by Adam Greenwood

Created on: April 06, 2007   Last Updated: April 19, 2007

As much as we like to tout democracy to our 'less sophisticated' allies and trading partners, democracy is not the cure-all that we market it to be.

Problem # 1 - Minorities are not well represented.

"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner."
This adage explains quite succintly one of the problems of a democracy. Democracy works under the assumption of a heterogenous population, or at the very least a melting pot. When you have ethnic, cultural, racial and historical divides, things are not quite so simple. It would be very simple for the majority to ignore the rights of the minorities if they are particularly opposed to eachother. We have seen this exact problem in former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and now in Iraq with the Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds.

Problem # 2 - One man does not always equal one vote.

Taking a look at American politics, there is a clear trend. The candidate who spends the most money usually wins. If Candidate A takes 10 million that he has saved up and spends it, against Candidate B who has $300 dollars - Candidate A will win every time. Voters are not equal - because money has a greater outcome on the election than votes.

Problem # 3 - Selling influence

You don't have to look very long to see a pretty clear trail of mega-corporations giving millions of dollars to politican campaigns, and then being rewarded with billion dollar contracts. Sometimes the companies like to hedge their bets and give money to both sides, knowing that they will be favoured for the contracts regardless of who wins.

Problem # 4 - Manipulation

One trend that seems to be dissipating is for Western powers to pick and choose who they want in power in Latin America. The resentment of this tactic is now too palpable to be ignored. However, in recent times, it was no secret that the United States and others would essentially dictate the outcome of an election. In a fledgling democracy - giving one side money, volunteers and advice, can tilt the election to one side - thus taking the election out of the hands of the voters of that country and into the hands of foreign nationals - looking for payback as soon as their chosen candidate is put in power.

Unfortunately, even with all the flaws of democracy, one can not always count on a benevolent dictator to make the right choices for everyone - thus democracy is still the best form of government around.

However, it is important to note, that many of the flaws that I have listed here can be mitigated by bringing in various forms of electoral reform - such as the Mccain-Feingold bill or one of the many variants of Proportial Represenation.

The fact of the matter is that we are still not seeing the best that democracy can be.

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