Democracy and Hoping For the Future (Argumentative Essay)

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Democracy and Hoping for the Future (Argumentative Essay)

Introduction

In light of the recent ongoing war on terror, the installation of numerous puppet governments and the public disregard for the concerns raised by organizations like the United Nations by International superpowers, one can freely say that there are only handfuls of individuals who doubt democracy as being the best form of modern political governance. In comparison to modern scholarship that are highly in favor of the fact that democracies would not abuse their own citizens, reality is testament to the contrary and can be viewed in the overly abundant CCTV cameras throughout our cities and in bills like the Patriot Act that openly ridicule the concept of privacy (O'Donnell, 2007). During most of the twentieth century, individuals that can be stated as being on the left or right of democracy have had numerous discussion as how desirable democracy truly is and how best to nurture it.

With that being said, a debate has continued between Preconditionists and their rivals, the Universalists. The former are adamant that democracy is a result of the fulfillment of certain predefined conditions and experience; the latter counter with their belief that democracy can be derived from any, and all, possible conditions throughout society. During the mid twentieth century, the Preconditionists were clearly winning the debate. Instances like the World Wars and even the Cold War further improved their standing (Keane, 2009). They repeated, time and time again, that democracy could only result from the required socioeconomic development, group polarization and/or the prevalence or specific cultural beliefs and traditions. As long as the mentioned were present, an effective democracy would surely find its way into mainstream society. If the said conditions were absent, the public would continue to be lead in previous forms of government. There were times, however, when legislators and Preconditionists argued that the conditions for the development and maintenance of democracy were quite literally nonexistent in the present world (Keane, 2009).

Contrarily, the Universalists were of the belief that democracy would flourish despite the circumstances and was just a matter of time before the general public rose in numbers demanding functioning democratic governance. When questioning how the nations like the United Kingdom and the United States have survived thus far, Universalists find their victory and Preconditionists answer that the timing had been suitable for the first step towards democracy (Keane, 2009). The purpose of this paper is to analyze the fairly popular view of Guillermo O'Donnell - that democracy is a “quintessentially contested concept,” but it offers a “capacity for hope”.

Discussion

To be very honest, the events throughout history favor neither Preconditionists nor Universalists. Rather, one can go to the extent of saying that both are misguided. Indeed democracy has developed, and is probably the most favored form of governance in the world, but it did not come easily nor did it come out of the fulfillment of predefined conditions. Examples of nations that are usually ...