Sham democracy
The term sham democracy , as a political catchphrase , denotes forms of government that give the appearance of a democracy , but in which elements of dictatorship or oligarchy actually predominate. The bogus democratic aspects are, for example, bogus elections for a parliament that has no real influence.
Use of the term
The sociologist Max Weber used the term sham democracy for his analysis of the Russian Revolution of 1905 , published in 1917 . In the last few decades the catchphrase was mainly used for the establishment of post-colonial states, whereby the sense and purpose of its pseudo-democratic elements lay less in deceiving its own people than in misleading the world public. The term was seldom used for the Eastern Bloc countries , although there were also pseudo-democratic elements (“ elections ” to the GDR - People's Chamber via the unified lists of the National Front ). Even for a democratic deficit in western states and institutions, the term was and is rarely used. In Germany, the made-up word “ democrature ” has existed for a number of years for pseudo-democratic conditions . In terms of constitutional history, Hans Boldt assumes in his work Reich und Länder , 1987, that the first German constitutional states with census voting rights were also sham democracies. In the Württemberg constitution of 1819 z. B. the “Chamber of Deputies” consisted of u. a. 13 “members of the knightly nobility”, while the city of Stuttgart only had the right to occupy a single seat of the chamber by election.
Since the term sham democracy refers to hybrid forms between democracies and non-democratic forms of government, its application to a form of government depends on the subjective evaluation and weighting criteria for democratic or dictatorial characteristics. This is why the term is only rarely used in the political science context and when it is used in a strongly evaluative form.
Examples of the use of the term
In addition to the example of Max Weber's use of the term , there are other application examples:
- Moshe Zuckermann (Head of the Institute for German History, Tel Aviv University ) described Israel as a sham democracy: “I said earlier, (...) that Israel ultimately with the criterion of nationality determined by being a Jew is not a democracy, but at most an ethnic democracy , so it can only be a sham democracy. "
- According to Hans Koschnick (1994–1996 EU administrator for Mostar ), there is a sham democracy in Bosnia-Herzegovina : "A formal democracy in which elections take place but there are no democrats is a sham democracy."
literature
- Max Weber : Russia's transition to sham democracy. in: Die Hilfe, April 26, 1917 (vol. 23), pp. 272-279, printed in: ders., Schriften zur Sozialgeschichte und Politik , Reclam, 1997, ISBN 3-150096-46-4
Footnotes
- ^ Moshe Zuckermann , lecture at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität ( Memento of the original from January 20, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Münster, October 24, 2000
- ↑ Hans Koschnick , Interview in Jungle World No. 28/2002 ( Memento of the original from November 5, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
