According to popular sovereignty, people who live in a certain region are entitled the power to be able to determine the nature of the government of said region. This is a concept that goes a little further than the concept of democracy, and it means that everyone is entitled to participate in the process of determining the government for a certain region. In the United States, for example, this is something that to some extent is guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Nevertheless, we need to ask ourselves what are the pros and cons of this situation:
The Pros of Popular Sovereignty
1. Stability
Any process related to democracy, and democracy itself for that matter, is going to provide stability to the country that it is implemented on – according to a study conducted by the World Bank of international conflict. Stability is crucial for the development of any nation.
This might come as no surprise, considering that if people have the right to vote and to participate actively in politics, having an impact on what happens in the country and being given a voice to be heard, it is only natural that people will be stable and that the country won’t have a lot of internal problems when it comes to political terms.
2. Economic Stability
If we take a look at the biggest economic powers in the world, we can see that they are all democratic nations – except for China. However, China is considered a large economic power due to its huge population that needs to be taken care of economically, even if poorly. Most Chinese citizens do not have a lot of money to their name and in fact, in the per-capita gross product, China was ranked 127th in the world. As such there is a clear link between stability and democracy.
The Cons of Popular Sovereignty
1. The Majority
Although the majority is basically what calls the shot in a popular sovereignty, it doesn’t mean that the majority is always right. In fact, without proper education, it is possible that the majority ends up leading the whole nation downstream due to a lack of understanding about what is going on. Some philosophers even believe that whenever you are going alongside with the crowd you are going the wrong way – and rightfully so.
2. Need for Proper Education
The current school system in most democracies doesn’t really allow people to learn and to give them an understanding about what is going on, but it actually gives them the ability to memorize and to do and repeat. This is not proper education, and without proper education a nation lead by the majority of people can be led downstream if no one takes the handles and secures the country before the worse happens.
