Reply to Kai Tsi (=

I quote from Kai Tsi's post, "Democracy free of corruption becomes a stable form of government not because it is the most perfect but because it is the least imperfect. It offers fair chances to everyone and the right to be heard. While your opinion may not be taken seriously, democracy is stable simply because just by allowing free speech, it promotes openness and honesty." Unquote.

Democracy in itself can be manifested in many different ways. This is in line with what I said earlier, that democracy is simply a theory that might be implemeted differently by different groups of people. The different examples of democracy would be anticipatory democracy, athenian democracy, consensus democracy, grassroots democracy, illiberal democracy, etc. However, ther is one form of democracy that has proved quite successful for a particular country.

I am referring to constitutional democracy and its implementation in Costa Rica. Costa Rica is one of the few developing countries that has sustained a constitutional democracy. The success of democracy in Costa Rica is largely attributed to sensible policies. In Costa Rica, the president is prohibited by the constitution from serving a second term. The constitution also balances the power of the executive and the legislative branches, and encourages cooperation within a legislature that often does not have a single-party majority. The political economy in Costa Rica is market oriented. The government has balanced some controls on the private sector and the protection of workers' rights with policies that encourage and subsidize private farmers and business entrepreneurs. However, economic and social inequalities remain. Having said that, we must also take into account that Costa Ricans enjoy the highest standard of living in all of Central America, with a solid economic growth. Thus, we can see that even though there might be inequalities in the society, and people might still be unhappy, democracy that has been implemented with sensible policies can still create peace and stability in society.

So there you go Kai Tsi, you can use this as an example for your point (=