DEMOCRACY

Mara Sofia Rojas Burquez

Democracy is a means for the people to choose their leaders and to hold their
leaders accountable for their policies and their conduct in office. The key role of
citizens in a democracy is to participate in public life, democracy is also a system of
rule by laws, not by individuals, and something that people should understand is that
democracy is not a government, it is a way of thinking and a responsibility. In a
democracy there is no corruption in power because it is a transparent system, even
though not many people care about the system the only thing they care is to complain
about the government, that is why the people should know the real meaning of
democracy.

According to Max Weber there´s three types of authority. First we have the
charismatic authority “points to an individual who possesses certain traits that make
a leader extraordinary”. This type of leader is not only capable of but actually
possesses the superior power of charisma to gather the diverse and conflict-prone
people behind him. His power comes from the massive trust and almost unbreakable
faith people put in him. The second type of authority that Weber proposes is the
traditional authority that indicates the presence of a dominant personality. This
leader is someone who depends on established tradition or order. While this leader
is also a dominant personality, the prevailing order in society gives him the mandate
to rule, and last but not least the third type of authority is the legal-rational authority
who is the one that is grounded in clearly defined laws. The obedience of people is
not based on the capacity of any leader but on the legitimacy and competence that
procedures and laws bestow upon persons in authority. All three authority’s exhibit
a different type of problem and understand different types of people. The mission of
the charismatic leader is to unite his people amid adversity and differences in order
to attain an almost insurmountable goal, the traditional leader may rely on or even
exploit prevailing practices, he also may suffer for his lack of moral regularity, and
the third leader the legal-rational authority makes manifest the power of the
bureaucracy over the individual which basically means that the exercise of authority,
the administration of power, laws and rules, including institutional duties and
protocols, have control over individuals.

Going back to democracy, it is defined by Lincoln as ‘the Government of the people,

by the people, and for the people’. It is the only form of Government in which the will
of the people is reflected in the administration, in other forms of Government such
as monarchy, oligarchy, etc. all the power is concentrated in the hands of one person
or group of persons who carry on the administration irrespective of people’s wishes.
Even if those types of Government are conducted in the interest of the people, since
the people have no connection with the administration, they cannot feel very happy
about them.

In Mexico we have a democracy in the government even though we suffer a lot of

corruption and that is the reason the country is tired of suffering from the same
political party (PRI) but that doesn´t mean people do something about it, it’s a daily
issue hearing people complain about the government but not doing something,
unlike some country’s like the United States were they have a good system but they
choose the wrong president and it´s doing good things but are more the bad things
that he is doing, and that happens because of the way that the votes count in the
states, for example one vote of Montana is worth more than three from California,
the presidential candidate has to have 51% percent of the popular vote to be
consider to win the state which is not fair because they technically don’t count the
votes, that’s why Hillary didn’t won even though she had majority of votes and that’s
not democracy.

We can keep talking about democracy for a long time and never getting somewhere
or even winning an argument and that because there’s never a right answer,
because things have been done in a wrong way for decades and someone can’t go
out of nowhere and just erase the way of how thing haven been done, but we can
put our two cents and try to do good for the system, if we want our vote, our way of
thinking, our voice to not be taken for granted we should speak up, not ignore the
problem and just wait to be fixed because that’s not going to happened, we can’t
complain if we do nothing to change the problem. Democracy is a very easy word to
say but has a very complex meaning. Applying the real meaning of democracy
should keep us out the dark and not in the dark that’s why people should be less
ignorant and more present in the problem.