Unanimity Necessary for a Democratic Decision †Free Samples

Question: Is Unanimity Necessary for a Democratic Decision to Be Fully Justified? Answer: Introducation The term democracy refers to a method of making group decisions that are characterized by equality among the members, especially at the initial stages of the decision making. From this definition, it should be noted that democracy concerns collective decision making and the decision are for the group and bind on all of them. Additionally, there are several ways of making a democratic decision. However, the definition carries no normative weight to it. The equality principle under democracy may refer to a mere formality of one-person-one-vote principle in an election or more robust options that put emphasis on unanimity and focus on deliberations. A democratic decision can also involve direct participation of members of a community in making laws that govern them.[1] This paper presents an analysis of this concept with the view of making it clear that unanimity has serious defects and cannot be the only way to justify a democratic decision fully. The definition of democracy and the kn own defects of unanimity rule make it clear that unanimity is not necessary for a democratic decision to be justified. The objective of democracy is to give members of a community the right to make a decision concerning things that affect them. While some critics have argued it is impossible to justify a democratic decision if there is no unanimity fully, it should be noted that unanimity is not always possible to achieve. For that reason, leaders should appreciate that there is no perfect way to lead and choose approaches that are practical.[2] To find out whether unanimity rule must be a component of all democratic decisions, an experts holds that one needs to evaluate whether it always distribute decision-making power equally.[3] At first glance, one notices that unanimity rule gives each member of the community an absolute veto power. Critics do say by doing this, it privileges no particular voter, and every of them can decide the destiny of their community. Additionally, if a positive outcome results from a decision that was made based on actual unanimity, every voter will feel part of the success. That could be true if the person voted d differently as well. To this extent, unanimity appears to guarantee to the best way to upholding democratic principles in the community. If this were the case, unanimity rule would be a way to lead. However, Corley says the decision-making costs of implementing this rule are high and difficult to realize. A great illustration is a situation when a vast majority of the members of an executive committee vote for a project and, at the extreme, only one person votes against it. If that organization wants to observe the humanity rule, that agenda has failed.[4] The same case can apply a country with millions of voters, and if only a single voter rejects a particular leader, a new election must be called. In these two cases, the votes of the clear majority are effective. In this way, this rule denies the rest of the power the authority to make any decision, which means under unanimity rule; each voter has no equal power. The failure of unanimity rule to give all members of the community in practice makes it less favorable. It can hold the community back since people always has divergent views. This failure leads the world to majority rule. This for this democratic voting aggregation method lies in its ability to guarantee prospective equality of power and at the same time maximizes retrospective equality of power.[5] The formula of one vote, one person, is guaranteed by prospective equality of power. This is so given that before the moment of vote aggregation, all people have equal chances on determining the outcome of the democratic decision-making process.[6] This type of equality is, of course, compatible with a variety of mechanism for choosing the outcome from the numerous possible conflicting preferences that people show by means of voting. A procedure such as a coin-flip that randomly selected an individuals manifested preference, for example, can still satisfy it. In such a case, options can be placed on the agenda and then adequately discussed in the same way as in the course of ordinary collective decisions. After the agenda has been narrowed down to a few options, when the time to make a decision comes, every individual choose the option that they favor. Each person indicates his or her choice by one singly-weighed vote and dropping the option on a ballot. One ballot material is randomly selected, and that can still constitute the democratic decision of the group. This method is consistent with prospective equality at the initial stage. Given that a major basis of dismissing unanimity is that is not practical, it is worthwhile to consider if there is a better way of justifying democracy. According to the above analysis, it is difficult to implement majority rule and meets all the requirements of democracy. It is, therefore, not logical to insist that public decision must be determined by the will of the majority. Some experts consider majority rule as an improvement on retrospective equality. Albert[7] explains that this is a major setback. He indicates that the problem with this type of equality is that procedures that give people the initial equal rights to determine outcomes of decisions may differ in the way in