Outcomes of Democracy Chapter-7, Civics Class-X ० Political Outcomes • Accountable, Responsive Government • Transparency and Decision makin...
Outcomes of Democracy
Chapter-7, Civics
Class-X
० Political Outcomes
• Accountable, Responsive Government
• Transparency and Decision making .
• legitimate Government
० Economic Outcomes
• Economic Growth
• Reduction of Inequality and Poverty
० Social Outcomes
• Accommodation of Social Diversity
० Dignity and freedom of citizens
• Dignity and freedom of women
• Dignity and freedom of Disadvantaged group.
० Democracies in different countries have different outcomes
i. It is just a form of government.
ii. It is only a means to achieve, not the end.
iii. It can only create conditions to achieve something.
iv. Citizens have to take advantage of those conditions and then achieve those set goals.
v. To judge democracy we need to examine the records of democratic setups.
० Democracy is a better form of government
• Promotes equality among citizens.
• Enhances the dignity of the individual.
• Improves the quality of decision making.
• Provides a method to resolve conflicts.
• Allows room to correct mistakes.
० The most basic expectations a citizen can have in a democracy.
i. It should be a govt. that is accountable to its citizens.
ii. Responsive to the needs and expectations of the citizens.Should follow the procedures and norms.
iii. Mechanism for to hold the government accountable.
iv. mechanism for citizens to take part in decision making.
v. The government has to be attentive to the needs and the demands of the people.
vi. Should be largely free of corruption.
० Political outcomes
A. Accountability/transparency
i. Democracy ensures that decision making will be based on norms and procedures,
ii. The citizen can check whether the government is working in accordance with the correct procedures or not.
iii. Transparency - citizen have the right to examine the process of decision making.
B. Legitimacy
i. A democratic government is a legitimate government which may be slow, less efficient.
ii. Not always very responsive or clean but it is peoples own government
iii. People wish to be ruled by the representatives elected by them
iv. They also believe that democracy is suitable for it has an ability to generate its own support is itself an outcome that cannot be ignored.
C. Responsiveness
People want the government to pay attention to their needs.demands and issues which require urgent notice.
० Economic Outcomes
i. Democracies do produce good governments but are not always able to produce development.
ii. Dictatorships have slightly showed higher rate of economic growth between 1950-2000.
Though the difference is negligible
iii. It is also been noticed that when two poor countries, one being democratic and other being non democratic are compared then the difference in their economic growth is not at all alarming.
iv. In developed countries the poor class which is on the higher side of the population tends to have a reasonable share in the national income.
v. For example Denmark and UK have a higher percentage share for bottom 20% of population. Where as in south Africa and Brazil top 20 % of population take away more 60% of national income.
vi. But we expect democracy not to lag behind dictatorship in this respect.
Therefore it is better to prefer democracy as it has several other positive outcomes.
• Factors on which economic growth is dependent
i. population
ii. size,
iii. global situation,
iv. endowments
It can concluded that democracy is not a guarantee of economic development
० Reduction Of Inequality And Poverty
i. Democracies ensure political equality but fall short on economic front
ii. A small number of ultra-rich enjoy highly disproportionate share of wealth and incomes
iii. Most resources and wealth is owned by handful of rich population
iv. Gap between rich and poor in terms of income distribution is widening
v. Major proportion of population is not able to meet their basic needs.
vi. The poor constitute a large proportion of our voters and no party likes to lose their votes.
Thus, Democratically elected governments do not appear to be as keen to address the question of poverty as you would expect them to.
० Social Outcomes
Accommodation of social diversity
i. No society can permanently resolve conflicts among different groups
ii. We can evolve mechanisms to negotiate the differences.
iii. democracy has the Ability to handle social differences, division and conflicts
iv. Non-democratic regimes often turn a blind eye to or suppress internal social differences.
० Majority minority significance in a democratic society
i. Democracy is not just rule by majority opinion but the majority always needs to work with the minority so that government functions to represent a general view.
ii. It is necessary that rule by majority does not become rule by majority community in terms of religion or race or linguistic group ,etc.
iii. Rule by majority means that in case of every decision or in case of every election, different persons and groups can and may form majority.
iv. It is important that every citizen has a chance of being in majority at some point of time.
v. If someone is barred from doing so then democracy ceases to be accommodative.
० Dignity and freedom of the citizens
Every individual seek to get respect from others. Often conflicts arise as one feel that he or she is not treated with due respect. Recognising this, the dignity and freedom to citizen become principles of the democracy. But democracies are not following this principle.
• Dignity and freedom of Women
Women had to fight long battles .Societies across the world have been male dominated. It is absolutely essential that women should get equal treatment.
Women can now wage a struggle against what is now an acceptable legally and morally.
• Dignity and freedom of Disadvantaged Groups:
Democracy in India has strengthened the claims of the disadvantaged discriminated and castes for equal status and equal opportunity. Still, there are instances of caste-based inequalities but these lack the moral and legal foundations.
It is the recognition that makes ordinary citizen value their democratic rights.
० Distinctive Feature Of Democracy
i. Its examination never gets over, as it passes one test it produces another test.
ii. as people get one benefit they ask for another and better one.
iii. people will come up with more expectations, and many complaints.
iv. The fact people are complaining is itself a testimony (evidence) that people have developed awareness and ability to expect and judge.
v. This transforms them from a status of 'subject to that of a 'citizen'.
vi. Most feel that their vote makes a difference to the way government is run and in turn own self-interest.
० The main non performance areas of Democracy
i. The record of democracies is not impressive on these two counts,
a) Corruption
b) Frustrating people by ignoring their needs on morality grounds
ii. But at the same time there is nothing to show that non-democracies are less corrupt or more sensitive to the people.
iii. Most democracies fall short of elections that provide fair chance to everyone and allowing all decisions for public debate.
iv. Democratic governments do not have a very good record on sharing information with the citizens.
v. Mixed record on free and fair election and not successful in sharing records with people, however in India we have RTI as a fundamental right.
I hope this will help you.
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