Question

What are the conditions under which democracies accommodate social diversities?

Answer 1

Some of the conditions under which democracies accommodate social diversities are:

• Minority and majority opinions are not permanent.
• To make sure that Government functions to represent general views, minority and majority must work together.
• It needs to be understood that simply rule by majority opinion is not democracy.
• It is also necessary that rule by majority does not become rule by majority community in terms of linguistic group, race or religion etc
• Democratic rule ceases to be accommodative for that group or person if someone is barred from being in majority on the basis of birth.
• In case of every election in case of every decision, different groups and persons can and may form a majority, that is the meaning of Rule by majority.
• At some point of time, as long as every citizen has a chance of being in the majority, only then democracy will remain as a democracy.

Democracies – Better Equipped to Handle Social Differences

• Creating a harmonious social life should be one of the important aims of democracies.
• To bring down the possibility of tensions turning into violent or explosive, usually, to conduct competition, democracies develop a procedure.
• Conflicts among different social groups cannot be resolved permanently and fully in any society.
• But to negotiate differences, mechanisms can be evolved and differences should be respected by the people.
• Internal social differences are usually suppressed and non-democractic regimes usually turn a blind eye to them.
• Democratic Governments are in a better position to reduce and handle conflicts, divisions and differences.