Term 2 Blog Post

Democracy creates stability in a society.
As defined by Wikipedia, Democracy is a system of government by which political sovereignty is retained by the people and either exercised directly by citizens or through their elected representatives. It is derived from the Greek term δημοκρατία [demokratia], which means "popular government", which was coined from δήμος (dēmos), which means "people" and κράτος (kratos), meaning "rule, strength(of)" in the middle of the 5th century BC to denote the political systems then existing in some of the Greek city-states, of which the most notable was Athens.
The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary states that stability is “the quality, state, or degree of being stable”, where stable is defined to be either “firmly established”, “not changing or fluctuating” or “permanent, enduring “. In the context of a society, only the first definition is appropriate, and thus, with an adequate understanding of both democracy and stability, I begin by stating that I agree with the statement that democracy creates stability in a society.
This is due to a key feature of a democracy is that the people are the ones who make the decisions, albeit indirectly, as they decide upon the composition of the government. This means that the government in place is the best that the country can offer, as the people are unlikely to pick a candidate who would rather oppose the will of the people, and are much more likely to have picked their best candidates, who are willing to represent their interests.
Furthermore, because of how to government is picked, via a voting system, the government is more likely to improve upon the lives of the people, as they are the ones with the power, as this will give them more time spent in power. However, this system is not without its drawbacks, as it is highly perceptible to outside influences, such as bribes. As people are easily tempted by short term benefits, bribery is a serious threat to the credibility of voting as a legitimate system. It is extremely difficult to tackle this problem as the issue hinges on the moral strength of the people.
Another problem is when the people become unreasonable, and demand impossible things. The only way to solve this problem would be to set in place rules, that restrict the amount of control that the people can exercise over the inner workings of the government. However, if these rules are overly-implemented, the democratic system would give way to an autocratic government, thus defeating the purpose of setting up a democratic government in the first place.
Yet, it is true that the people will definitely look out for their best interests and, as such, are much more likely to see beyond the short term, and have the wisdom to acknowledge what is unattainable. Thus, a democratic government can, and probably will, create stability in a country where both criteria are met.