English Essay #6 Upgrading and improving

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Introduction

Political patronage has been of the things that have made the human race surfer injustice because those in power want to remain holding on the power and those without power want to get it. The world today is experiencing instability as far as peace is concerned because of politics. While many people thought that having some political systems would eliminate the world problems, the situation has become even worse especially where people have thought democracy world deliver political nirvana. While it was common believe that having a solitary party governing was responsible for poor; leadership, democracy has proved to be even more archaic. Democracy has encouraged the patronage such that marshalling of resources is the biggest objective of the political class such that those with numbers whether real or imaginary are the major determinant of even outside funding.

All governments would always claim to have the interests of the citizens at hand, and usually, such claims are taken serious by many common people who belief in what the government says, however when they realize that the government is not living to its pledge, disappointment sets in and this in turn creates some sort of personal Vendetta between the citizens and the government. Perhaps this can be explained by the many revolts that are being experienced in these generations. When governments fail to provide what is believed to the rights of the citizens, the citizens take it upon themselves to fight for the perceived rights. The government in most cases also decides to fight back, things then degenerates and movies from ideas to personal vendettas (Peter 45-40). Based on the facts form the book V vendetta, we realize that the government would always try to test the ability of its citizens to handle “disasters” in response to this, the people end up fighting back and this causes revolutions and other things like strikes.

Democracy and political Patronage

Political patronage determines the functions of all the economic aspects of the people both locally and international (Donna 23-20). Locally, the government is likely to avoid allocating resources to part of the nation where people are perceived to be supportive of the part that is not ruling at that time, this means that economic decisions become tied to the kind of politics that people play. In places where democracy is still new, the political parties which are in power decide how much development is done to what area, this means that those areas whose votes did not go the current leadership would lose out.

Internationally, foreign aid has been one of the major contentions when it comes to democracy because there has been a feeling that governments would only fund those countries which subscribe to their line of thinking as far as democracy is concerned. The fact that this kind of patronage is believed to exist has made many people question the objectives of funding programs in some countries and not in others. If it is true that such countries support, democracy, why should they then fail to support those entities that go against them? We have been experiencing situations whereby some foreign powers especially from the western world fail to provide even humanitarian assistance to some countries because to them such countries have failed to enhance the democratic rights of their people. One

Democratic reforms is currently one of the main objectives of aid programs, such programs are usually meant to support health or even economic empowerment of the recipient nation, however the problem is the conditions that are usually attached to such aids. Conventionally, democracy should be concerned with people making their own choices without interference, coercion or any form of conditioning, the situation here is however different because the aid providers have apparently set rules which should be followed when implementing the democracy, this means that the end product is not the democracy as the people would wish but rather it would be imposed by the foreign powers, therefore, qualified to be called democracy.

Technically, we can never say that true democracy exists because if a country is not able to fulfill what the powerful nation wants, then it loses out; this is the kind of political patronage that has been caused the so-called democratization process. It is because of the political patronage that citizens of many nations continue to suffer because someone else makes the decisions on their behalf and most of the time; these decision makers rarely have any idea of what is required. Normally, democracy should be a question of ideology because that is what it is, however patronage has made to look like aid is a key determinant. Some people may argue that the concept of political reforms has been the idea of citizens, but this is not true because reforms are driven by people with their own agendas which are rarely understood by the people because most of them are driven by foreign aid, what this means is that there are countries which have been forced to make some reforms due to pressure from external governments who blackmail them with aid.

Democracy: The more things change, the more they remain the same

The fact that most of these governments manage to manage in making decisions for the citizens do not always end up succeeding in sustaining them because eventually, the people become tired and some of them cause rebellions. Some of the rebellions lack clear objectives because their only focus is usually to remove the present government after which things go back to confusion because the same people would start fighting themselves. It again beats logic to fight someone and afterwards start fighting among them. While in the V for Vendetta the rebellions are planned indirectly, the current generations seem to be taken everything by the horns. The reason democracy is usually glorified is because many people think that when it finally arrives, all the problems would end. The question then becomes, does democracy eliminate the problems that are caused by authoritarian leaderships.

The fact that democracy is all about self-preservation of groups and individuals means that nothing changes, actually even the democracy itself is born out of authoritarianism. If strong nations force week ones to take decisions that suit the rich nations, where is democracy in this? If the citizens are forced by leadership to vote in a certain way for them to benefit, is that democracy? A critical look at these would show that it is all about political patronage that has nothing to do without helping people to be free from authoritarian leadership. The main theme in the V for Vendetta is that when people feel that the government is being hard on them, then they can react by causing rebellions, by being so open about it or they can do it through hiding through other things.

According to the book, the problems that are experienced by citizens usually come from the fact that the government is authoritarian. The citizens when they realize that the need to be liberated then would fight the government that would react by either granting the wish of the people or not. Most of the time, the government would grant the wishes of the people at least after it has been forced by donors. The government allows, on the terms because the government would lose out if it fails to do some political reforms, the citizens become happy that they have had their way, which is most of the time not true because the government would eventually use the funds to patronize the democracy and therefore it becomes real that the more things change, the more they remain the same.

In the ideal world, the objectives of funding for political reforms should be to empower the government and subsequently the people assuming that there is real democracy, however there is nothing like democracy as each part focuses on how to use the funds to control the other parties. The failure of political systems in sustaining democracy has been responsible for the ever unending fighting for democracy.

Conclusion

Liberty has been one of the most known selling point for the countries that boast of a mature democracy, however how much of these do ordinary people enjoy? Is liberty about erecting monuments and proclaiming the words as well as quoting the constitution? There are many people who feel that it is not yet democracy because there is too much patronage whereby one right gives a certain right and another one takes it away (Vande 112-98). There is a direct relationship between democracy and liberty, form common knowledge, liberty is doing what one pleases because of free expression, but does the law forbid people from doing something and uttering some words? It can, therefore, be said that democracy and liberty and just situations which have been created to be used by those in power to control the masses.

Work cited

Vande Walle. The political patronage and its role in democracy: London: Macmillan, 2001. Print

Donna, Kelley. The economic development and democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.Print

Peter, Jones. The world democracies.Nairobi:Longman.2000.Print

James, Harun. Why politicians never change. London: Macmillan, 1996.Print

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