Sunday, February 15, 2015

Session 6 : Relevance of Aristotle’s system of political classification in the 21st century

The momentous changes in political structures of the world have made previous methods redundant; such has been the case with Aristotle’s system of political classification.

Aristotle’s idea of democracy varies to the modern day opinion where democracy is preferred to other forms of government and we now see it as a system of governing by the people in the interest of all. He however, viewed democracy as a bad form of government and favoured Monarchy as the better alternative. Yet history has proven otherwise, such as the example of France prior to the revolution of 1789 and Russia before the Russian revolution of 1905.

Furthermore, Aristotle’s classifications of political systems are too simplistic to be applied in today’s world. The method has no way of classifying some of the dominant ideologies that exist today, such as socialism and social democracy. Using his method in today’s complex political sphere will result in confusion between different schools of thought. In the 21st century there is a need for more elaborate ways of classification that take into account various other important determinants such as economic and social implications.

No comments: