion is mobilisation, which focuses on political participation. Political participation stipulates that the greater the level of development, the greater the level of modernisation.
Lucian W. Pye has vividly examined diversity in the explanation of the concept of political development. Accordingly, political development has been explained as a political prerequisite of economic development; The politics typical of industrial and advanced societies; Political modernisation under which advanced nations are regarded as pace setters; The operations of a nation state, including administrative and legal development, which includes all colonial practices and authoritative structures; mass mobilisation and participation involving new standards of loyalty; the building of democracy
Definition of Political Development
Scholars have defined the term political development in different ways. Rostow and Pye, hold that political development aims at the “national unity and the broadening of the base of political participation.” Gabriel A. Almond regards political development as “the acquisition of new capability, in the sense of a specialized role, structure and differentiated orientation which, together give a political system, the range of problems.” According to S. P. Huntington, “Political development is institutionalization of political organization and procedure.” According to Edward Shills, “Political development is nation state building.” According to W. W. Rustow, “Political development is a typical phenomenon of industrial societies.” According to Daniel Learner, “Political development is passage of ancient societies and the modernization of middle east.” According to Lucian W. Pye, “Political development is a basic concept supporting the gradual, diffusion throughout all thesocieties of, what we might call a world culture.”
LUCIAN W PYE’S VIEWS ABOUT POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT
There is no clear definition of the term ̳Political development‘. This has been the position, despite several attempts by scholars to give it a proper definition. Some of the important thinkers who have paid attention to political development include Lucian W. Pye, GA Almond, WH Higgins, David Apter, Harold Lasswell, Talcott Parsons, JP Nettles, and several others. Among these thinkers, Lucian W. Pye is regarded as the leading light, having analysed this concept in depth.
He considered and treated political development in terms of cultural diffusion and the adjustment of old patterns of life to new demands. According to him, the first important step toward political development was the evolution of the nation-state system and world culture. He holds that the signs of political development can be traced at three levels: the population as a whole, governmental and general systemic performance, and the organisation of the polity. In a loose or general sense, the political development is a very vague as well as a very comprehensive term, that involves within itself anything like consolidation of the democratic system, political stability or orderly change, nation-building and state-building, political modernization, political change, administrative and legal development, political mobilization and participation and, above all, anything having its place in the multi-dimensional development of a country. In the view of Pye, it has three characteristics:
1. Equality:
It means mass participation or involvement of most people in the country's political affairs, without discrimination on artificial grounds such as religion, creed, caste, wealth, descent, colour of skin, sex, etc. No section of the people should be deprived of the right to take an active part in the politics of the country. A popular rule should be established; if not, then a semblance of it is necessary. The laws should be of a universalistic nature applicable to all and more or less be impersonal in their operation. It also means that recruitment to public office should reflect performance standards, not the ascriptive considerations of a traditional social system.
2. Capacity:
It refers to the capacity of a political system by which it can convert ̳inputs‘ into ̳outputs‘ and the extent to which it can affect the rest of the society and economy. While assessing capacity, he has associated governmental performance with the conditions that directly or indirectly influence it. Then he has also included the system's efficiency, i.e., the extent to which it is capable of executing public policy. It is also related to rationality in administration and to a secular orientation towards policies.
3. Differentiation:
It implies diffusion and specialisation of the structures. The offices and agencies tend to have their distinct and limited functions and there is an equivalent of division of labour within the realm of the government. It also involves integrating complex structures and processes. That is, differentiation is not fragmentation or the isolation of different parts of a political system, but rather specialisation based on an ultimate sense of integration.
Fred. W. Riggs agrees with the three characteristics of political development. He declared that there should be a balance among equality, capacity, and differentiation, or the political system will fall into a development trap. With this, the political system will experience political decay or break down. James Samuel Coleman called these three characteristics a development syndrome. Syndrome means characteristic features.
CRISIS IN POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT
Political Development faces certain crises that affect the whole process in one way or another. Lucian W. Pye says about the seven such crisis:
1. Identity Crisis:
People should identify with their political system. They must recognise their national territory as their ̳homeland‘ and also feel that their personal identities are in part defined by the identification with their territorially delimited country.
