Cadet Killian Buckley's Blog

“Democracy: A Comparison”

Cadet Killian Buckley

Politics of East Asia

17 OCTOBER14

LTC Sanborn

Works Cited:

See endnotes , in class discussion/lecture , and class notes

1

The American democratic system highlights the importance of individual rights and protecting the minority from the majority.  Overtime, the system has developed in a strong two party system in which debate slows the process of the legislature.  This, however, is designed to act as such in order to maintain slow, practical political process and prevent fervor or tyrannical rule.  Our founding father, when crafting the American democratic system, was careful to include checks and balances to avoid tyrannical rule.  The American system has evolved overtime and continued to be a working democracy.

In Junior High School, I first learned about the concept of the Electoral College.  It confused me. Prior to learning this concept, I thought that the Presidential election in the United States was a popular vote.  I was under the impression that each person could cast a vote for the candidate of his or her desire and that the candidate with the most amount of votes became the knew President.  From basic course on American Government, I learned the details of the democratic system of which I live in.  However, this is not the case for many Americans.  According to a 2009 poll by the American Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 43% of Americans could not correctly define what the Electoral College is and what it means particularly for the presidential election in the United States.[1]  In my opinion, this is disconcerning, because it means that most Americans do not truly understands how our democracy works.  Regardless, due to continuous peaceful transition between powers during our election cycle, individualist freedoms, and fair, free elections, we have a working democracy that provides us with stability and prosperity.

So far in this course, we have learned about the differences between the developed or developing democratic systems in several East Asian nations. How do the organizations of these democracies differ from what we have in Western democracies? Does a democracy have a certain format?  It is already possible to see differences between the democracy of between the American system, the British parliamentary system, and the German system. With there being such a range between the Western democratic systems is there a true difference between systems as a whole in the East and the West.

For example, when reading Lim, it is possible to see the wide variation between the democracies of Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan.[2] These variations are due in part to the timeline of the creation of each democratic system, outside factors such as influence by foreign powers, and culture.  There is not a long standing history of democracy in East Asia; it is a fairly new phenomenon.  Therefore, there is little cultural hold to the idea of the individual within the democratic system; there is a more collective feudal idea that has roots within this region.  This, in its nature alters the format and organization of the democratic system.  Therefore, the question still remains, is there an innate difference between the Eastern and Western democracies?

It is difficult to give an exact nature due to the amount of variables in the comparison.  There are the variable of the time period, the history of the regions, and the influence of economics in the region.  The American system was created in a time in which there was less globalization and, due to technology, there were less foreign influence on the region.  Foreign investments and alliances could cause a great deal of stress on a new, developing democracy.  Secondly, the histories of the regions are vastly different.  The British colonies, who became the United States of America, were granted a great deal of economic and political freedom due to the distance of their British power.  However, on the other hand, in many of the East Asian nations, there is no clear history of democracy.  There is a great deal of Confucian history which puts the strength in the collective rather than the individual.[3] This is extremely different from that of the history of the United States.  Thirdly, economics affects the stability of the democratic system.  Throughout United States history, there have been various recessions and the Great Depression which severely affected the United States economic system, however, the democratic political system’s integrity has remained steady.  On the other hand, in LTC Sanborn’s class, we have discussed the role of economics within these East Asian democracies.  Due to our discussion in class, it is clear to see that the status of the economic system plays a role in the legitimacy of the political system to the citizens of these East Asian democracies.

In conclusion, I argue that it is hard to define the overall differences between East Asia and the United States democratic system due to the large number of variables within the comparison.  The East Asian democracies are young and, therefore, time will tell their lasting legitimacy and influence in the region.