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Introduction: The nature of political opposition in contemporary electoral democracies and autocracies

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• Published: 21 April 2021
• Volume 20 , pages 569–579, ( 2021 )

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At the level of regime typologies, the uncertain status and inherent weakness of the opposition mark defining features of regimes beyond liberal democracy. However, even the performance and evolution of the latter tend to be shaped by oppositions and the regime’s approach to dealing with them. This article offers a bird’s-eye view of political oppositions in contemporary electoral democracies and competitive autocracies. It focuses on patterns of strategic choices and behavior by both governments and oppositions. That endeavor forms part of a larger joint venture seeking to give center stage to those actors living in the shadows of increasingly unscrupulous power-holders.

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Political oppositions beyond liberal democracy: conceptual issues

Democracy is as much about opposition as it is about government. Trantidis ( 2017 ) even suggests that government contestability by an effective opposition should be a constitutive part of any serious definition of democracy. However, opposition is not just a defining feature of democratic governance but of politics more generally. Indeed, to some extent even many oppositions operating in autocratic contexts tend to display some features that are reminiscent of democratic politics, or democratic opposition for that matter. After all, the conviction driving oppositions in fundamentally different types of regime, “that the world can be other than it is (…) that situations can be countered, outcomes altered, people’s lives changed through individual and collective action” (Keane 2009 : 853), is what democracy is ultimately all about.

It took international political science long to recognize the value of studying political opposition across democratic and autocratic regimes. Dahl’s seminal volume of 1966, which remained the unchallenged point of reference in the field for decades, famously focused on political oppositions in Western democracies (Dahl 1966 ). The realization that there can be genuine political opposition in different types of democratic and autocratic regimes did not break much before the turn of the century. A classic paper from this period is the one by Jean Blondel. As Blondel contended, “opposition is a “dependent” concept …. This means that the character of the opposition is tied to the character of the government. The notion of opposition is thus, so to speak, parasitic on ideas of government, of rule, of authority. (…) Yet the recognition that there is a dependence of opposition on government does not mean that variations in types and forms of opposition should not be looked into” (Blondel 1997 : 463).

Given its established status as a subject of international political research, it is curious how elusive, and contested, terminological and conceptual boundaries in this field have remained. While there is much consensus about the quality of government and opposition as any political system’s fundamental “binary code” (Luhmann 1989 ), it is far from universally acknowledged that what is not government in politics is necessarily “opposition.” Some reservations even concern the parliamentary arena in established democratic regimes. Specifically, some scholars have questioned the silent equation of non-government parties and opposition parties in parliament, suggesting that only those non-governing parties in parliament that seek to win governmental office and are viable coalition partners are genuine opposition parties (see, e.g., Niclauss 1995 : 50). Such a position surely can be justified. That said, ever since Sartori’s major work on parties and party systems (Sartori 1976 ), even outright “anti-system parties” have widely been members of the larger family of opposition parties (see also Norton 2008 : 237–238). Recent re-conceptualizations of anti-system parties have been driven specifically by the growing realization that, in many contexts, parties sharing some anti-system properties have effectively become institutionalized and integrated members of democratic political systems (Zulianello 2018 ).

As soon as one moves from here to studying political oppositions in regimes beyond liberal democracy, established terms tend to lose their familiar meanings. For example, anti-system opposition parties that we can find in many autocratic regimes as well are equivalents of anti-system opposition parties in democratic contexts in little more than name. While anti-system parties in democratic systems usually pursue agendas leading away from full-blown liberal democracy, anti-system parties in autocratic regimes are often, though not necessarily or always, committed to the ideals of democratic governance.

Another issue of major conceptual and empirical relevance concerns the status of party-based opposition, and other forms of opposition in different types of political regime. Again, there has been a major debate if or to what extent actors and activities from beyond the parliamentary arena should be considered to form part of “the opposition” at all. It is worth noting that opposition and resistance or dissidence have distinctly different roots in the History of Political Thought (see Jäger 1978 : 471), which has however not hindered contemporary scholars of International Political Theory to refer to opposition and dissidence as two forms of resistance (see Daase and Deitelhoff 2019 ). Moreover, the distinction between opposition and dissidence, or oppositionists and dissidents for that matter, has not just concerned scholars but practitioners, as well. As Szulecki ( 2019 : 22–28) has pointed out in the context of revisiting the politics of dissent in Communist Central Europe, there is a wealth of different notions of opposition, in relation to dissidence; while some understandings consider opposition and dissent as (near) synonyms, others carry genuinely different political meanings. For all that, echoing a passionate call by Brack and Weinblum ( 2011 ), the overall trend in more recent international research has been clearly towards more encompassing notions of political opposition, extending from party politics within and beyond the parliamentary arena to manifestations of protest and dissent.

