Welcome

Welcome to Mighty Democracy. This blog aims to cover a range of interests concerning the power of democracy, the effectiveness of democracy, as well as the methods that we, the people, have at our disposal to make a change and overcome the forces that seek to undermine democracy.

Many of the posts will be primarily from a UK perspective. Comments, comparisons and criticisms from other viewpoints are nonetheless very much welcome.

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Who did you vote for in the last general election? Ask yourself why you voted for who you did. Perhaps you didn’t vote at all.

In fact only 65% of registered voters turned up to vote in the last election of May 2010. Voter turnout increases with age, unsurprisingly, and in the 18-24 and 25-34 age brackets these figures were only 44% and 55% respectively.

So why do people choose not to vote? Some people have little or no interest in political issues and therefore have no real basis to distinguish between candidates. This is likely true for most of the younger abstainers. Some do not see how their single vote can make a difference. This is perhaps due to flaws in the First Past The Post system used in the UK which tends to favour a two party system, meaning that any vote cast for any party other than the two most popular in each constituency, can seem wasted.

Many, however, have simply lost faith in the system. Many people don’t see that it matters who wins the election in their constituency. Many do not believe that the MP that represents them actually has much power in transferring the wishes of the constituents into change for the better. In other words, they no longer believe in the effectiveness of democracy, the same democracy that has long been a central virtue of UK government, the same democracy that our grandparents fought and died to protect from nationalist and socialist tyranny in the 20^th century.

Democracy is defined as – government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system. To what extent, therefore, do you think that our system of government in the UK is a democracy? Do you feel like ‘the people’ can exercise power through their elected agents? Is the popular opinion of the people justly reflected in public policy? Or are decisions often made contrary to the wishes of the public? Imagine if a nationwide referendum was the norm for all significant decisions that would affect the lives of all citizens. Imagine if we had had our say in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 or the UK’s participation in the ongoing European political union.

The government must have a fairly good idea what the outcome of a referendum will be before it is carried out. It is also plausible that the issue at hand requires a deeper level of understanding and political/historical knowledge to make a wise decision, and that perhaps those in power choose to involve fewer people in the decision making process for our own best interests. However, should it not be up to these very people to make us understand why a decision is being made, especially if it contrary to popular opinion? The definition on Wikipedia also includes the following sentence – Ideally, this includes equal (and more or less direct) participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law.

This suggests Direct Democracy as an ideal democratic model. Meaning that we, ordinary citizens, would have much more involvement in the law making process, people would have real power to elect and depose representatives and our elected representatives would hold real power to realise our desires for change. Power would be devolved to the lowest practicable level, or the most feasible local level, with a much higher focus on communities and local responsibility.

Now, this all sounds wonderful, but in reality it is not as easy as it seems. Power is never yielded so easily. Those with executive power may voice their support for local governments but it difficult to resist state interference when it suits their wider public relations agenda.

The practicalities and possible effects of giving power to the people, the differences between the UK government and other democracies in the world, and real examples of power devolution in the past, will all be future topics of Mighty Democracy.