Democracy As a Universal Value

The word democracy is derived from two Greek words; demos, which means citizens, and kratos law. Democracy literally means 'law of the people.' Democracy, according to (Appadorai,2014), is a form of government in which the people exercise governing power directly or through members who are elected on a regular basis. Although the circumstances of modern state make direct participation of all citizens in state government unlikely, the principle of democracy still emphasizes the rule of the people, according to Watter cited in Nwabueze (2015). That is, through a system of representation, the people indirectly exercise sovereign power.

However, since we are addressing how inherently valuable democracy is rather than just a means of governance, we will use the intrinsic instrumentality definition; here, the word 'democracy' refers very broadly to a system of group decision-making characterized by a degree of equality among participants at a critical stage of collective decision-making. There are four elements of this description worth noting. To begin, democracy is concerned with collective decision-making, which I define as decisions taken for groups and binding on all members of the community. Second, this term is broad enough to include a wide range of political organizations. Families, charitable organizations, economic companies, governments, and multinational and international institutions should all practice democracy (Beitz, 2009). Third, there is no intention for the term to be normative. It is entirely consistent with this idea of democracy that democracy is undesirable in certain circumstances. As a result, the concept of democracy does not address any normative issues. Fourth, the degree of equality demanded by the concept of democracy will vary. It may simply be the formal equality of one person, one vote in an election for members to an assembly where there is a competitive field of candidates. It could also be more robust, incorporating equity into the deliberation and coalition-building processes. Any of these constitutional arrangements can be referred to as 'democracy.' It may entail direct involvement of citizens in deciding on the society's policies and laws, or it may entail participation of society members in choosing representatives to decide things (Christiano, 2014).

According to (Cohen ,2012), democracy has intrinsic value on three levels: as a membership body, a form of government, and as a culture. Democracy, as a membership organization, entails universal and equal citizenship for all permanent members of a country who reside under a state's jurisdiction. Democracy is a form of government that is based on dialogue among equals. Democracy as a community is defined by the freewheeling voluntary participation of people from all walks of life in civil society on the basis of equality. These three stages are interconnected. Democracy as a form of government, in particular, cannot be completely realized without a political culture. Simultaneously, the aim of democratic culture is not merely to make democratically elected government function; rather, democratically elected government is a manifestation of democratic culture; its purpose is to serve the democratic society, to realize its promise of universal and equal status.

As a membership group, democracy necessitates both equality and inclusion. The demands for equality put pressure on everyone to be included. Equal rights is described here as a relationship between people in which each adult actively recognizes the equal authority of everyone else to make claims about the rules under which all shall live and cooperate, and this recognition is widely known (Dworkin, 2010). All counts for one and no one counts for more than one, as the traditional democratic slogan goes. This is a more general concept for organizing social interaction in a democratic society, rather than just a voting aggregation rule ('one man, one vote') (Cohen, 2012).

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Consider democracy as a form of government in the future. We are accustomed to thinking about democracy as a set of governing structures, including universal suffrage, annual elections, elected public representatives accountable to the people, majority vote decisions, open government, a free press, and the rule of law. What is the aim of this set of governing bodies? Majority rule (aggregation of defined preferences) and deliberative democracy are two general approaches to democratic theory. Following the second point of view, Arneson (2012) famously described democracy as 'government by debate'. It stands in stark contrast to both government by tradition and government by order of a capitalist class. To Bagehot's idea, it is pertinent to add that democracy is government by consensus among equals. There is only one class of citizen in a democracy; no citizen is second-class, and no permanent member of society is denied citizenship (Dworkin, 2010).

Many people support democracy because they believe it improves people's character. Many have observed, as Mill and Rousseau did (Mill, 1861 cited in Goodin, 2013) that democracy encourages people to speak up for themselves rather than other forms of government because it places more reliance on them than monarchy or aristocracy. As a result, individuals in democratic societies are encouraged to be more self-reliant. Furthermore, since it matters whether people think carefully and rationally or not, democracy appears to encourage people to do so more than other forms of government (Goodin, 2013).

Finally, others contend that democracy appears to improve citizens' moral qualities. When they engage in decision-making, they are required to listen to others, to explain themselves to others, and to think in part in terms of the interests of others. Some claim that when people find themselves in such a situation, they are more likely to think of the common good and justice. As a result, some argue that democratic mechanisms appear to increase participants' autonomy, rationality, and morality. These positive results are considered to be valuable in and of themselves, so they count in favor of democracy and against other forms of government (Mill 1991 in Elster 2012).

In conclusion, this paper has been able to argue for democracy as not merely a system of governance, but have and possesses intrinsic values that participating citizens benefit from. The discussion has shown that, behavioural modifications, collectivism, citizens right, equality of the law are among the attributes that defines the intrinsic value of democracy.