Advantages and Disadvantages of Democracy

Democracy is that form of government structure where the government comes into power after receiving a favorable voting mandate by the people who are above 18 years of age from all over the country. In simple words, in democracy, any citizen of the country can vote for anybody and can have his or her opinion without any fear or bias, in order to understand it better let’s look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of democracy –

Advantages of Democracy

1. The first and foremost advantage of democracy is that citizens of the country are put first in this system of government and therefore citizens of the country are free to move anywhere, have their opinion on all matters and ultimately to vote out the government if it is not working in the interest of citizens as well as the country. In the democracy, all citizens are given equal rights and freedom irrespective of their caste, income, and age.
2. Another benefit of democracy is that government is always in check because they know that people will vote them out if they do not work according to the expectations of the people of the country and therefore chances of government misusing the taxpayer’s money and resources of the country are less as compared to those countries where there is no democracy.
3. Another advantage of democracy is that growth and development are not lopsided and it tries to achieve growth for all sections of the society by taxing the rich people and giving subsidies to poor and weaker sections of society. Hence in a way, it tries to ensure that wealth does not get accumulated in the hands of few rich people and all citizens of the country enjoy the fruits of the development of the country.

Disadvantages of Democracy

1. The biggest drawback of democracy is that chances of people getting influenced and following sheep mentality and voting in favor of incompetent government are high and there is no way to reverse that decision as the government in case of democracy comes into power for 3 or 5 years. An incompetent government for 5 years means country going backward and it takes decades to rectify the mistakes of incompetent governments. Hence it is better that an uneducated voter does not vote rather than giving the vote to incompetent political parties.
2. Another limitation of democracy is that due to bureaucratic culture in government offices and departments’ corruption is rampant which makes a mockery of all the policies and schemes of government as the real benefit of good policies does not reach to the people for whom these policies are targeted. In simple words theoretically, the government in democracy tries to do right things but on the ground practically it does not benefit the people leading to dissatisfaction among people of the country.
3. Another disadvantage of democracy is that since the government has to take the consensus of all the parties on major policy matter and decisions it results in the delay in decision making and policy paralysis which in turn have a big negative effect on the GDP as well growth trajectory of the country in the long term.

As one can see from the above democracy has benefits but at the same time it suffers from some limitations and it depends on the government whether it wants to embrace the benefits of democracy or it wants its limitations to take the toll on the people of the country.