Why democracy is still the best form of government | Alex Tan | TEDxChristchurch

[Music] [Applause] the rice of extremist parties and politics populism protests the poor economic performance of some democracies and the messiness of democratic politics stands in stark contrast to the seeming tidiness of societies and better economic performance of some non democracies [Applause] that is the democratically elected parliament of Taiwan and their legislators getting very excited about a recent budget bill debate this and other recent global events have made frustrated citizens of democracies ask the question is democracy failing to deliver the goods is democracy in crisis is democracy at a tipping point I remembered very very clearly as a young kid growing up in Manila Philippines when the military and the soldiers with their tanks rolled in my neighborhood streets to set up a checkpoint as President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law and established his dictatorship I remembered very very clearly when my father together with the neighbourhood men were all called down to line up on the streets being vetted and patted down by armed soldiers as a little kid the fear of being so helpless in that kind of situation is simply simply unbearable yes democratic politics is messy our demands are so many and we're very noisy our economic performance it's not particularly great but democracy is still the best system of large-scale governance anywhere surveys have shown us globally that citizens of democracy support their democracy even in Taiwan this young democracy of Taiwan where we just saw that very interesting clip journalists love to report that stuff it leaves Taiwanese kind of shaking their head and even some nostalgic about the authoritarian era but surveys upon surveys conducted by my colleagues at Taiwan's election study centre shows that Taiwanese citizens are very supportive of their democracy global survey conducted by the Pew Research Centre in 2017 also shows that majority of Democratic citizens support democracy countries like the United States Canada UK Germany France Australia majority of their citizens support democracy even in our own neighborhood of the asia-pacific the young democracies of Indonesia South Korea and the Philippines majority of their citizens also support democracy indeed this support for democracy is justified because the democracy delivers the goods when we compare democracies and non democracies on average democracies are wealthier they have higher level of human development democracies are less corrupt citizens of democracies are happier and healthier and citizens of democracies enjoy more human rights so why didn't all the complaints and grumblings about the failings of democracy the pessimism about democracy in part it is because of the perception of the gridlock and stalemate in democratic politics the unresponsiveness of public policy politicians that seem to be detached from everyday lives and do not listen to the common people which leads to political alienation and in some way the response is the rise of populism and extremism which leads to further pessimism and the fear that democracy may be degrading yes the rise of populism and extremism may degrade democracy it may even threaten democracy but if we look at it from another another perspective it actually shows that democracy is quite resilient the resilience of democracy is evidenced by the voices of the silent rational majority during elections and voting time yes these populist parties and extremist parties may have gained some ground in some democracies but overall these type of political parties find it difficult to form government on their own and if they are part of a coalition often find themselves needing to compromise to come up with acceptable policy constrained by their other coalition partners and even pay the price in a succeeding election non-democracies often witness large slings and volatilities in their policies like a pendulum unhindered unencumbered unconstraint checks and balances and accountability are simply absent in non-democracies democracies provide credible constraints and credible commitments in order to limit these wild swings in policies history is full of examples when non-democracies get their public policy so wrong with disastrous results China's Cultural Revolution where more than 500,000 people died more than a million people persecuted and sent to labor camps shows to us the weakness and critical flaws of a government of the one or of the few that is unresponsive and accountable and unconstrained in contrast the simple use of majority voting that we use in democracies for decision-making allows us to be correct more often than we are wrong elections and voting are away democracies make decisions in like an economic market we're in the democratic political market offers us many options many choices all on the table for all of us to choose from the richness of the variety of options for us shows how dynamic our democracies are and in the process of selecting the silent majority wins and often times it is the median voter that wins and this position is more tolerant and more moderate of course this is not to say that the median voter or the voter cannot be influenced a society change values change voter preferences will change but radical changes in the median voter position hinges on two things the vote and the vote now what do I mean by this simply put if all of us vote then societies but the societies middle position will win out and that often is the median voter position more moderate and more tolerant however if only some of us vote most of us do not vote then the voices of the few will drown out the voices of the many the median position of a small turnout election is very different from the median position of a large turnout election so when a surprise election result do pop up often times one the reason it's low Turner so why do we blame democracy when we should actually be blaming ourselves for not going to vote during election day now what about institutions and structure of government we constitutionally engineer and create these institutions to come as close to the values we hold dear and associate with democracy but what are these values responsiveness representation accountability equality checks and balance these are just some of the values we associate with democracy throughout the centuries we have created different types of institutions to maximize these values we associate with democracy just look at the world's democracy and the variation in institutions and structure of government parliamentary presidential multi-party two-party democracy is a continuous experiment even the basic institution of elections and voting allows us to achieve responsiveness representation and accountability but all of us have to vote if not the voices of the minority will drown out the voices of the majority and the Sean Penn's character in the movie all the king's men said if you don't vote you don't matter institutions matter it constrains us it gives us choices of options and therefore determines outcomes we create these institutions to achieve democracy we adopt these institutions as close to the values of democracy that we hold dear just look at the democracy around the world the variation and the richness of it no one type of institution will do that job though but having said that we know that there are some institutions that will help us achieve accountability responsiveness and senator Venus better than others we know there's a clear difference between parliamentary and presidential systems between two-party and multi party systems between proportional systems and majoritarian systems between prime ministers and precedence research and political science have shown to us that multi-party proportional parliamentary systems do a good job at achieving accountability representation and responsiveness the choice of these institutions reflect our values but remember societal values change and evolve through time in history institutions then need to be adjusted and tweaked in order for contemporary societal values to be reflected on them and that these institutions are fit for purpose the problem is when we hold on to these institutions some institutions like old tools that are increasingly obsolete and believing that they are still the only effective tool to solve modern problems like I said democracy is indeed a continuing experiment we never really arrived at democracy for democracy is not a destination but democracy is the journey we take together as a people as a nation as a country this image serves to remind us that non democracies that is unrepresentative unaccountable unconstrained government of the few or of the one is far more disastrous than the government of the people for the people and by the people democracy ain't perfect but we should never let the perfect be the enemy of the good I agree democracy may have its problems but believe me the alternatives are worse thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 103,897

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Social Science, Democracy, Politics

Id: LR2SIWRMrtA

Length: 14min 40sec (880 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 22 2018