Effectiveness And Limitation Of The Electoral Democracy

Electoral democracy is a treasure in the forms of democracy. It not only has a wide range of adaptability, but also has great inclusiveness. The rapid expanding of human's ideal of democracy in the modern world thanks to electoral democracy. Comparing to the gorgeous and limited direct-democracy of Ancient Greece, electoral democracy ensures the realization of democracy on a larger scale of the society in its unique way. Human society selected rulers by the election very long ago, but the elected representatives truly become the spokesman of the interests of all the people until voting right has gradually spread to every adult citizen. At this time, the electoral democracy becomes the democracy of all the people. However, with the democratic practice of human society, the electoral democracy gradually exposed its own weaknesses while its value was fully demonstrated. At first, the countries which established electoral democracy and scholars described the various weakness of democracy with the phrases of "election fallacy," "election of tyranny," "election of dictatorship," "vote of animals", etc. To some societies which become the democratic society just recently or are vigorously promoting the electoral democracy, this complex situation make them confused. People always raised unrealistic hopes because of false understanding to the effectiveness and limitation of electoral democracy. Consequently, it brought endless disappointment to people who were interested in democracy. Therefore, the research to the effectiveness and limitation of electoral democracy is not a simple positive and negative issue, but an issue which needs to dig their specific performance and deep meaning. It will be possible to properly judge the limitation of electoral democracy only could we understand the effectiveness of electoral democracy correctly. So this paper tries to research the electoral democracy from the perspectives of its effectiveness and limitation.First of all, the research to the effectiveness and limitation of electoral democracy has to definite a series of concepts and relevant theories. So this paper introduces the concept and characteristics of democracy and electoral democracy at the beginning. In this paper, the electoral democracy refers to a form of democracy by which the public officers can be elected through free, fair, regular, competitive elections in nation-state. Citizens having basic political rights and freedom is the prerequisite for electoral democracy; free, fair, regular, competitive elections is the basic feature of electoral democracy; "majority rule" is the basic principle of electoral democracy; ballot-box decision is the basic mode of electoral democracy. Therefore, electoral democracy is a form of the ballot and representative democracy. Meanwhile, it's not the "minimum of democracy" in some scholars'opinion. Although the electoral democracy has different meanings in various contexts and has different qualities and characteristics at different times, the quality of electoral democracy is constantly upgrading from ancient Greek slave owner's electoral democracy to medieval aristocratic electoral democracy and to the general people electoral democracy in modern society. For this reason, electoral democracy has already become a necessary form of democracy in modern society.Any form of democracy needs the support of the theory and practice, electoral democracy has no exception. Therefore, the research on electoral democracy needs to understand the theoretical basis and the necessary conditions for the practice. The theoretical basis of electoral democracy roots in several aspects, including social contract theory, theory of popular sovereignty, rational choice theory and the representative theory. There are also interlaced progressive relationships among these different theories. These theories are both the intrinsic motivation of the generation of electoral democracy and the theoretical foundation for its effectiveness. However, the theory is only one aspect. The production, development and consolidation of electoral democracy also require a series of corresponding practice conditions, such as economic conditions, political conditions, cultural conditions, related conditions and so on. Specifically, electoral democracy requires the moderate development of commodity economy, citizens'statutory right to vote and political freedom and participatory culture. In addition, effective state powers, the prorogation of political elite, appropriate international environment are also the electoral democracy possible conditions. The theoretical foundation and practice conditions for the occurrence of electoral democracy are an important foundation and logical premise to the effectiveness of electoral democracy.To research the electoral democracy, we need to fully inform the basic elements and distinctive operational process of the electoral democracy, since they regulated the effectiveness and limitation of electoral democracy inherently. The basic elements of electoral democracy include four aspects:voters are the subject of the electoral democracy; candidates are the object of electoral democracy; the ballot-box decision is the way to realize democracy; competition is the mode of the operation of electoral democracy. The operational process of the electoral democracy includes:establishing the electoral administration; determining the election of the way; arranging the basic process of election; winner taking charge of public office according to law. The basic elements and the complex operational process of electoral democracy ensure and promote the effectiveness of electoral democracy while they lead to the limited nature of electoral democracy.The effectiveness and limitation are inseparable aspects of electoral democracy. The effectiveness of electoral democracy refers to its positive features in meeting the corresponding personal or social needs and achieving appropriate purposes. In essence, the effectiveness of electoral democracy is an issue with value attribute it is represented in specific value relationships. It's shown in the value relationships which are constituted by electoral democracy activities and their results and the subject of electoral democracy. Therefore, the effectiveness of electoral democracy can be summarized in three aspects:the effectiveness of the subject which includes fully displaying human's reason and protecting citizens'basic rights; the effectiveness of the procedure which includes the property of participation, humanity, legitimacy, rationality, timeliness, finality and so on; the effectiveness of results which includes the end of autocracy and tyranny, ordering of political struggle and political stability as well as being useful for creating the regime that meets the public opinion and cultivating citizens'democratic virtue, etc. The effectiveness of electoral democracy can be measured through a series of index system. So this paper takes two categories of nine indicators as the objective criteria for measuring electoral democracy, which are "the right to vote" and "the political freedom to protect citizens'voting right".The limitation of the electoral democracy regards to its final result of the non-justice which was caused during the normal operation of electoral democracy. The limitation of the electoral democracy can be analyzed from two aspects:first, the limitation of subject; second, the limitation of the operating mechanism. The limited nature of the subject is that the voters'ability is limited. It's impossible for them to exhaustively consider all relevant factors in the election and they may not make the best option after thinking. This is a great limitation for electoral democracy. The limitation of operating mechanism of electoral democracy refers to the limitation resulted from the principles, procedures and methods which are followed by electoral democracy to ensure its smooth running. It includes three main aspects:the imperfect nature on "majority rule", the weaknesses on procedural principle and the principal-agent dilemma. Specifically, the results of the majority decision cannot guarantee being on behalf of the public interest, or may produce inconsistent results of the election, undermine the individual rights of voters and distort the will of the voters. The procedural principle of electoral democracy is often difficult to protect the interests of loser and the rights of absentee, unhelpful for resolving the differences and even may lead to the hollowing-out of democratic values. The principal-agent relationship in electoral democracy may make the elected representatives act according to their own interests while ignoring the voters'interests. Thereby, electoral democracy is unworthy of the name.After the comprehensive understanding about the effectiveness and limitation of electoral democracy, it is necessary to explore how to perfect the electoral democracy. First, we need to properly adjust the relationship between subject and object and expand the advantages of electoral democracy. Second, we should gradually expand the scope of direct-democracy to overcome and make up for the limitations of electoral democracy. Finally, electoral democracy and deliberative democracy should be combined to improve the quality of electoral democracy. In short, the research for electoral democracy needs to analyze dialectically from both positive and negative aspects. Choosing electoral democracy is not equal to automatically implementing the ideal of democracy, while the integration of the ideal of democracy into the system doesn't mean that the complete realization of democracy. Democracy in reality can never reach perfection, but the pace of pursuing the ideal democracy will never stop.