The Democracy In The View Of Minority Rights

The greatest danger of democracy is come from the "majoritytyranny", and the effective way of overcoming such a danger is toprotect the minority rights. The degree of democracy, including thebreadth and depth of democracy, is related to the extent of attention toand protection of minority, the matured theory of democracy hasgradually changed from resorting to "majority rule" to concerning of"minority protection." Protection of minority rights is not only thebasic feature of democracy, but also the essential condition ofdemocratic process itself.This papers takes minority as a basic unit of analysis,protecting minority rights as a basic perspective, intrinsic connectionof minority rights and democracy as the clue throughout the full text;it also takes the real democracy as the value goal, definition——theory analysis——reason exploration——regulations design——basic conclusion as the overall analytical framework. This papersuse the method of standard research and logical argument to discussthe democratic philosophy question of protection of the rights ofminority, so that it can achieve the research purpose that minorityrights and democracy are merging with each other.How to define the concept of "minority" and "minority rights" indemocracy is a basic concept question which should be solved first inthe process of regulations design for the protection of minority rights.The definition of minority in democracy has multi-dimensionalstandards, including the numeral standard in democratic decision, thelevel standard in democratic process, the ideological standard underthe social and legal conditions, the habitual standard used amongethnic groups and the competencies standard in participant. Accordingto these criteria, we can summarize a small number of types, whichcan include the quantity minority, regional minority, powered minority, ethnic groups' minority and ideological minority and so on.These minorities have their corresponding right: the first is the generalcivil rights, and the second is a handful of special minority rights.There is an intrinsic connection between democracy and theprotection of minority rights. The creation of democracy is inaccordance with the basic objectives of democracy, no matter thedemocracy is created as value or as means. Democracy means that thepeople enjoy sovereignty and the members of society can participatein social management, it also means the procedural election. Theprotection of the rights of minorities fit the essence of democracy.Protection of minority rights embodied several principles ofdemocratic, including the principle of social justice, the principle ofcompetition, the principle of negotiation, the principle of individualfreedom and equality, and the principle of tolerance. Protection ofminority rights can largely prevent "majority tyranny" and maintainthe procedure justice of democracy.In order to realize the rights of minorities in the democraticprocess effectively, we must design the corresponding rules andprocedures which can protect the rights of minorities in presentdemocratic system. The first is the principle of limited majority: it isthe majority principle which limited by the rights of the minority, andit means that any majority does not have absolute, unrestricted right.The limited majority principle has the characteristics of mobility andmaneuverability, it is able to protect the rights of minoritieseffectively just because of its recognition of the qualifications ofminority citizens, its strong concerns of individual freedom and theprotection of the minority voice. The second is the principle ofconstraints and balances of society: it is the constraints of non-statepower which is an external control mechanism of state power.Constraints and balances are mainly concentrated on two models: oneis dominant constraints, which are social intermediary institutions, including public citizens, non-ruling party, interest groups, publicopinion and media etc, constraints on the power of the State. Theother is hidden constraints, which are conditions of the society,including faith, traditional and customary practices, and cultural andpsychological factors etc, constraints on the power of the State. Thethird is the principle of ethnic groups fair: it can integrate differentethnic and cultural groups (through minority rights) and also canprotect mainstream and the individual rights of individual members inminority groups (through traditional human rights); its core is toprotect ethnic minority rights. The finally is the concreteconstitutional democracy technology which protect the minoritycommunity right.So we can come to a basic conclusion that the protection ofminority rights and democracy are fused together. As a fundamentalviewpoint in the history of western democratic theories, thedemocratic thoughts and theories of protection of minority rights,partially abound the traditional capitalism's narrow sight, begin tomeet the challenges in realistic democracy practice with a morebroad-minded and boldness, so it has important theoretical andreference value. However, fundamentally speaking, it is stillcapitalism's individualism democracy; it can not completely removethe limitations of its capitalism's stand and mode of thinking. As asocialist country, what we need is the socialist democracy which isalso called the people's democracy. Therefore, we must use theMarxist stand and mode to draw lessons from the rational factors inthe western democracy theories of protecting minority rights among afew right visual thresholds selectively.