Limitations and Drawbacks of American Democracy

The China Society for Human Rights Studies, December 2021

Democracy is the outcome as mankind works to liberate itself and pursue freedom. For millennia, governments and nationalities worldwide have worked painstakingly to develop democratic practices that are distinct from one another, adding diversity to mankind's political achievements and democratic lineage. Democracy can take many forms, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach to democracy. Although the U.S. extols the virtues of its democratic model, its numerous limitations and drawbacks have been laid bare, and it is far from being an ideal system for modern democracy.

I. The "illusionary sense of confidence "in American democracy

Since the beginning of modern times, the intellectual heritage of the Enlightenment period has been diffused in foreign countries in the wake of the expansion of European colonialists. Finally, a democratic system, in which social contract theory and the thought of natural rights are the theoretical foundation and the "separation of the three powers" and the checks and balances are the core content, has been established on the North American continent. For over two hundred years, some in the West, especially some politicians and scholars, have gradually developed an illusionary sense of confidence in American democracy. Since the end of the Cold War, this confidence has been taken to the extreme. Japanese-American scholar Francis Fukuyama asserted that liberal democracy (represented by American democracy) stands for the ultimate form of government. While the poor performance of the U.S. in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic has abundantly illustrated that American democracy is not as effective as people think, we still have to ask: Can American democracy stand up to theoretical scrutiny and become the ultimate truth of modern democracy? Can American democracy become a one-size-fits-all prescriptive political model? The answer is obviously no.