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The historical approach to concepts is based on the notion that “concepts have a history” and that it “seeks to improve our awareness of their historical depth. However, the motivation is not simply historical curiosity to explore how concepts were used in the past, but also to provide a better understanding of how they evolved and how we arrived at the meanings we employ today” (Berenskoetter 2016: 9).
“Crudely put one could say that the historical approach lends itself to explore four instances in the life of the concept: (1) concept invention (emergence): how a new concept establishes itself in a particular historical context; (2)concept fixation(reification): how a particular meaning becomes hegemonic and gains “common sense” status; (3)concept transformation(modification): how a term takes on new meaning or meanings; and, finally, (4)concept disappearance: how a concept ceases to be used and drops from our vocabulary” (Berenskoetter 2016: 10)
Following this framework for the historical analysis of concepts proposed above, please discuss the historical context and changing meanings of one concept of your choice.
In this essay, I will discuss the historical context and changing meaning of Democracy, taking into account the four instances in the life of the concept which include the concept of invention, fixation, transformation, and disappearance.
First and foremost, what is democracy? Simply put by Abraham Lincoln “a government of the people, by the people and for the people”. Democracy is such a contested concept that has been used since its invention by different actors in order to make it fit their narratives, in fact, it has a bar that can be lowered or raised according to how the actor in question deems it fit. It is even more complex due to the principles and ethics that are attributed to it such as free and fair elections, majority rule, and active participation, to mention but a few.
Democracy and freedom are two different entities that have been used interchangeably. However, democracy is a collection of ideas and concepts about freedom but mainly associated with how affairs are conducted in the public sector, whereas freedom, in this case, is how individuals interact with others in the public sector.
Furthermore, Democracy has so many categories, but I’ll focus on two main ones which are known as direct and indirect democracy. In a direct democracy, citizens get to vote directly through “free and fair” elections on a policy without the need for any representative, while indirect democracy, is when citizens elect or choose leaders who will represent them in a legislative. This indirect form of democracy is seen to be the most common form of democracy around the world.
The invention of the concept of democracy traces back to Athens where it all started. History asserts that democracy is synonymous with Athens as the original birthplace of democracy. 'Democracy comes from the Greek words demos meaning people and Kratos meaning authority or power”. Simply put “rule by the people closeness with the word republic, which comes from Latin and means of the people”, which reiterates Abraham Lincoln’s definition of what democracy is, the government of the people, by the people and for the people. It is important to note that this definition is vague as it does not explicitly delve into the details of how people should be governed, through what policies and mechanisms, and to what limit the particular rule, until these issues are addressed, the logrolling will continually be prevalent.
Athens engaged in self-rule and direct democracy which gave citizens the right to own properties, but not all citizens enjoyed these rights and free participation in public affairs. Most were adult males who had these privileges, women and other slaves or migrants were eluded from such privileges. In retrospect, this was considered democracy many years ago, but this doesn’t hold any meaning in present times as some of the pillars of democracy such as equality before the law, minority rights, active participation, social, economic, and political pluralism were excluded since only special sets of people had the right to own properties and participate in public affairs.
Moving on to the fixation of the concept of democracy, democracy has a lot of meanings, as I stated earlier, a bar is been set, any actor can set it high or low and make sense of the meaning of the actor's wants, nonetheless, there are some meanings that dominate others. The liberal reading includes many other concepts and theories of democracy, specifically, normative and cultural and deliberative and participatory theories. Both theories have some correlation as they place a greater emphasis on individual citizens and their societies than on the political structure and government, also they do not have certain structures in place, yet they expect a democratic culture with certain elements like political participation, tolerance, freedom of speech, etc.
To further expatriate, the normative and cultural conception of democracy has come to light as a result of the liberal view of human rationality. Humans are conceived as rational beings, whose emotions and desires are controlled solely by rationality. A rational individual is seen to take the best decisions having a higher own personal interest at heart.
On the other hand, the conservative reading of democracy blends formal and procedural democratic ideas with an elitist and structural view, hence seeing democracy through a minimalist lens in the sense that, it includes some pillars of democracy and excludes others. From a conservative point of view, what motivates certain actions taken by actors is not rationality but the same old way of doing things accompanied by their desires rather than logic. Such actions in the end prove irrational and lead actors to fight for power, resulting in destabilization. In order to curb such dangers, regular elections would be imperative, which would ensure that citizens participate actively in political affairs, thereby guaranteeing political and social stabilization.
According to Berenskoetter, “It is very important to pay attention to how certain qualifiers are used to describe certain concepts in the field of international relations, as these qualifiers may mean something entirely different, thus creating a new concept”. The transformation of democracy from a socialist point of view asserts economic equality of citizens, not just in the political realm, like having voting rights and access to the policy-making process is very important, having one and leaving the other out is an illusion. Economic inequality lets one group have an advantage over the other, as the advantageous group would make certain decisions to fit them leaving the other disadvantaged group behind which is clearly not the end goal of social democracy since it aims at resolving societal issues and achieving peace.
In addition, according to Noam Chomsky “Democracy is largely a sham when the industrial system is controlled by any form of autocratic elite, whether of owners, managers and technocrats, a vanguard party or a state bureaucracy” (1970). Democracy is only possible when there is economic equality and equal representation of interest for everyone.
“Cosmopolitan democracy opposes the fact that democracy is a political; system that should be confined to a modern state”. The norm that liberal and other theories of democracy see the state as an important apparatus for attaining certain goals and the general narrative that citizens have voting rights and are actively involved in the decision-making process is totally not in sync with cosmopolitan democracy. Cosmopolitans believe democracy transcends beyond the borders of a state and can only be seen at a global level. Held (2010) argues “therefore, that the global world should be recognized on multiple levels where different polities crosscut each other- borders and cities, regions, states and the whole world as a whole form of multilayered decentralized democracy in which we all enjoy multilevel citizenship”.
Furthermore, a new meaning to the concept of democracy would be democracy promotion that was advocated by President Bush of the United States of America. This was a specific foreign policy that aimed at the external environment, beyond the borders of a state. It emerged around the 1970s which was a period Huntington called the third wave of democracy. Many nations opposed this idea and it faced a backlash since most autocratic governments saw it as a form of American interventionism, not democracy, thereby meddling in their domestic politics and undermining the state’s sovereignty.
The concept of democracy has not necessarily disappeared, well in some countries it has, but generally speaking, democracy has declined in many parts of the world, lack of democracy has set the ground for inequalities of all sorts posing the question of if democracy is declining. This is due to the discrepancy between the principles of democracy and how these principles manifest institutionally.
A decline in democracy is prevalent in most autocratic regimes. The backlash against democracy mainly came from the autocratic leader of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin. Democracy is not present in Russia, because Russia does not fulfill the conditions of the pillars of democracy, especially in the aspect of voting, moreover, the Kremlin does not allow Russian citizens to take part in decision-making, a very clear example was the attack by the kremlin on the organization for security and cooperation in Europe due to its election monitoring work.
To sum up, this essay has explained the concept of democracy on the basis of its invention, fixation, transformation, and disappearance. It addressed how democracy came into existence, what it meant many years ago and how it has evolved, changed, and gained a new meaning(s), how various actors see it, also the motivation behind it, and the link between democracy and freedom. Finally, democracy is a very contested concept, in fact, according to Gallie (1956) “the concept of democracy can be used to defend one’s own state as democratic or attack other states as undemocratic”. Democracy has changed in meaning due to normative and cultural changes, thus creating debates about its limit. Democracy is a term that is still in use but declined over the years due to a lack of accountability and leaders not taking up the responsibility to protect it.
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