Статья «THE TERM 'DEMOCRACY' AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR THE DEVELOPING WORLD, "Азия и Африка сегодня"»

The 21st century revered the word 'democracy' as the key companion of civilization and modernization, while associating it only with liberal democracies. Other systems of governance were perceived as non-democratic despite this specific term being their intrinsic component. This article has tried to evaluate whether 'democracy' and democratic norms suit other systems or not; could there be ample reasons for the pursuit of non-democratic governance for the developing countries which associated their development with only 'certain types' of democracies, while remaining oblivious to finding similar democratic norms in so-called non-democratic models, and failing to pace up their development. The arguments produced here are based upon the comparison of four basic democratic values: freedom of speech, human rights, accountability of leaders (within electoral processes) and participation of masses between democratic and non-democratic systems. During these comparative studies of achievements of these two systems during a century long struggle, it was found that these values of democratic systems are either working at par with other so-called 'non-democratic' systems or dysfunctional in both systems equally. The article also rounds up a catastrophic picture of developing world, which resulted in a bid to join the "democratic" club of the world. In conclusion it is suggested for developing countries that it is the right time to emancipate from the fever of 'democracy' of one particular system; rather, its' understanding is needed to be more inclusive of other alternatives as well Otherwise, should they not miss out on the fruits of development in this century as well?