The Role of Consensus Democracy in Reducing Social Inequality

Introduction

Leadership is mostly done by one person (the leader) which for some people makes it unfair, because of the differences in language, raise, etc. so many differences occur in a society or country but what if that society was or is lead by all or a group of people, this somehow lift up the hopes of the people that because it is lead by a group somehow there’s a higher chance that they’ll be heard and understood, they will have their representatives to voice out even if there’s differences in languages, religion, etc.

Communications needed to run a team, society or even a country. It is needed to understand each points offered by the people so that in the end, all of them agrees to something, this is called consensus. According to Merriam Webster, it is a general agreement, and this agreement is made or decided by a group of people this is called democracy, when put together they are called Consensus Democracy, meaning the decision is made and agreed by mostly all of the people, their participation made them a part of the society, of the country.

In this paper, I’ll discuss and prove how consensus democracy reduces social inequality, but first let me define the words to be familiar with.

Definitions

According to Audiopedia (2017), consensus democracy is an important feature of political culture to prevent domination. Consensus democracy really helped or could help a country or society to have everyone’s approval. And as discussed earlier, it increases the chance of participation of the citizens when it comes to decision making. Having most people’s approval on to something because of the person they are rooting for is in that group who could voice out their concerns makes a unity upon something. But there are cons in Consensus democracy because of the various people to lead the country or society, it makes something hard to be decided. The decisions, solutions on something took longer than expected because of having a group of people to lead, too many brain and ideas is really a good thing, too many perspectives to consider is somewhat what the citizens want, but if it takes too long for a simple problem to be solved because a lot of consideration should be made then that could lead them to another problem, it is like watering the tree to spread or make lots of branches.

According to the Genealogy of Consent (1970), consensus democracy could be considered as a ‘real democracy’, I quote “decisions are not taken by majority vote but rather through extensive deliberation over decisions which all consent to.” the point of this statement is that the people in the group leading the country or the society study the situation and decide wether what to do about the problem or the issue or how they should handle that problem to be able to solve it. According to Linder, W. (1970), “I find it fair that all languages, all regions and political parties are represented in the government.” Because of various people leading the country or society, it helped the people to be calm and unbiased when it comes to the agreement because their concerns were heard and discussed by the group whatever their language is or what region they came from as long as they voiced out their concerns and ideas which contributes and benefits the politicians to have options resolving the problems at hand.

Addition to Consensus Democracy, the participants who is going to decide what to do, have options or choices on how to face the problems or concerns they are facing. Firstly, they can already give their consent solving the problem, second is that they stand aside the proposal that is placed, this doesn’t mean that they are diminishing the proposal, it doesn’t also mean that they support the proposal. Third one is they ask for clarification before deciding whether they didn’t fully understand the proposal or they don’t really get how it could help in the situation. Lastly, they may remove it or diminish it, it may be because it has nothing to do with the problem or issue at hand that should be resolved.

Majoritarian is going to be discussed in this paper. According to Merriam Webster, it is which decisions of an organized group should be made by a numerical of its members. This means that there are only specific participants or members who is going to decide in this particular issue or problem. Its difference with consensus is as its definition mentioned earlier, consensus it something that all of the participants or members agreed on, its their decision, all of them, while the majoritarian from its word “majority” of the group who are going to decide in the given situation on how to face it, on what way to solve it. As for the differences between majoritarian democracy vs. consensus democracy, gender inequality is going to be the main problem to determine how it differs in another way.

Arguments and Analysis

Majoritarian and consensus democracy is what I am going to use in order to show how gender inequality still lives but reduced. An example is a young woman, aged 23 years old, named Manju Kumari from India. According to Mullinax, M and Daube, E., Manju is a sarpanch, meaning she is the head of the village already. Traditions and old perspectives sometimes still rules a place, in India women like Manju, even if she have a place in the politics, this doesn’t guarantee her that it’ll increase her mobility because at the end of the day, if they look back through their past traditions, the power dynamics were made and ruled by men and women agreed on it. 52% women internationally speaking, marriages or unions, women who has their own decisions to make but in the 18 other countries, men or husbands can stop their wives from working sometimes even education were stopped by men because they used to believe that women belongs to the house, to do chores while men is responsible in their financial needs. But we are already in the 20th century, women now have their power to legally rule their own lives.

Manju used to think that women wouldn’t have any progress while men have all the opportunity to do anything. She now pursue other women to join her services for the new opportunities, unlike before at a very young age, they have to marry and have a children or family of their own.

It can be said that women like Manju in India used to experience consensus democracy, why? Because if you have noticed, back in the past of India men and women agreed that men can legally stop their wives (as I have mentioned earlier) to stop working, because of the agreement they all made, women were forced to stop and stay in their houses doing chores. But it turned into majoritarian democracy, there were only a few who still believes in their tradition that men, and men only should be responsible or work to provide for their family but because politically speaking, women were now majority have a place in the politics, they have a say, they have agreed that women could work or decide what path their going to take, they have the right to ruled their own life.

Conclusion

Therefore I conclude that consensus democracy could reduce social inequality in particular with gender inequality. The points I gave is a proof the differences of consensus and majoritarian democracy and the benefit and that consensus democracy could give to a country or in a society and even the consequences that could be faced throughout the process. Men and women should be looked upon equally and to be respected not because of their sex but because of their contributions in the world for the past and the upcoming years.