Fareed Zakaria The Rise Of Illiberal Democracy Analysis

In his article “The rise of illiberal democracy” Fareed Zakaria used a term “illiberal democracy” in the journal “Foreign Affairs” in 1997. In the article he discussed the level of liberties and freedom in the countries that are democracies officially. He divided them into two polar groups: liberal democracies and illiberal democracies. He also gave the description for each of the groups and the reasons why he determined this or that country into a particular group. Let’s try to figure out what is the phenomenon which was defined by the author as “illiberal democracy” and why he called it this way. The term “illiberal democracy” was used to define “a governing system in which elections take place but citizens are cut off from …show more content…
The article declares that among the countries that are in some transitional phase between dictatorship and democracy “fifty percent do better on political liberties than on civil ones” (Zakaria). The author Fareed Zakaria called these countries illiberal democracies. According to him this form of democracy is typical for non-Western countries which embraced it from France (the French model). Although these countries are democracies, according to their official form of government, but in practice the leaders of these countries abuse the power and the citizens have many of their rights limited or violated. All the power is usually concentrated in the hands of one and the same person. The power is centralized no matter how big the country is, all the orders come to different parts of the country from the center, and even if these orders are against the interests of local citizens, the local governors will not do anything because they have no power to influence any decisions that come from the center. Honestly speaking, they will care about not losing their position with a pretty high salary or the possibility to be promoted, or get gifts from the leader, like elite pieces of land with houses. This adds corruption to the list of the problems that exist in illiberal democracies. Even if they probably wish to change something they …show more content…
This is the country where I am from, so I can say a lot about it. The president of the country Alexander Lukashenko is in power for 22 years already. He became a president through the process of elections that were fair and free enough in 1994. I think he was just lucky in some way at those elections. It was three candidates: the first candidate was the previous leader Kebich (Communist party), the other one was a leader of the opposition and the oppositional Belarus People’s Front Party Zyanon Paznyak (he was mainly a representative of intelligentsia), and Lukashenko was the third candidate. Lukashenko turned out to be the middle ground between the old communist candidate Kebich and a supporter of reforms, a representative of a new wave Paznyak. I have to say that Paznyak had a well-developed program of changes in the country, but Lukashenko turned out to be a better demagogue. It is also important to mention that the people saw in Lukashenko a simple guy from the countryside (and he really was), but they did not get a chance to see who he could be and what his real ambitions were. He was fast to give promises during his campaign, and it worked. In 1995 and in 1996 Lukashenko as a president initiated 2 referendums to change the flag and the coat of arms of the country, to get the right to disband the parliament, to prolong the term of office for the president etc. He also removed the chairman of the