2. Legitimacy Crisis:
By this, we mean the relationship between the nature of authority and the government's responsibility. This problem of legitimacy becomes serious in developing countries as compared with developed ones, because in the case of the former, both religious and political bosses, as well as secular forces, try to dominate each other.
3. Penetration Crisis:
It refers to the problem of administration reaching down to the society and effecting basic policies. To implement significant development policies, the government must reach down to the lowest levels and touch people's daily lives.
4. Participation Crisis:
It occurs when there is uncertainty about the appropriate rate of expansion and when the influx of new participants creates serious strains on existing institutions. It also covers the issue of whether facilities for participation in the decision-making process should be given to all political parties and organised groups for genuine democratic purposes or just to satisfy the demands of the politics of demonstration.
5. Integration Crisis:
It deals with the extent to which the entire polity is organised as a system of interacting relationships, first among the officers and the agencies of the government and then, among the various groups and interests seeking to make demands upon the system, and finally, in the relationships between officials and in articulating the citizens.
6. Distribution Crisis:
It refers to the issue of how governmental powers should be used to influence the distribution of goods, services, and values throughout society. In some cases, governments seek to address the problems directly by intervening in the distribution of wealth; in other cases, the approach is to strengthen the opportunities and potential of disadvantaged groups.
VARIABLES OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT
Pye and Almond have said a lot about political development. They ignore its reverse side, which is called political decay. Samuel P Huntington removes this deficiency of the liberal theory of political development. In simple terms, it means that if the democratic system is developing in a third-world country, it is development; if things are moving in the opposite direction, it results in political decay. For this purpose, he uses the four variables and their antonyms to signify the marks of development and decay. These are;
1. Adaptability:
It means a long, regular and disciplined chain of leadership ready to welcome new changes and adapt the political, social and economic institutions accordingly. It reverses the perception of rigidity, meaning the leaders are fanatics who oppose change in the name of preserving their old-age institutions and patterns of life.
2. Complexity:
It means that there is a network of institutions, each carrying its responsibilities in a more or less free manner, without interfering in others' domains or facing interference from them. Its reverse aspect is simplicity, meaning the mode of operation is old and traditional, with no separation of functions.
3. Autonomy:
It means that all institutions have their clearly defined sphere of activity and so one institution may not be a hindrance or a source of interference to others. Its reverse aspect is subordination, meaning that the institutions have no clearly defined area of activity of their own and so remain under the control of a powerful state institution.
4. Coherence:
It means a degree of consensus among different associations and institutions, which leads to unity in the system. The forces of disruption are not there to disrupt the operation of the political system. Its reverse aspect is incoherence or disunity, meaning the absence of the consensus necessary to maintain peace and unity in the state. The liberal writers emphasise the key point that social and political change signifies the evolution of society from incoherent homogeneity to coherent heterogeneity.
Historian’s Perspective on Political Development
While established democracies like the United States and Great Britain weathered the 1929 global economic collapse by instituting subsidies and unemployment benefits, those with shallower democratic roots were unable to do so because the global slump ripped liberal democracy apart. The number of democracies in the world decreased as quickly as economic indicators when voters shifted to parties with more radical agendas. For a time, it was unclear whether countries like Germany would lean left or right, but when it came time to pick sides, the right wing offered the most and demanded the least. Like the Communists, they promised full employment, consumer gratification, and a golden age of national unity of purpose-but they did not denounce God, homeland, or private property. Adolf Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany in 1933 because of the support of the country's business and military elites, as well as a majority of the country's citizens.
It took the democracies of the West a while to decide whether the hard right or the hard left posed the greatest threat to civilisation. Afterwards, Fascism lost most of its respectability in the rest of the world in 1936 when the right wing in Spain rose up against the democratically elected government of the left. There were signs that the imperialist era was coming to an end in the heartlands of civilisations in Asia and North Africa. The British liberated ancient Iraq and Egypt in 1932 and 1936, respectively, while in 1935, following a massive protest campaign orchestrated by Mohandas Gandhi, they granted greater autonomy to India. British rule was reformed in the 1931 Statute of Westminster, which gave the dominions their own sovereign states. The Tydings-McDuffie Act of 1934, on the other hand, was passed by the United States and established an independent Commonwealth of the Philippines.