which they choose manifested preferences as determinants of outcomes. According to the analysis, the high possibility of many incompatible alternatives gaining some sort of support makes it mandatory for the chances of the decision-making procedures to incorporate a mechanism for later stage selection of given preferences to determine the outcome Albert argues that this mechanism can only be formulated as a numerical quota. Additionally, the later stage numerical quota rule of simple majority complies with peoples intuitions concerning the essence of democracy as it maximizes retrospective equality in a unique way. Albert groups later-stage numerical quota criteria into four mutually exclusive and logically exhaustive groups. These categories a simple majority, stipulated majority criteria, simple minority criteria, and stipulated minority criteria. Of these four contenders, only the two types of majority criteria are widely used. The minority systems are implausible contenders as they are considered to be intuitively undemocratic. Besides, they can approximate the majority systems. In practice, they cannot work. If voters were to know that the winning proposal will be the option with the least number of votes, all they would is try to push their preference over the minority limit simply. This system would make the minority to be mirror image the majority system. In effect, for that reason, the two minority criteria would collapse into majority criteria.[8] If unanimity is not necessary for a democratic decision to be fully justified, it would be great to know which of these majority systems is democratic. A moments reflection makes it clear that none of them is perfect as far as democracy is concerned. However, a simple majority is better as it scores on retrospective equality than the other contenders. The defect of unanimity rules applies. Whenever the community requires complete consensus so as to pass any proposal, one person will be able to stand in the way of the entire process. In this case, retrospective, only the views of the nay-sayer is heard. Unanimity rule is clearly troubling, and this is so because it departs from retrospective equality to such a possibly high degree. Stipulated majority criterion is also difficult to implement for the same reason.[9] If the stipulated majority is high, the majority required to pass a proposal is also high. At the same time, if a larger majority is needed, the minority that can derail the process becomes smaller, which makes it depart from retrospective equality. This analysis illustrates how a simple majority criterion is the easiest way of getting to retrospective equality. Irrespective of how one looks at it, the majority rule has its own defects. Majority role cannot perfectly attain retrospective equality. [10]While this rule enables the maximum number of people possible to get away with what they want, this kind of democratic decision cannot achieve complete retrospective equality of power as the minority has almost no say on the leadership. At this point, it is clear that unanimity promises some benefits. The level of retrospective equality that can be achieved under unanimity on some particular options is so high that majority rule cannot provide. Unfortunately, in most cases, the lack of effective procedural rules makes it impossible to create this kind of consensus.[11] Any procedural rule that requires unanimity cannot create consensus, but as already indicated in this paper, they cream room for minorities to decide the fate of an entire community. While majority rule prevents this kind of happening, it does this at the expense of the determination of outcomes by a majority. To this end, it is clear that majority rule constitutes a departure from a critical principle of democracy that requires all people to be guaranteed equal power over outcomes.[12] On the weaknesses of majority rule, as a way of solving allocation problems that increase satisfaction, a similar problem arises. One may say it is easier to criticize it than provide a better alternative. The society needs options that can solve these problems without sacrificing the protection that the majority provides over the tyrannous minority that exercises their power under unanimity. [13],[14] The alternative should not take away the values of popular interest and involvement in the policy making process. It appears that the best way out is to use different decision-making rules for different situations. The type of question to solved and the nature of the prevailing circumstances can determine the choice of the rule to adopt. Unanimity can be used in the community at particular moments, but not always. Given that there are scenarios that all these criteria can be used in a democratic society, it is useful to know that when unanimity is not used, it does not necessarily mean the decision is less democratic.