Empirically, there are distinct patterns of party/parliamentary and non-parliamentary forms of opposition even within a given family of regimes. For example, France has a longstanding tradition of “street politics,” which is conspicuous and exceptional by West European standards, and reflects both an institutionalized weakness of the parliamentary opposition in the Fifth French Republic and a particular arrogance of French executive leadership (Mény 2008 : 103). The major Yellow Vests movement marked just the latest phenomenon of its kind (Grossman 2019 ).

That said, some patterns are more generally related to the type of government or political regime. Specifically, regimes differ fundamentally in the extent to which the electoral and parliamentary arenas provide space for voicing opposition and dissent to power-holders. Generally, the more a given regime leans towards a closed autocracy—the fourth type of regime, alongside electoral autocracies, electoral democracies and liberal democracies, distinguished by Lührmann et al. ( 2018 : 3, Table. 1)—the less likely are the systematic functions of political opposition to be concentrated in the hands of political parties. The “other actors” include individual prominent dissidents, critical media as well as, and not least, participants in mass protests.

One of the most fascinating, and important, features of oppositional politics concerns the relationship between those different actors of the opposition. Overall, the relations between different actors forming part of the opposition have grown more complex and diverse in many regimes, including consolidated democratic systems. While historically parties and movements have been closely intertwined with parties operating as the parliamentary agent of the larger movement (see Maguire 1995 ), the recent past has witnessed a growing separation of oppositional parties and citizen groups in many Western democracies (see Butzlaff and Deflorian 2019 ). However, this applies more to recent developments at the micro-level of party-group (non-)relations in some of the advanced democracies than to other contexts. At the meso- and macro-levels of competitive authoritarian regimes, where possible regime transitions are usually played out, parties have largely reserved their reputation as more or less indispensable agents, equipping would-be leaders with the institutional and organizational resources needed for exerting large-scale political leadership. Belarus, where the protagonists of the mass protests surrounding the presidential election of 2020 and its aftermath eventually decided to form a new party, “Together,” marks a recent case in point (Ivanova 2020 ). Still, other recent evidence, from Russia and beyond, warns against taking the existence of anything like a natural correlation between mounting protests and increased support for the regime’s challengers and opposition parties for granted (Tertytchnaya 2020 ).

Oppositional politics in the era of “personalized authoritarian politics”

Recent scholarly debate on the global state of democratic and autocratic government has revolved around the rise of “a third wave of autocratization” (Lührmann and Lindberg 2019 ). What marks a distinct stage in the historical evolution of political regimes for some, with conspicuously many contemporary autocratization episodes affecting democracies (ibid: 1103–4), amounts to little more than a questionable set of indicators for others (Skaaning 2020 ). Yet such issues of conceptualization and measurement apart, there is a wide consensus on some of the defining features of the current and recent global transformations of political regimes. These include in particular notions of “executive aggrandizement” (Bermeo 2016 : 10) and “personalized authoritarian politics” (Kendall-Taylor et al. 2017 : 14). Indeed, the executive-centeredness of public attention in the current global state of public affairs is considerably more pronounced than at any time in recent decades (see Andeweg et al. 2020 ).

This is not necessarily bad news for potential challengers. Resent research suggests that “by increasing the degree of personalization, dictators reduce their vulnerability to insider challenges while at the same time increasing their vulnerability to outsider challenges” (Grundholm 2020 : 797). However, in regimes that are not run by outright dictators but autocratic leaders that have been elected and enjoy the support of a sizeable proportion of the population, such as Erdoğan in Turkey or Putin in Russia, there are more particular challenges of personalized rule. As a recent study on the “Erdoğanziation” of Turkish politics suggests, oppositional strategies centering on attacking and disavowing the man at the top personally may backfire. “Contrary to what the opposition leaders aimed to achieve, the negative agenda antagonized Erdoğan supporters and consolidated their in-group identity” (Selçuk et al. 2019 : 559; see also Aras and Helms 2021 ). Thus, overall, personalized competitive autocratic regimes are certainly not generally a more favorable playing ground for the opposition than other forms of autocratic or quasi-autocratic rule.

This symposium seeks to give center stage to the undervalued and understudied actors of the political opposition. It launches an agenda dedicated to providing consequently opposition-focused—and thus distinctly complementary—assessments of typically leader-centered electoral democracies and autocracies. While the case studies gathered for this symposium focus on European countries (with Turkey and Russia marking border cases), the next section of this introductory piece seeks to capture the nature of political oppositions beyond liberal democracy on a larger scale, accounting for issues and features observed both in and outside of Europe.