The Second World War reshaped the world's political landscape, erasing entire countries by the bucketful. The relentless bulldozer of war ploughed through 18 countries between 1937 and 1942. Three years after the outbreak of World War I, the Germans had conquered ten countries (Austrian, Czechoslovakian, Polish, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Belgian, French, Yugoslavian, and Greek). Three countries (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) were absorbed into the Soviet Union, and Albania was annexed by Italy. In addition, the Anglo-American alliance occupied four countries that were theoretically neutral (Iceland, Iraq, Egypt, and Persia) to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. For the duration of the war, 25% of the world's countries were wiped out.
Despite the fact that most of the conquered countries were restored after the war, the political structures of many of these countries were completely destroyed. Many of the countries in Eastern Europe that the Soviet Union liberated (conquered? trampled?) attempted to establish multiparty democracies, but Soviet-sponsored Communist parties quickly took control and ended that. The civil war that had been interrupted by the Japanese in China was resumed by Communists and Nationalists, while left and right fought over who would inherit Greece. The French, Indo-China and the Dutch East Indies seized the opportunity to prevent their former masters from regaining control after the Japanese surrendered in East Asia.
Empire's grip was weakened even in colonies that were spared Japanese occupation. The loss of lives and resources made it more difficult for colonial governments to maintain control over their territories. As a result of their efforts to safeguard freedom worldwide during World War II, the victorious nations felt obligated to grant freedom to their own vassals. Colonialism was largely extinct in Asia by 1950, when 19 new countries had formed.
Characteristics of Political Development
1. Freedom of Speech
There is a strong connection between political freedom and democracy. Both address the issue of people's participation in electing their representative government and in governance, in terms of content and philosophy. Because of their close connection, they are frequently discussed as two sides of the same coin. Democracies are ill-equipped to implement the policies required for long-term economic growth because voters prefer short-term consumption over long-term investment. It is possible to distinguish between democracies and dictatorships using these narrow definitions of democracy and political freedom.
2. Political Stability
A country's development strategy and political system are closely linked. In general, authoritarianism or democracy has a significant impact on the pace of progress and the pursuit of justice. A country's economic development strategy is a direct result of its political system, which, in turn, determines its success or failure in the global economy. There is a direct correlation between economic growth and the level of economic and social development, as well as the political stability of a country's political institutions.
3. Decentralisation
As political development progresses, decentralisation becomes increasingly important. There are many ways to look at the concept of decentralisation. For example, it can be seen as a political process in which administrative authority, public resources, and responsibilities are transferred from central government agencies to lower levels of government or non-governmental organisations (CBOs). The policy of delegating decision-making authority to lower levels of an organisation that are relatively distant from a central authority is commonly referred to as "decentralisation," another name for "departmentalisation." Fewer organisational tiers are seen in decentralised organisations, along with a wider range of decision-making authority and a flow of ideas from the bottom up. All decisions in a decentralised organisation are made by top executives or based on pre-established policies. There are several tiers of control in this process, which gradually expand as they move down an organisation's hierarchy to the bottom tier. It is common for the highest-ranking executives in a company to delegate significant decision-making authority to lower-level employees.
4. Political Decentralisation
With political decentralisation, citizens and their elected representatives will have more say in how public policy is made and implemented in their respective areas. Pluralism and representative government are often linked, but they can also support democracy by giving citizens and their representatives more influence in the formulation and implementation of policies. Proponents of decentralised government make the following assumptions: Development, An Overview that decisions made with greater participation are better informed and more relevant to diverse interests in society than those made only by national political authorities. According to this theory, electing representatives from a local electoral constituency gives voters a better sense of who their elected officials are and helps elected officials better understand the wants and needs of the people they represent. Constitutional or statutory reforms, the creation of local political units, and the encouragement of effective public interest groups are frequently required for political decentralisation.
