Are democracies more stable than autocracies?

What is a Democracy? 

Origins of the term ‘democracy’ can be traced back to Ancient Greece. The term literally means “rule of the people”. However, the simple notion of ‘rule of the people’ does not get us very far. To further define democracy, I present substantial definitions and procedural definitions. Substantial definition is to define democracy by the essence of democracy, namely “of the people, by the people and for the people” This definition makes sense, but it has 2 drawbacks. Firstly, It is very abstract and vague and leaves many questions, such as who are the people? How to make decisions? Secondly, the substantial definition can be abused to define any system as a democracy because nearly all governments claim that they are for the people and represent the people. So in our presentation, we use a procedural definition, which means we define democracy by the process. To be more exact, I use scholar Schumpeter’s definition in his book capitalism socialism and democracy to define democracy by a competitive struggle for the people’s vote. So, if a country has the competitive voting process, it will be considered as a democracy in this essay. 

What is an autocracy? 

An autocracy is the opposite of democracy. Unlike democracy reflecting the majority’s will, autocracy is the rule of the few. Here I define it as a system of government in which supreme political power to direct all the activities of the state is concentrated in the hands of one person,can be a monarch, a dictator or even extends to a party or the army whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularised mechanisms of popular control.

Here are some defining features of an autocracy.

1. The ruler is not accountable to anyone else for what he does.

2. The political system is insufficiently subject to the  rule of law.

3. An autocracy always lacks political diversity.

In my opinion, a democracy is not necessarily more stable than an autocracy. Here's why:

1. Competition between political parties can lead to civil unrest.

Firstly, a democratic voting system sets up an ongoing battle between opponents who are encouraged to condemn one another, exaggerating their faults and denying their achievements.

Secondly, democratic politics may deepen tribal, regional or ethnic tensions, and strengthen the tendency towards charismatic leadership. 

2. Prosperous Liberal democracies are one of the sources of global disharmony

Firstly, according to the World-systems theory, we can divide the world into core countries, semi-periphery countries, and the periphery countries. Mature democracies such as the United States of America and states in the Nordic region,as core countries, are able to sustain the prosperity of their states by the exploitation of the less-developed and developing world.

Secondly, The spread of their influence is often justified with the need to spread liberal democracy throughout the international system, in turn fueling conflicts in the developing world. As we just said, we can not consider a country to be peaceful if it destroy the peaceful development of other countries

Case Study: The United States of America

The USA is commonly known as one of the world's most prosperous democratic countries. However, it shows a high level of internal unrest as shown by these examples from recent years. The competition between differing political parties in their democratic system has resulted in ethnic tensions rising between different ethnic groups in the US, resulting in protests and racial riots, most recently being the Geoge Floyd and Daunte Wright protests. The competitive nature of democratic politics in the US has resulted in the polarisation of its people resulting in incidents such as the Sacramento riots and Capitol attack, as well as furthering the draw towards charismatic leaders such as Trump, thus breeding authoritarianism.

The US is a source of global disharmony due to its involvement in various regime changes across the globe that draw bloodshed. We can see here the numerous countries that the US has brought instability to by interfering in their affairs, either for political or economic benefits or both. The common narrative perpetuated by the US and other democratic countries that act similarly is that it is imperative for them to bring democracy for the ‘liberation’ of the peoples in these developing or underdeveloped countries, without taking into account the suitability of the democratic system to govern these countries. The same notion is also used to justify the occupation of the West in other regions of the world for their continued strategic and economic gain, for example, the interference of the US in Panama.

3. Democracy is not the defining factor in the building of a peaceful state

Many autocracies are peaceful. Inversely, many democracies are not. The common conception that a democracy is inherently more peaceful ignores the many other contributing factors to the rare peaceful democracy (eg. New Zealand, Nordic States, Singapore). 

Autocratic regimes do not necessarily possess more authority than non-autocratic regimes. Autocratic regimes often arise when authority is difficult to maintain.  

Case studies:

Libya transitioned from an autocracy to a democracy. Libya was governed by an autocracy under Colonel Muammar Gaddafi after a coup in 1969. It was supposedly a form of direct democracy. However, Gaddafi retained virtually all power. Political parties were banned in Libya from 1972 until the removal of Gaddafi's government, and all elections were nonpartisan under law. 

His reign ended in 2011 after the Libyan Civil War. Libya has since transitioned to a democracy, and the first election for the General National Congress was held in 2012.

However, Libya still faces an endless civil war after the ousting of Gaddafi's autocracy that continues to the present day, despite the introduction of democracy. 

Inversely, Portugal transitioned from a democracy to an autocracy in the early 1900s. The First Portuguese Republic preceding the Estado Novo consisted of 9 presidents and 44 ministries. The republic is said to be a 'failed experiment' and ultimately collapsed. António de Oliveira Salazar installed the Estada Novo (New State) after the coup d'état of 28 May 1926 against the democratic but unstable First Republic. Internally, from 1932 to 1968, Portugal maintained relative political stability under the dictatorship of Salazar. Externally, Portugal under Salazar remained neutral during the Second World War. It is an example of a state that is peaceful under an autocracy.

To conclude, a democratic system is not necessarily more peaceful than an autocracy. Both systems have the capability of forming peaceful states, but also have the ability to cause conflicts or have flaws that cause internal unrest. Neither system is more peaceful than the other. As such no perfect system of governance exists.  

Written by Chong Li Xian