Political oppositions beyond liberal democracy: Some empirical features and patterns

The group of “political regimes beyond liberal democracy” that do not fall in the residual category of closed autocracies is immensely complex and diverse. Nevertheless, there are certain shared features, some of which are of immediate relevance in our context. As to elections and election-induced uncertainty, what can be largely taken for granted in electoral democracies is true for competitive authoritarian regimes or electoral autocracies, as well. “Even though democratic institutions may be badly flawed, both authoritarian incumbents and their opponents must take them seriously” (Levitsky and Way 2002 : 54), and notwithstanding the uneven playing field between government and opposition, incumbents can still lose elections. Arguably the single most important lesson emerging from an opposition-centered exploration into the world beyond liberal democracy is that even seemingly “primitive” competitive autocratic regimes (as well as closed autocracies) can be home to complex strategies of both incumbent and opposition actors (see Schedler 2013 ).

First, the strategic goal of governments in electoral autocracies cannot be reasonably reduced to simply banning any political oppositions altogether. Actually, the recent experience of Hong Kong, where Chinese power-holders not only banned the opposition from the streets but more recently also expelled defiant opposition members from parliament, marks an exception rather than the rule. As Armstrong et al. ( 2020 : 2) have observed, “in many of today’s autocracies … regime leaders divide the political opposition into a systemic component that is allowed to participate in official politics and a non-systemic component that is excluded from elections, spoils distribution, and policymaking.” In some settings, the “systemic” opposition is called the “loyal” or “official” opposition. Excluded groups meanwhile are sometimes referred to as the “radical opposition” or the “unrecognized opposition.” Prominent examples stretch from Suharto’s Indonesia and South Africa under apartheid to the Arab world. More specifically, autocratic power-holders can have a strong interest in allowing the existence of certain opposition groups as part of their legitimation or survival strategies (see Magaloni and Kricheli 2010 : 126–128). This may include the creation of “Ersatz” opposition parties to create the appearance of multiparty competition (see March 2009 ).

Second, not all opposition parties in electoral autocracies are invariably committed to overthrowing the regime . As Dettman notes, “the literature on democratization has tended to assume a fixed regime-changing or democratizing goal of opposition parties” (Dettman 2018 : 33), but non-government/opposition parties “can be pro-regime, showing willingness to join the ruling government and showing little outward evidence of pursuing regime change” (ibid: 36). Actually, this does not apply to opposition parties only; even social and protest movements, whose very raison d’être is generally believed to be about generating change, are not always progressive forces advancing democratization (see, e.g., Albrecht 2005 ; Kitirianglarp and Hewison 2009 ).

Third, opposition parties, actors or groups that are anti-government and anti-regime may still use fundamentally different strategies. This may include the formation of pre-election alliances and post-election coalitions, as well as organizing electoral boycotts. While there are few, if any, hard-and-fast rules of how exactly to deal with particular challenges, research on political oppositions in Venezuela and Colombia suggests that it is worthwhile for the opposition to make use of the institutional leverage a regime provides them with, rather than to rely primarily or exclusively on radical extra-institutional strategies (Gamboa 2017 ).

Cooperation and coalition-building between opposition actors have increasingly become an issue in its own right. While conventional wisdom holds that “there is no coalition in opposition” in democratic party government contexts, collective opposition strategies are notably widespread in autocratic regimes. Pre-electoral coalitions existed in a quarter of all authoritarian elections held in the first decade of the twenty-first century (Gandhi and Reuter 2013 : 140; see also Dettman 2018 : 57). Electoral coalitions among different opposition parties have proven successful in unseating incumbents from the Ukraine to the Philippines and Kenya, as well as in some cosmopolitan cities like Istanbul and Budapest. The most impressive recent example at the national level, however, relates to Malaysia, where the oppositional coalition Pakatan Harapan (or Hope Alliance) won the federal elections in 2018 for the first time in the history of the country (see Ufen 2020 ).

Systematic comparative research on electoral coalitions suggests that, other things being equal, the willingness of the opposition to form pre-electoral coalitions tends to increase when opposition actors do not expect the incumbent regime to win, that is, when change seems likely or at least possible. What is also worth noting is that coalitions that include previous regime insiders who defected to the opposition have often been more successful (Hauser 2019 ). Partly contrary to this, recent research on Morocco suggests that the recent increase in collaboration between the oppositional Left and Islamist movements was favored precisely by “the excluded nature of these actors and their lack of electoral interests” (Cassani 2020 : 1183). Other research has pointed out that electoral successes and defeats of opposition coalitions depend strongly on the willingness of voters to support the coalescing strategies of party leaders, policies and policy preferences (Gandhi and Ong 2019 ) as well as psychological characteristics of individuals (Young 2020 ), which matter in autocratic contexts just as much as they usually do in democracies. Balancing these diverging preferences is at the heart of the observed dilemmas faced by systemic and non-systemic oppositions seeking cooperation with each other (see Armstrong et al. 2020 ).

