United States International University
Name: Allan Omuka
Id no. 625323
I.R.L 3000
Instructor: Fiona Ngarachu
TERM PAPER: LIBERAL DEMOCRACIES
LIBERAL DEMOCRACY
Introduction
Liberal democracy is a form of representative democracy where elected representatives that hold the decision power are moderated by a constitution that emphasizes on protecting individual liberties and of minorities. It is about the people by the people and for the people. These rights include freedom of speech, religion, right to privacy as well as equality before law and due process under law. According to the principles of such a democracy elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive.
A liberal democracy may take various structural forms i.e. a constitutional monarchy such as UK, Spain or Japan or a federal republic as India, USA, of Germany. It may have a parliamentary system UK and commonwealth countries, a presidential system i.e. USA or a hybrid semi presidential system i.e. France.
How liberal democracies come about
I shall give a brief history of how the two words were converged and later on give reasons why they are great and prosperous nations. It traces its origins and its name to the European 18th Century also known as the Age of Enlightment. At the time many European states were monarchies. The possibility of democracy had not been seriously considered since there was a wide held belief that democracies would be inherently stable and chaotic in policies put in place due to the changing whims of the people. Furthermore they believed democracy was contrary to human nature as humans were seen as inherently evil violent. They believed that their monarchs had been ordained by God and questioning. Their right to rule was tantamount to blasphemy.
These views were challenged and later on in the 18th century new ideas that came up inspired revolution like the American and French and it gave birth to the...