View by Michael13 (posted as a comment in my blog)
Personally, I find that any good democratic system needs to have two important characteristics:
1. Empowering the people.
2. Uniting the nation.
In Germany, the government is very responsive to people's aspirations and their needs. And the people are respectful to their elected leaders and willing to cooperate. The relationship is more on equal partner basis. Unlike ours which is talking about 'Masters and Servants'(far from truth). I think the German sound education system contributes a great deal towards this very desirable happy outcome. Anyone cares to share?
1. Empowering the people.
2. Uniting the nation.
In Germany, the government is very responsive to people's aspirations and their needs. And the people are respectful to their elected leaders and willing to cooperate. The relationship is more on equal partner basis. Unlike ours which is talking about 'Masters and Servants'(far from truth). I think the German sound education system contributes a great deal towards this very desirable happy outcome. Anyone cares to share?
View by Tan Kin Lian (in reply to Michael 13)
I have high regard for the German education system (which I wrote about earlier in my blog). I also the values and practical approach of Germany - including their democratic structure (although I confess that I do not know this matter in depth).
I also like their social security and health care system - which are based on the right balance between pro-business and pro-people.
2 comments:
It's also important that we are very clear about the precise meaning of the word "government".
Following is the definition of "government" from Wikipedia:
In the social sciences, the term government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized.
Government is the means by which state policy is enforced, as well as the mechanism for determining the policy of the state.
States are served by a continuous succession of different governments.
Each successive government is composed of a specialized and privileged body of individuals who monopolize political decision-making, and are separated by status and organization from the population as a whole.
Their function is to enforce existing laws, legislate new ones, and arbitrate conflicts via the government's monopoly on violence.
In some societies, this group is often a self-perpetuating or hereditary class.
In other societies, such as democracies, the political roles remain, but there is frequent turnover of the people actually filling the positions.
In most Western societies, there is a clear distinction between a government and the state.
Public disapproval of a particular government (expressed, for example, by not re-electing an incumbent) does not necessarily represent disapproval of the state itself (i.e. of the particular framework of government).
However, in some totalitarian regimes, there is not a clear distinction between the regime and the state.
In fact, leaders in such regimes often attempt to deliberately blur the lines between to two, in order to conflate their own selfish interests with those of the polity.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government
Speaking of Germany, similar to Singapore, German president is elected (although by a convention, not directly). Reading this Wikipedia article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Germany I can see a lot of parallels between Germany and Singapore in how they approach the role of the president.
The article does mention that German presidents can speak against government policies, although this is rare. Such speeches do have a lot of influence.
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