5. Political Values
There can be no long-term progress in a liberal democracy if it is sustained only by the inertia of those who are not involved in it and do not share some of the fundamental values required for it to thrive. Religion, or theism, has no bearing on any of these values; this implies that politics exists independently of religion and God.
6. Rule of Law
Liberal democracy cannot exist unless everyone, from the smallest citizen to the highest official, is held to the same standards of law, no matter their position. People and groups who are exempt from neutral, universally applicable laws are effectively removed from the political process and elevated above the rest of us. As long as everyone is treated fairly and equally under the law, it is of no use.
7. Political Harmony
Achieving a sense of unity in politics is akin to achieving harmony in music, which requires many people contributing their unique perspectives while working toward a common end. This means opposing efforts to limit dialogue to a single viewpoint and tearing the group apart into vastly different directions, both of which are antithetical to political harmony.
POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT AND ITS IMPACT
The concept of political development is also regarded by many political scientists, including Samuel Huntington, as a process of modernisation. Though definitions of political development vary, most share two closely related characteristics. The first characteristic is that growth is synonymous with modernisation. As such, political development is also defined as political modernisation. The second is that there are many ways to measure political development, as modernisation and development are broad topics that span many areas. The characteristics that make up political development are all features of modernisation.
The paradigm of modernisation, which was inspired by Weber, and which is a departure from the premise that economic development flows a series of changes in the social order, that in return transforms the political systems.
With the process of urbanisation, migrants shift their orientations toward politics, away from parochial loyalties of their villages and their strongmen and toward their nations and the legitimate state bureaucracies that govern them. These transformations of traditional subjects into the realm of modern democratic systems were deeply personal, and it did not appear to involve a redistribution of power, and were apparently not subject to being suppressed. Although the modernisation literature held a dichotomous view of society as either traditional or modern, the political development literature of the 1960s also exhibited ambivalence about precisely how distinct the traditional and modern spheres were, and even about whether each was beneficial or detrimental to political development (Hagopian, 2000).
The three great trends in political development at the century’s end, modernisation, followed by globalisation and the third wave of democratisation, have led scholars to return to the large question of the nature of the relationship between economic and political development and even to revive modernisation theory. Relentless globalisation appears to be making world politics as homogenous as popular culture, to the point where one may reasonably wonder today whether distinctions between the First World, Second World, and Third World retain any conceptual validity. International norms (and blue-bereted troops), moreover, are making the world safer for democracy than at any time in history. Indeed, it would be difficult not to be tempted to see in the growth of middle classes, the dissemination of new technologies bringing more information more quickly to more of the globe’s inhabitants than ever before, and in the toppling of dictatorships, some connection between socioeconomic change and the march of so many nations toward Western-style democratic governance. If the field of political development depends on its own success, then the trends that dominated the 1990s may have breathed new life into it.
There are as many views as there are political scientists on the content, perspective and nature of political development. Most scholars and political scientists see political development as dependent on other variables, such as modernisation and westernisation. Much of the debate on political development fails to reach a conclusion due to value judgments, different variables, and a unidirectional approach to understanding it. Their political development is a complete neglect of a country’s history and its various political traditions. Paradoxically, these startling developments, which render the concept of modernisation somewhat problematic, help make the case that political development deserves to survive as a legitimate subfield of inquiry in comparative politics. At its best, the field of political development will study questions that other subfields would eschew, in an encompassing political context that other subfields might judge overly ambitious. The new and renewed roles of states in development, the resurgence of ethnic identities and conflict and the challenges they pose to the integrity of nations, and the establishment of new democratic political institutions in former authoritarian countries all constitute compelling reasons to revitalise the field of political development (Hagopian, 2000). Political development has been associated with increasing democratisation, with growing bureaucratisation, decentralisation, governance issues, and the development of democratic institutions.
