Are Free Elections Necessary to Have a Democracy

It is important to understand the concept of democratization to examine newly developed democracies more critically and to have a better understanding of the contemporary politics around the world. Since many countries consider themselves as democracies, there needs to be a scale that represents the shared value and aspiration of democracy to evaluate these countries in a critical and objective manner to determine the democratic performance of these governments. The region this essay will be focusing on is central and eastern Europe. When Poland, Hungary, and Czech Republics joined NATO in 1999 (B. C. Biega 2004), it made a great impact in many countries in central and eastern Europe as they start to adopt the concept of democracy in†¦show more content†¦The four countries that will be examined in this essay will be based on these definitions provided on a scale of one to four, one being the best and four being the worst. The four countries that will be evaluated in this ess ay are Albania, Croatia, Latvia, and Ukraine. By studying countries that seem to share similarities with each other, this essay hopes to find differences within these similar countries and highlight the reasons why these differences can make one country more democratic than another. Albania started to develop some liberal policies in the late 1980s after the death of communist dictator Enver Hoxha (Freedom House, 2013). The Democratic Party led by Sali Berisha won the election in in 2005 and is currently the government in Albania (ibid.). Even though the government is accused of being corrupted, the party still won 68 out of 140 seats in the 2009 parliamentary election (ibid.) The European Council declined to grant Albania EU candidate status on December 2012 for the third time due to insufficient reform priorities (ibid.). The country is considered â€Å"Partly Free† with an overall freedom rating of 3 out of 7 according to Freedom House. Croatia is a former constituent repu blic of Yugoslavia that gained its independence in June 1991 (ibid.). The country is led by Social Democratic Party under Zoran Milanović andShow MoreRelatedIs The Uk Really A Democracy? Essay1356 Words   |  6 PagesIS THE UK REALLY A DEMOCRACY? A democracy, according to Abraham Lincoln, is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. The word democracy comes from the Greek word demos which means â€Å"people and kratia, which means rule (http://educationportal.ontla.on.ca/en/ ). A democracy is a system where the people have a little of control over the government in some specific important processes like voting in elections and decision making. In a democracy, the majority rule and minorityRead MoreEssay about elections and democracy1559 Words   |  7 Pagesï » ¿QUESTION 1; 1. 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