Democracy vs Dictatorship

Arbaaz Ali
3 min readApr 17, 2021

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a brief outlook on different aspects

Democracy is actually a system of an organization in which control is given to the majority of its members.

A Democratic nation makes its decisions with the consent of the majority of its people. People of the country choose their respective representatives and through a process of fair elections, some individuals are given the power of policymaking. Policies that will then decide the fate of the nation. This system intern represents the Government of the people, by the people, for the people

On the other hand, Martial law or Dictatorship is a far less heard and implemented system of governance. Such a system involves the military takeover of all the civil functions of the nations temporarily or permanently to avoid any state of emergency that the nation may face

Both systems have their own pros and cons.

Let's dive deep into both, to see their impacts on different aspects of the lives of the people.

Economic Development

Though Democracy involves a slow and cumbersome development process because one has to follow a chain of decision-making hierarchy to finally fund a project, it is irrefutably the only way of long-term and sustainable development. Take the example of Pakistan and India. Two nations got independence from the British at the same time.

But Pakistan since independence, has faced four long-term Martial Laws which makes up 33 years of the total 70-year history of the nation. India, on the other hand, had none. This difference made a huge impact on their economical growths. Pakistan even being a 4.1% smaller country than India having all the resources have its GDP 10 times lesser than India

The main reason for this could be that the imports and exports are usually severely damaged by the notion of the country being in a military regime for an uncertain amount of time because other countries don't trust the regime for long term trade agreements

General Public Distress:

Military Regimes especially spends a hefty amount of finance on making a very soft and holistic image of themselves among the general public using major public figures and media. This helps them maintain their unrestrained position among the politicians for a longer period of time.

The same amount of potential is used to demonize and defame the present ruling political class to better ensure their stay and stability. This method has far rightly worked every time and the nation feels itself in good hands.

This formula may work for some years but when the dictators excessively exercise their unchecked powers to take the decision on behalf of their people without taking their consent, they eventually fall into public hatred and rejection. Thus we can say that military regimes intern increase the public distrust into their rulers and the country turns into destruction and chaos again

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