Workplace Democracy

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Democratic governance is an important aspect in the workplace because it elevates the level of trust and collaboration that is supposed to exist between the bureaucracy and the retinue of followers. However, democracy in the workplace is impossible if those endowed with authority behave contrary to democratic norms and expectations. Incidents of undemocratic practices in the workplace can be found everywhere even in nations that have been committed democracies for several centuries. According to Deleon and Deleon (2002), democracy in the workplace “promotes efficiency and effectiveness” (p. 9).

An organization that I have been involved with in the past is the Marriott Hotel chain where I worked as an agent who represented customer needs. The nature of organization and the chain of command existing at that time was consistent with contemporary democratic values even though top management at times violated hotel regulations by practicing favoritism.

Cohesion, trust, and collaboration in every sector of the hotel created harmonious relationships that would have been impossible in an undemocratic setting. Giving employees the freedom to carry out their responsibilities without interference after thorough training helped alleviate mistrust and resistance. Employees partook in the operation of the hotel because they felt they had the necessary tools and training required to conduct business to utmost satisfaction.

Democracy is sustainable in the workplace if employees are treated fairly well and equally. This will give them a sense of belonging. Motivation is another important factor that has been shown to increase worker input.

References

Deleon, L., & Deleon, P. (2002). The democratic ethos and public management. Administration and Society, 34(2), 229–250.

Checks and Balance

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Check and balance is an important democratic principle that is contained in the US Constitution. Part of the Federalist Paper No. 51 that is thought to have been authored by Alexander Hamilton or James Madison, checks and balances is a means to extending the limitations set up by the separation of powers (Library of Congress, 2010). Each branch of government has integrated power and duty to control the power of the other two branches. Checks and balances evolved as a means to stopping usurpation of power by one branch of government. Thus, checks and balance allows for the prevention of the domination of one branch.

Examples of checks and balances are when the legislative branch passes laws either by agreeing or vetoing, when it allows the judicial branch to take in for questioning the laws and that is when the judicial branch chooses all the judges. Finally, the executive branch can veto a bill with the legislative branch checking the bill again and possibly cancelling it. The Supreme Court of the United States, the highest judicial system in the land, has been involved in numerous cases in the past. In Bowsher v Synar of 1986, the Supreme Court invalidated the powers of the Comptroller General for impounding funds allocated for military use when the federal budget was in a state of deficit (UMKC, 2011). The Court found that the Comptroller General violated the constitutionally imposed separation of powers. Such power granted to the Supreme Court of the United States is mentioned in Article III Section 1 (US Constitution, 1867).

The Supreme Court of the United States argued November 2, 2010 and decided June 27, 2011 in the case surrounding Brown, Governor of California, et al. v. Entertainment Merchants Association et al (Brown v. Governor of California, 2011). The case was in regard to California law restricting the sale or rental of violent video games to minor. In its closing argument, the Federal District Court found that the Act violated the First Amendment. In this case, the government cannot make judgments of what to view and listen. It is up to the individual to choose what is suitable.

References

The Library of Congress: Thomas. (n.d.). Federalist Paper No. 51. Retrieved February 16, 2010, from http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_51.html

UMKC (2011). Exploring Constitutional Conflicts. Retrieved October 6, 2011, from http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/separationofpowers.htm

US Constitution (1867). Retrieved October 6, 2011, from http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A3Sec1.html

Supreme Court of the United States (2011). Retrieved October 6, 2011, from http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf

Democratic Governance

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Democratic governance is often illustrated by the existence of political parties. A political party is usually an organization with broad political agendas whose main aim is to control government policy. Despite espousing different political views, leaders of political parties often sort out their political differences through cooperation and compromise. Unlike oligarchic and dictatorial regimes where a few leaders hold absolute power to suppress political fragmentation and dissent in their realms, in a genuine democracy, the smooth-running of the government of the day is the prerogative of elected political leaders. The terms party and faction have been used interchangeably by political leaders, researchers, and students of political science. According to DiSalvo, “factions are engines of political change that develop new ideas, refine them into workable policies, and promote them in government” (2010, p. 269).

Parties are the most important organizations that control the resources of a nation. In the United States, two conflicting and competing political parties, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, have been the torchbearers of the nation for many years (Belloni and Beller, 1976). Because these two political parties have been dominating American political arena for such a long time, the prospect of smaller parties emerging in a landslide victory have always been hampered by the domineering tactics of the bigger parties. It is common for political parties to align themselves with interest groups such as religious and secular organizations for the sake of emerging the majority party in the electoral process. A presidential hopeful may give a lecture at an institution or before a church that has a large following simply to garner support as did former president Ronald Reagan at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Baptist College in 1980 (Williams, 2010).