1. Decentralisation
Decentralisation can be usefully understood as a political process whereby administrative authority, public resources and responsibilities are transferred from central government agencies to lower-level organs of government or to nongovernmental bodies, such as community-based organisations (CBOs), ‘third party’ non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or private sector actors. Decentralisation, also called departmentalisation, is the policy of delegating decision-making authority to lower levels in an organisation, relatively away from and below a central authority. A decentralised organisation has fewer tiers in its organisational structure, a wider span of control, and a bottom-to-top flow of decision-making and ideas. In a centralised organisation, decisions are made by top executives or based on pre-set policies. These decisions or policies are then enforced through several tiers of the organisation after gradually broadening the span of control until it reaches the bottom tier. In a more decentralised organisation, the top executives delegate much of their decision-making authority to lower tiers of the organisational structure. As a result, the organisation is likely to operate under less rigid policies and wider spans of control for each officer. The wider spans of control also reduce the number of tiers within the organisation, giving the organisation's structure a flatter appearance. One advantage of this structure, if the correct controls are in place, is the bottom-to-top flow of information, allowing all officials of the organisation to be well informed about lower-tier operations. For example, an experienced technician at the lowest tier of an organisation might know how to increase production efficiency, and the bottom-to-top flow of information can allow this knowledge to pass up to the executive officers.
2. Decentralised Governance
Decentralisation is generally defined as the transfer of authority and responsibility for public functions from the central government to subordinate or quasi-independent government organisations. It embraces a variety of concepts. Different types of decentralisation show different characteristics, policy implications, and conditions for success. Typologies of decentralisation have flourished. For example, political, administrative, fiscal, and market decentralisation are types of decentralisation. Drawing distinctions between these various concepts is useful for highlighting the many dimensions of successful decentralisation and the need for coordination among them. Nevertheless, there is clearly an overlap in the definitions of these terms, and the precise definitions are less important than the need for a comprehensive approach. Political, administrative, fiscal and market decentralisation can also appear in different forms and combinations across countries, within countries and even within sectors.
i. Political decentralisation
Political decentralisation aims to give citizens or their elected representatives more power in public decision-making. It is often associated with pluralistic politics and representative government, but it can also support democratisation by giving citizens, or their representatives, more influence in the Formulation and implementation of policies. Advocates of political decentralisation assume that decisions made with greater participation will be better informed and more relevant to diverse interests in society than those made only by national political authorities. The concept implies that selecting representatives from local electoral constituencies enables citizens to better understand their political representatives and enables elected officials to better understand the needs and desires of their constituents. Political decentralisation often requires constitutional or statutory reforms, the creation of local political units, and the encouragement of effective public interest groups.
3. Political Stability
There exists a strong relationship between a country’s development strategy and its political system. Authoritarianism or democracy has an unfailing influence on the pace of development and the pursuit of justice. Political institutions always shape nations' fates in many ways. A country's economic development strategy is the outcome of its political system, which, in turn, determines its success or failure. The rate of economic growth and the level of economic and social development represent the well-being and prosperity of an economy and political stability indicates the well-being of its political institutions. When one looks at a country's economy and politics, a number of questions arise. For example, what is the role of political institutions in economic growth and development? Which kind of political institutions (democracy or dictatorship) help or hinder economic growth and its ‘trickle-down’ effect? Is there a trade-off between economic, political and civil liberties and economic growth? What is the role of income distribution, poverty alleviation and other social welfare provisions in determining economic performance?
Conventional economics fails to answer these questions, particularly those related to political development, because it is devoid of the state or political institutions, which are treated exogenously in all discussions. The answer can only emerge if the state's role is treated endogenously. This is done in what is termed the ‘New Political Economy’, which is, in fact, a revival of what, at one time, was known as political economy. The ‘New Political Economy’, unlike the mainstream conventional economics, incorporates the government’s impact on the economic system and its components, without going into the questions of the development of political systems, constitutions and their processes. In essence, it accounts for the behaviour of the electorate, the legislature, and the bureaucracy. It is only then that we can answer various questions about the behaviour of the state and its impact on the economic functioning of a given system.
