Monday, December 27, 2010

politocracy a new form of democracy

It appears that my earlier post on the above title was not properly posted. I want to repeat it again:

POLITOCRACY A NEW FORM OF DEMOCRACY
As all of us know that there is a large list of government types. Some of them are:
• Anarchy
• Aristocracy
• Communist state
• Confederation
• Corporatism
• Corporatocracy
• Consociationalism
• Demarchy
• Democracy

Under democracy itself there are some important types namely

• Direct
• Representative
• Consensus


Democracy is a political form of government in which governing power is derived from the people, either by direct referendum (Direct) or by means of elected representatives of the people (Representative). The term comes from the Greek δημοκρατία – (dēmokratía) "rule of the people", which was coined from δῆμος (dêmos) "people" and κράτος (Kratos) "power", in the middle of the 5th-4th century BC to denote the political systems then existing in some Greek city-states, notably Athens, following a popular uprising in 508 B.C. Even though there is no specific, universally accepted definition of 'democracy'. Equality and freedom have been identified as important characteristics of democracy since ancient times. These principles are reflected in all citizens being equal before the law and having equal access to power. For example, in a representative democracy, every vote has equal weight, no restrictions can apply to anyone wanting to become a representative, and the freedom of its citizens is secured by legitimized rights and liberties which are generally protected by a constitution.
U.S. president Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) defined democracy as:
«Government of the people, by the people, for the people»
Democracy is by far the most challenging form of government - both for politicians and for the people.
However we have to go to Politocracy, which has not been defined earlier. This Word ‘Politocracy’…
I first thought of this word 2-3 years ago when I was thinking about our own democracy. I knew someone else would have thought of it too so I googled it immediately. It came back with some hits but in different contexts with different meanings. They were using it anyway. However when I googled it again two days back it asked me back Did you mean to search for: plutocracy and gave lots of references. I had to go to advanced search and after trying a number of times could get lot many references. I have to again ask google why it did not go to POLITOCRACY INSTEAD OF PLUTOCRACY IN THE FIRST ISNTANCE.
The suffix -cracy can be used in two ways to mean either a class of people or a system of government…
1. -cracy a (specified) type of government; rule by autocracy, theocracy
2. The suffix has in modern times acquired the sense of ‘ruling body or class’
Aristocracy normally means the class of people and democracy normally means the system of government. However both can also be used in the other sense too.
An article in The Spectator in 1997 talks of the politocracy as “a new social class which puts conviviality above confrontation, sociability before socialism”. Alice Miles here was talking of Labour and Conservative activists who basically shared the same interests and thus were able to socialise together despite being in opposing camps.
An article in Praxis International (a Marxist humanist journal) in 1989 by Bogdan Denitch (an expert in the political sociology of the former Yugoslavia) says, “I think the best way to describe these systems is as politocracies, that is systems in which the political elites, ruling through the single communist party, control the state and the economy and through those the society.”
My definition written a few weeks ago is government of the politician by the politician and for the politician
A POLITOCRACY is a political form of government that emerges in multi-party systems where the politicians work for themselves, neither for the party, nor the electorate. The raison d’etre of such a system is to get the individual elected through some party by using whatever methods possible, to win elections. Hence with little difference in policy between the main parties, the political class become self-serving thus divorced from objective of governance.
Interesting to note that I use it where convergence has taken place in a multi-party system where the main political parties are very similar policy wise. Hence the multi-party system has become a single party one in effect.
I popped down the library to consult the Oxford English Dictionary to see if the word has been officially recognised, it hasn’t. I can cite any number of examples for the democracy which we are enjoying for the last 63 years, to justify my above definition, but the readers of this blog may know better than me, and hence leaving it just here due to fear of occupying large space.
References:
1. Wikipedia
2. Politocracy. A political blog focusing on issues that usually fly under the radar, and foreign policy.

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