Political parties play vital roles in the democratic process by injecting new ideas and implementing viable projects that they deem beneficial to the nation’s social, economic, and political wellbeing. Because members of political parties are accountable to the voting public, they have to avoid removal from office at all cost by making valuable contributions to the society they represent. As opposed to the clangorous Indian, Turkish, Taiwanese, and Somali parliamentary debates known for political pugilism , the United States political party deliberations always convene in peaceful atmospheres.

References

Belloni, F. P., & Beller, D. C. (1976). The study of party factions as competitive political organizations. Political Research Quarterly, 29(4), 531–549.

DiSalvo, D. (2010). The Politics of a Party Faction: The Liberal Labor Alliance in the Democratic Party, 1948–1972. Journal of Policy History, Vol. 22 Issue 3, 269.

Williams, D. K. (2010). Jerry Falwell’s Sunbelt Politics: The Regional Origins of the Moral Majority. Journal of Policy History, Vol. 22, No. 2, 126.

Representative Democracy, Constitutional Democracy, and Republic

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Representative democracy, constitutional democracy, and republic are governing systems that preserve the rights of the individual citizen. Citizens vote the type and government of choice through the ballot box. Representative democracy, a form of government whose basic elements are political representation and democratic governance, is the prerogative of voters who elect representatives in a given calendar year (Lovett, 2006). It is a form of government in which the top elected brass governs until the next elections. Representative democracy allows citizens to elect representatives at all levels of society from city to the federal level. These representatives then carry on with the responsibilities accorded them by their voters until next election session when they can either reclaim their seats or be replaced by new members. A change in government representation is made possible by frequent elections and that winning a seat is determined by the number of votes garnered by a representative.

Constitutional democracy is a system of government based on popular control where structures, powers, and limits of government are set forth in a constitution and that is an amendable authoritative document. Nations like Panama, Sierra Leone, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and Ghana are constitutional democracies (CIA, 2011). However, questions remain whether some countries that call themselves democracies are really democratic or just exist in name only. Some are pseudo-democracies where there is widespread corruption and manipulation in electoral processes. For governments that are partial democracies, the ruling party upholds absolute power such that it manages the constitution and denies opposition certain rights. In contemporary America, states have greater degree of control over matters pertaining to self-government and have the right to resist imposition of centralization by the federal government (Ritchie, 1936).

A republic is a form of representative democracy where elected deputies or representatives vote on acceptable legislation. In a republic, according to Roust and Shvetsova (2007), voters give consideration to representatives who they deem have the ability to reverse existing trends for the better. The United States, known for its strong democratic tradition, is a constitution-based federal republic. Nations like France, Finland, Georgia, Indonesia, Italy, South Korea, Moldova, and many others are republics. Iran is a theocratic republic; Mexico, Ethiopia, and India are federal republics while Iceland is a constitutional republic.

References

Lovett, F. (2006). Republicanism. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Spring 2010 ed.). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/republicanism/

CIA (2011). Field Listing: Government Type. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2128.html?countryName=&countryCode=®ionCode=M

Ritchie, A. C. (1936). The Constitution and the states. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 185(1), 16–21.

Roust, K. & Shvetlova, O. (2007). Representative Democracy as a Necessary Condition for the Survival of a Federal Constitution. The Journal of Federalism volume 37 number 2, pp. 244-261.

Arab World's Fight for Democracy

"Self-respect cannot be hunted. It cannot be purchased. It is never for sale. It cannot be fabricated out of public relations. It comes to us when we are alone, in quiet moments, in quiet places, when we suddenly realize that, knowing the good, we have done it; knowing the beautiful, we have served it; knowing the truth, we have spoken it”. Whitney Griswold

The departure of Zein el-Abidine bin Ali of Tunisia from the political scene and the subsequent upheavals in the streets of Cairo, Amman, and Sana’a attest to the growing discontent among traditionally-inclined and politically-impervious Arabs who endured decades of misrule imposed by bureaucracies composed of miscreants and tyrants with ties to western powers who have mastered the art of double-standards. The spread of self-immolation by disgruntled youth besieged by unemployment and poor living conditions in several Arab cities could not even attract the attention of the brazenly Bedouin Arab leader reclining in a golden chair surrounded by concubines deep inside a well-fortified golden palace.

