Since it usurped monarchy in the West, democracy is largely hailed as the golden standard for determining leadership in a society. However, like all systems, it has its strengths and weaknesses, so its efficacy can prove highly situational. Recently, I attended Harvard Model UN. The democratic system set there was extremely dissatisfying, and it got my mind thinking analytically about democracy as a whole, especially in the context of America. Then the Co-Presidential election began in Andover, and I found that it did not have many of the issues I saw in other places. These experiences made me realize that whether or not democracy is a good fit for a situation comes down to the transparency, scale, and ultimately the agency available to stakeholders.
For some simplified context, in a MUN committee, the role that each participant or pair of participants plays is the delegation for a country, with the end goal of working with other countries to pass a resolution that benefits them. The committee starts with short speeches where delegations present their stances to connect with others who have similar ideas during unmoderated periods. In those same periods, the groups write their resolution before presenting it in a speech where its passing is voted on. Throughout this whole process, judges are observing and will give out awards at the end. While different judges emphasize different things, in this committee, it was about “taking leadership” and presenting resolutions. My group was a small cluster of people, striving to “demonstrate leadership,” often without having any ideas of substance, and a larger group of people too timid or considerate to join the fray. Consequently, my group had an extremely hard time moving forward, and ultimately, the people who were chosen to represent the group were not those who could present it best, but those who were simply the most popular. In this case, this was particularly problematic because those who were popular often echoed vague, common, or outright dysfunctional ideas of the majority, rather than constructing quality ideas. That committee devolved into what Aristotle labels a demagoguery, where appeals to desires or bias dominate rational thought. Thus, I have three big gripes with the current system: firstly, the number of those who follow blindly far outmatches those who research thoroughly; secondly, the way information can be skewed or dominated by chance or by the powerful to create dominant false narratives; and thirdly, the nature of a two-party system that breeds dogmatism and polarity.
The consequence of these problems within the system is that elections are currently decided by who better appeals to the masses than who creates a better policy, and those who do bother to assess the situation don’t have much further agency on a national scale. So, voters realistically lack a full understanding of the person they are voting for and their policies, either due to a lack of effort to understand them or because of the widespread misinformation confusing them. This is especially true due to the complexity of policy and how it can be twisted through statements like, “the economy made a positive turnaround under President B,” when in reality it was from the delayed effects of President A’s policies. Then the nail in the coffin is the two-party system formed from non-preferential voting that limits the voters’ choice of candidates to the lesser of two evils at best, and a blindly followed label of good guys and bad guys at worst.
But I find these problems aren’t really applicable to the copresidential elections at Phillips Academy, and I think it really comes down to the voters having the agency to get what they want. The voting pool is far smaller, so people who don’t care won’t vote, and if someone really cares, they can convince others, and it will actually make a difference; effort is rewarded. Furthermore, they have the time and resources to have comprehensive and constructive discussions where everybody knows the same basic premises. My issue with voter knowledge is fixed because the co-president candidates are people whom the voters actually can get to know if they don’t already. Additionally, the policies the pairs run with are limited, so the voters can actually understand clearly, and their consequences are direct, leading to less misrepresentation. Finally, the process is smooth and resetting as students cycle through the school, preventing stagnation and instead allowing for the development of ideals and mechanisms.
The result is a democracy where the voters can easily grasp most of the situation and therefore vote for the leadership they actually want. In conclusion, I think the copresidential election does democracy really well, perhaps reflecting the intrinsic necessity of transparency, consumability, and flexibility for democratic success.