There is a strong relationship between economic growth, capital accumulation and democracy on the one hand and between political instability and income inequality on the other. Let us now find answers to the question of the linkages between an economy's well-being and its political set-up. These answers emerge from the experience of different countries and take the form of distinct hypotheses as given below:
Democracy retards economic growth (India’s experience up to the eighties)
Democracy helps achieving high rates of economic growth
Authoritarian regimes lead to faster economic growth (East Asian experience)
Dictatorial regimes lead to poor economic growth (African and Latin American experience)
All this leads to the conclusion that whether it is a democracy or a dictatorial regime, what matters is its political stability. The degree of political stability cannot be measured directly. It depends on a number of factors like political upheavals, riots, strikes and lockouts, crime and (political) assassinations, coups and change of power, infighting amongst political parties, scams including rent-seeking and directly unproductive profit-seeking activities, lack of people’s faith in the government, poverty and income disparities. One may use these indices to assess the degree of political stability in different countries/regions across different periods. This would lead to a number of interesting hypotheses linking the indices of political stability and economic growth. For example, during the periods of political unrest, or coups, or change of power, or even intense infighting within the ruling party, the rate of growth has been seen to slow down and even become negative, essentially through lower savings and investment rates and also through a lack of vision in the part of the bureaucracy. It is now understood that the magnitude of these activities and political instability reinforce and strengthen each other to quite a great extent with the result that taken together, they work against the growth process. They require neutralisation, weakening, and counteraction.
4. Political Values
Politics in a liberal democracy cannot long proceed or survive simply by inertia; instead, it must be constantly fed by people engaged in the political process and who share the basic values necessary for such a democracy to thrive. None of these values depends in any way upon religion or theism; this means that they are necessarily “godless” — that they exist independently of people’s religions and gods.
i. Rule of Law
Perhaps nothing is as fundamental as the rule of law: liberal democracy simply cannot exist unless everyone, from the lowest citizen to the highest official, is equally subject to the same laws. As soon as some people or groups are exempted from neutral, generally applicable laws, they are essentially placed outside the political process and made superior to the rest of us. In the end, the law means nothing unless it is fairly and equally applied to all.
ii. Political Harmony
Something we don’t hear much about is “harmony” in politics, which may be one reason why it’s been so lacking lately. In music, harmony requires multiple voices singing parts of the same piece; in politics, then, harmony requires the presence of multiple perspectives that are all moving towards the same general goal. Valuing political harmony means opposing efforts to reduce “dialogue” to a single perspective as well as efforts to tear the group apart into wildly different directions.
iii. Compromise
Politics is the “art of the possible,” meaning it is a pragmatic effort to find the best means for achieving particular goals. In a diverse, pluralistic community, this means that politics cannot exist without compromise: people and groups will generally get some of what they want, but almost never all of it, because there will always be groups with different desires. Those who categorically oppose compromise thus oppose the political process of democracy.
iv. Liberty & Autonomy
Democracy, which is “government by the people,” cannot exist unless people are free, and moreover have the freedom to govern themselves. If sovereign power ultimately rests with the people, it can only be because the people are free to be sovereign over themselves and to explore the various options available for structuring their common government. Otherwise, it’s just another dictatorship masked as a democracy.
v. Secularism
Often derided by those who don’t understand or believe in it, secularism is a critical component of liberal democracy. Secularism is the political principle or philosophy that there must exist a sphere of knowledge, values, institutions, and action independent of religious authority. If there is no such secular sphere, then everything is under ecclesiastical control and this undermines the possibility for liberty and autonomy.
vi. Dispersed Power & Authority
The more power that is concentrated in fewer hands, the greater the threat to people’s liberty and autonomy. This is true even when power is in the hands of those of goodwill, which is why we must guard against excessive concentration of power in government, religious entities, and private groups like corporations. Liberal democracy is best preserved by ensuring that social and political power is distributed as widely as possible, even if unevenly.
vii. Openness & Honesty
Political Development if democracy is going to work, then the people must be well informed about what their government is doing in their name. This means, therefore, that the ability of the government to keep secrets from the people must be sharply limited. If the government is given too much latitude to keep secrets, then it’s impossible for the people to make informed, educated decisions, and this means that those in power can retain power without appropriate consent from the governed.
viii. Equality & Justice
Two closely connected political values are equality and justice. A liberal democracy requires equality, or else only the privileged segment of the population becomes truly sovereign. A liberal democracy requires justice because that is the basis for an equitable application of the law. An unjust society is one in which the rule of law, morality, and equality are violated. Neither equality nor justice, though, requires any gods or religions to defend them.
ix. Politics without Religion
Labelling these values “godless” simply means they are not founded on the alleged will of any gods and do not depend on belief in any gods for their validity. Many religious theists can adopt them and many godless atheists may reject them; doing so, however, must occur independent of one’s religious beliefs and assumptions. At the same time, though, it might be argued that by pursuing political values independent of any gods and religion, one is also essentially pursuing politics without gods or religion. This would mean that liberal, representative democracy must itself be godless and irreligious in some basic way.