After harrowing decades of ill-treatment and oppression by dreaded police forces, ordinary Arabs have awoken from heavy slumber ready to take charge of their destinies without any interference of any sorts. Having squandered the national wealth of Tunisia for years, autocrat Zein el-Abidine bin Ali finally packed his possessions stealthily under the cover of darkness to seek refuge among the Saudis before being apprehended unawares by an overwhelmingly rowdy youth baying for his blood.

In Cairo, Muhammad Hosni Mubarak mysteriously exited the political spectrum after handpicking a ruthless vice-president and dissolving parliament indefinitely. Mubarak’s attempts to quell civil disturbances by deploying his despised police force failed to materialize after being overtaken by an ocean of angry demonstrators who kept vigil at the famous “Tahrir Square” in the heart of Al-Qahira. Mubarak has been in power since the assassination of Anwar Sadat by the Islamic Brotherhood in 1981. Mubarak, the man perceived by the West as a darling, ally, and impeccable for strictly adhering to the West’s never-ending laundry list of wishes, remains culpable in the eyes of ordinary Egyptians primarily for imposing on them thirty-one years of curfew, mismanagement, and political miscalculations. The thousands of demonstrators who gathered in the historic liberation square of Cairo decried the years of extra-judicial killings, arbitrary arrests, unemployment, embezzlement, political subjugation, and many other forms of injustices committed by Mubarak’s regime.

After the unprecedented departure of the authoritarian rulers of Tunisia and Egypt respectively, another hot-headed leader, Muammar Ghaddafi of Libya-a man who has been on the helm for over forty years-remains cornered by a ruthless and unrelenting rebellion. Sardonically, Ghaddafi has resorted to using full-scale military tactics including scotched-earth pounding of civilian populated areas by Libyan airforce jet fihters and artillery fire to subdue an uncontrollable opposition that has already spilled to every part of the desert-whipped country. There have been reports of machette-wielding, gun-totting pro-Ghaddafi loyalist hoodlums indiscriminately killing unarmed opponents.

Judging by his quest for prestige and power in the international stage, Ghaddafi seems to have all the attributes of Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who is regarded by many historians as the father of strategy. Hannibal son of Amilcar Barca, was reputedly the leading Carthiginian commander during the First Punic War (264-241 BC) that was fought between Ancient Carthage and the Roman Republic. For 23 years, Carthage and Rome fought for supremacy of the western Mediterranean Sea especially over the Island of Sicily and and to a lesser extent including surrounding waters and north Africa. As the war of liberation intensifies in Libya, many political analysts and historians keep guessing whether Ghaddafi will keep fighting courageously like Hannibal who finally succumbed to a humiliating betrayal and defeat.

In Bahrain, a tiny kingdom in the Middle East separated from Iran by the Persian Gulf, mounting violence in the main city of Manama triggered by embittered protesters finally ended after the ruling theocratic sheikhs agreed to full political transformations. Likewise, in Yemen, a nation bordering Saudi Arabia to the south, there had been media reports of massive protests against the dictatorial regime of Ali Abdalla Saleh. President Saleh, a former army colonel in the Yemeni army, has been in power since 1978. Beginning with the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings, demonstrations calling for regime changes and democratic governance have jolted the nations of Jordan, Djibouti, Oman, Iraq, Iran, and others.

For a long time Muslim scholars associated democracy with western values and ideals. Some scholars even went as far as describing democracy as un-Islamic, corrupt, and contrary to Islamic political thought. On the contrary, after witnessing abrupt changes in the behavior of the mainstreet Arab/Muslim, novel interpretattions keep sprouting from many mosque pulpits calling for political reformations and democratization of Muslim lands. Despite castigating democracy in the strongest terms, vocal Muslim scholars kept aloof from denouncing corrupt leaders for fear of repercussions. Instead, their surmons revolved around human rights, equality and justice, freedom and governance, respect and dignity, and topics of like nature that abound in the genesis of democracy.

The term democracy incorporates: (a) freedom to form and join organizations; (b) freedom of expression; (c) right to vote; (d) eligibility for public office; (e) right of political leaders to compete for support; (f) right of political leaders to compete for votes; (g) alternative sources of information; and (h) free and fair elections. On the other hand, democracy is about majoritarian rule.

It could be argued that the current clashes visible in Arabian/Muslim cities is a harbinger for impending political changes and a stepping stone for future globalization of democracy. From a realist perspective, the internationally televised self-immolation ritual demonstrated by the irritated, unemployed Tunisian degree-holder seems to have globally spread far and wide leaving many autocrats in looming danger.