[15] It is possible, for example, to make decisions unanimously in small groups whose members view each other with respect and also consider each other as equals, particularly when they are dealing with critical matters. Whenever unanimity is impractical, they can approach unanimity as closely as possible. On the other hand, small groups whose ability to reach consensus is low can also insist on unanimity based on mutual distrust rather than mutual respect. When the latter happens, one cannot say they have achieved democracy through unanimity; rather it is duress and fear to stand for what one believes in. This is a special tenet of democracy, and if it is possible to comprise through this kind of consensus, then it is not a cornerstone of democracy. In addition, in large groups, unanimity is often impracticable because of diversity. A group cannot ignore the diverse opinion of people by requiring them to follow a particular path as that also is against democracy. However, for large groups whose ability to agree on issues is high, a simple majority can work. For heterogeneous democratic communities and societies where divisions are extremely high, concurrence by more than a simple majority can work. [16] At this final point, it is clear that this paper successfully has demonstrated that there are different factors that a community must put into consideration before deciding on their preferred criteria for making democratic decisions. Unanimity is not always necessary for a decision to be considered entirely democratic. A group decision that is characterized by equality among the members is fully democrat. References Bickmore, Kathy. Learning Inclusion: Inclusion in Learning: Citizenship Education for a Plural Society. Washington, D.C.: Distributed by ERIC Clearinghouse, 1993. Corley, Pamela C. "Monolithic Solidarity." The Puzzle of Unanimity, 2013, 114-40. doi:10.11126/stanford/9780804784726.003.0005. Cruz, Julio Baquero, and Carlos Closa Montero. European integration from Rome to Berlin, 1957-2007: history, law and politics. Brussels: PIE - P. Lang, 2009. Doel, Hans Van den., and Ben Van. Velthoven. Democracy and welfare economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Goodman, Paul. Drawing the line. New York: Random House, 1962. Hindriks, Jean, and Gareth D. Myles. Intermediate public economics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013. Lang, G. H., and James Wright. Unanimity: the divine method of church government. Hayesville, NC: Schoettle Pub. Co., 1990. Lundin, Rolf A. "Organizational Economy - The Politics of Unanimity and Suppressed Competition." Organizing Industrial Development. Accessed May 12, 2017. doi:10.1515/9783110860887.29. Pathi, R. L. Indian democracy: a minority rule? Hanamkonda: Vision and Mission Publications in association with School of Inspiring Research and Innovation, 2000. Piris, Jean-Claude. The Lisbon Treaty: a legal and political analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. "Unanimity of Action." Radiology 6, no. 4 (1926): 344-45. Accessed May 12, 2017. doi:10.1148/6.4.344b. Weale, Albert. "Unanimity, Consensus and Majority Rule." Democracy, 1999, 124-47. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-27291-4_7. Weale, Albert. "Aggregation, Unanimity and Majority Rule." Democracy, 2007, 155-80. Accessed May 12, 2017. doi:10.1007/978-0-230-37378-5_7. Wilhelm, Jochen E. M. "On Stakeholders Unanimity." Agency Theory, Information, and Incentives, 1987, 179-204. Accessed May 12, 2017. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-75060-1_11. Woolf, Alex, and John Michael. Rawcliffe. Democracy. London: Evans, 2009. Works, John D. One year of Democratic rule: speech of Hon. John D. Works of California in the Senate of the United States: March 6, 1914. Washington, 1911 [1] . John, Works. One year of Democratic rule: speech of Hon. John D. Works of California in the Senate of the United States: March 6, 1914. Washington, 1911. [2] . Albert, Weale,. "Unanimity, Consensus and Majority Rule." Democracy, 1999, 124-47. oi:10.1007/978-1-349-27291-4_7. [3] . Jean, Hindriks, and Gareth D. Myles. Intermediate public economics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013. [4] . Pamela, Corley. "Monolithic Solidarity." The Puzzle of Unanimity, 2013, 114-40. doi:10.11126/stanford/9780804784726.003.0005. [5] . Kathy, Bickmore. Learning Inclusion: Inclusion in Learning: Citizenship Education for a Plural Society. Washington, D.C.: Distributed by ERIC Clearinghouse, 1993. [6] . Alex, Woolf and John Michael. Rawcliffe. Democracy. London: Evans, 2009. [7] . Albert, Weale."Aggregation, Unanimity and Majority Rule." Democracy, 2007, 155-80. Accessed May 12, 2017. doi:10.1007/978-0-230-37378-5_7. [8] . Pathi, R. L. Indian democracy: a minority rule? Hanamkonda: Vision and Mission Publications in association with School of Inspiring Research and Innovation, 2000. [9] Rolf, Lundin. "Organizational Economy - The Politics of Unanimity and Suppressed Competition." Organizing Industrial Development. Accessed May 12, 2017. doi:10.1515/9783110860887.29. [10] . Jochen, Wilhelm . "On Stakeholders Unanimity." Agency Theory, Information, and Incentives, 1987, 179-204. Accessed May 12, 2017. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-75060-1_11. [11] . Cruz, Julio Baquero, and Carlos Closa Montero. European integration from Rome to Berlin, 1957-2007: history, law and politics. Brussels: PIE - P. Lang, 2009. [12] . "Unanimity of Action." Radiology 6, no. 4 (1926): 344-45. Accessed May 12, 2017. doi:10.1148/6.4.344b. [13] . Jean-Claude, Piris . The Lisbon Treaty: a legal and political analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010 [14] . Paul, Goodman. Drawing the line. New York: Random House, 1962. [15] . Hindriks, Jean, and Gareth D. Myles. Intermediate public economics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013. [16] . Rolf, Lundin. "Organizational Economy - The Politics of Unanimity and Suppressed Competition." Organizing Industrial Development. Accessed May 12, 2017. doi:10.1515/9783110860887.29.