In our final instalment on the weaknesses of democracy we look at the problem of partisanship. In countries with entrenched ethnic, religious or cultural divisions, there is a strong argument that democracy deepens these divides rather than bridging them.
 
Iraq
In the wake of the deposition of Saddam Hussein, Iraq embarked upon the establishment of a democratic political system. However, deep religious and ethnic divides in the country has made this process far from simple.

In 2009 it took 289 days to form a government as the various political parties struggled to reach an agreement with the main dividing line drawn between the Shia and Sunni voting blocks. An agreement has now been reached but with many parties established along ethnic and religious lines the problem of forming a workable government is unlikely to disappear in the foreseeable future.

There is also the problem of the Kurdish north in Iraq, frequently the victim of Hussein’s brutality, where there is a strong separatists movement. This region is nearly autonomous, referring to itself and ‘the Other Iraq’, presenting problems for their future involvement in Iraqi democracy.

Belgium
Belgium now holds the record for going the longest without a government of, at the time of this blog post, 428 days - surpassing Iraq’s 2009 record.

A legacy of ethnic schisms between the wealthy Flemish-speaking north and the left-leaning, francophone south has led to Belgium becoming increasingly divided. This came to a head in the 2010 June elections when the New Flemish Alliance, which advocates outright independence for Dutch-speaking Flanders, emerged as the biggest party but without an outright majority leading to a political log-jam.

Interestingly this doesn’t seem to have caused too many problems in Belgium. Due to its strong devolved powers and a capable interim government, it has been able to pass a strong package of cuts in the face of the economic crisis, chair the EU for six months and even send troops into Libya.

USA
American politics has for a long time been divided between the opposing camps of the Republican and Democrat parties. In recent years, the relationship between these two camps has grown increasingly vitriolic leading to heated public debates and stalls in passing legislation.

This was most recently shown during the debate over how to tackle the impending economic crisis as the US government ran out of money.

Republicans wouldn’t accept any tax rises and Democrats became increasingly protective of government entitlements. All the while this stalemate caused the stock market to fall at a record pace and various pundits predicted the end of the Western World. This led to a stop-gap measure being passed in the final moments meaning that the issue will be revisited by a group of 12 lawmakers in the coming months.

The penalty for this partisanship was great as the rating agency Standard and Poor downgraded US bonds from AAA to AA+, China called for the US Dollar to cease being the international reserve currency and Congress’ approval ratings fell to an all-time low with 84% of respondents disapproving of their conduct.

We shall be discussing the future of Democracy in India at our forthcoming debate on Tuesday September 27th, 2011 “Democracy is India’s Achilles’ heel”.