Politicians and voters may have religious values that inform their decisions, but the political system itself cannot be independent of any one group’s claims about what their god wants or demands. Only in the absence of such demands can the individuals who participate in the system act with complete freedom regardless of the beliefs of those around them. This is why the godlessness of the political system is good not just for the system, but also for the religious and theistic participants in it.
5. Development of Democratic Institutions
The problem of efficiency and dynamism of democratic institutions is very relevant for many countries, including Russia. As we know from history, democracy has often degenerated into various forms of autocracy, but not in its political institutions, which gradually lost their democratic nature and acquired a totally different character. Considering that during the democratic process in 1970 – 1990, many countries relied on democratic institutions built on the existing form rather than on a strong agreement (pact), the probability is that in a crisis situation, these institutions may be ineffective.
It might be a kind of vicious circle: the new democratic political institutions cannot be effective enough because they did not provide the necessary support of the mass and elite groups in society, and they cannot gain support and legitimacy of these institutions, because in the eyes of most people, this system is not effective in helping solve problems faced by society. It is quite difficult to break this cycle, especially in a time of the weakness of civil society and the inevitable coming after the first period of disappointment and euphoria with popular democracy. The constant reference to the inadequacy and lack of democratic political institutions that lead to panic exclamations already shows the alleged failure of democracy to transition to dictatorship, etc., and can only further reduce the credibility of democratic or semi-democratic institutions, making them fully ineffective and incompetent. In turn, such an atmosphere in society, created by extreme democrats with their statements that democracy is no longer the case and the extreme authoritarianism with their statements that democracy is not needed, only makes it easier for anti-democratic-minded faction of the ruling elite, a faster and easier emasculation of democratic content of the main political institutions, leading to a gradual transformation of them into something else, resulting in an instrument of authoritarian rule. This applies primarily to the institutions of elections, political parties, parliament, etc.
So the main issue in the transition and in the more crisis situation is not the purity of principles and a full democracy of major political institutions, but their democracy, which is coupled with efficiency. The main argument of supporters of authoritarianism has always been the adoption of the principle of inefficiency of democratic institutions, which allegedly do not conform to national traditions and characteristics of this state, this civilisation, etc. Countering this argument cannot just claim that democracy is important and valuable in itself (this point is accepted only by some intellectuals, not by the majority of the population), but rather by demonstrating the effectiveness of democratic institutions and the inefficiency of authoritarian or totalitarian regimes.
However, confirming the effectiveness of key democratic institutions is the most difficult problem, both in theory and in practice. This applies mainly to Russia, with its limited experience with democratic institutions, but, of course, not only to it: there are many problems in Latin America, South and South-East Asia, and the Middle East, including such large states as China, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Iran. It should be noted that in the scientific, especially publicist, literature, the effectiveness of democratic institutions is often considered self-evident and does not require proof or justification. Meanwhile, the issue of the efficiency and effectiveness of democratic institutions in countries not belonging to Western or other civilisations that seemed insufficiently developed. In the context of modernisation theory, modern society and modern political system (usually understood as democratic) appear as the most effective, dynamic, and adaptable to rapidly changing conditions of modern development. But unlike earlier studies of modernisation, in more recent work, it was found that effective modernisation could occur only by relying on existing traditions and traditional institutions in this society; otherwise, upgrading will split society, and it will increase the social and internal political tensions, which means it will lead to an unstable political and economic system. However, the key question is how to combine this consistently, upgrading the reliance on tradition with the efficiency of democratic political institutions, and this question often remains in the shadows in the theory of modernisation. To a large extent, this issue remains outstanding and, in most theories of democratic transit.
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