Opposition boycotts mark an alternative election-related strategy of opposition parties that has been particularly prominent in Africa, but by no means strictly confined to that region. Most early work on boycotts suggests that opposition parties will boycott in particular when they believe they will do poorly in a given election, that is, essentially to “save face.” However, as a recent major study on political oppositions in Arab regimes contends, “the strategies adopted by opposition groups during and after authoritarian elections are driven by perceptions of regime strength and stability, extending well beyond election-related considerations, such as the freeness and fairness of the election and an opposition group’s prospects of victory at the polls” (Buttorff 2019 : 7).

While boycotts are in one sense a non-violent tactic that opposition parties may adopt to gain concessions from authoritarian powers, they can also be part of a larger strategy to inspire post-election protests that may ultimately undermine the stability and authority of a given regime. Apart from elusive losses of reputation, boycotts tend to produce lower turnout, “which can make the incumbent vulnerable to future criticisms and electoral challenges” and thus “may open up the electoral playing field further in the long term, allowing for future opposition victories” (Hauser 2019 : 21). Importantly, however, as Dettman ( 2018 : 256) points out, even “opposition parties that win power by unseating the incumbent through elections face the choice of implementing democratizing reforms, or preserving the advantages of authoritarian incumbency” (see also Wahman 2014 ).

What seems important to add under the heading of strategic agency of opposition actors in competitive autocratic regimes is that oppositional strategies are clearly not limited to the electoral or parliamentary arenas. As Bedford and Vinatier ( 2019 ) remind us in their carefully conceptualized study of “oppositional ghettos” and “resistance models,” electoral activities can equally well focus on the media, lobbying or educational activities. As the authors further contend, a common characteristic of these different “models of resistance” is that challenging the current authorities’ hegemony often takes priority over achieving any long-term goals that may be impossible to realize. In that sense, “the opposition actors’ work becomes “oppositional for the sake of it”” (ibid: 707).

Fourth, regime types do matter even in authoritarian contexts . Overall, while in the family of democratic regimes it is generally parliamentary systems that offer the most favorable opportunity structures to opposition parties (Helms 2008 ), the chances for political oppositions in autocratic contexts to leave their mark on the wider political process often seem to be better in presidential than in other types of autocratic regime. Opposition parties can nominate a widely popular individual for election, even if they struggle to appeal to voters in legislative elections (Dettman 2018 : 75). Also, electoral coalitions have been particularly successful in presidential autocracies (Gandhi and Ong 2019 : 949–950). Other differences that exist are more difficult to assess in terms of failure and success. For example, boycotts have been more frequent in presidential elections, as Hauser ( 2019 : 20) suggests, though this says little about the ultimate successes of opposition forces to oust incumbent autocrats.

Fifth, regime-related legacies matter. There is reason to believe that it makes much of a difference if a regime turns into an electoral autocracy from a formerly closed autocracy, or from a more democratic type of regime. This is because dictatorships have distinct legacies and tend to cast a particular shadow on political oppositions and their tactical and strategic choices (see Bermeo 1992 : 273–274; for a more recent example, see also Conduit and Akbarzadeh 2019 : 8). Importantly, those legacies do not have to be of a toxic nature. Rather, the hurtful memory of massacres under the previous regime may drive new oppositions to pursue mainly peaceful strategies.

The articles and key findings of this symposium

The cases gathered for this symposium share one major common feature with each other: With few exceptions, all major countries covered here were identified as prime examples of autocratization in the latest V-Dem Democracy Report of 2020 which focuses on the developments of the past decade. The single most important exception concerns Russia, where the democratic rollback set in a full decade earlier, with no significant reverses recorded ever since. Another thing that unites these articles, or their authors for that matter, is the belief that the institutional parameters characterizing a given regime tend to shape oppositional behavior and performance to a considerable extent. After all, virtually all agency in politics is “structured agency,” and all strategies—that guide the actions of political actors in opposition and elsewhere—are little else but ideas for, or manifestations of, rational behavior seeking to exploit institutional (and other contextual) opportunities to advance the achievement of particular goals (Helms 2014 ). However, this does not imply that institutions would ever actually determine the behavior and fate of actors pursuing competing missions in complex environments. Indeed, the articles of this symposium provide fresh evidence for the limits of purely institutional explanations of oppositional performance.

Further, in line with the established tradition of small-n political research, which is at its best when it comes to identifying new causalities and developing hypotheses for future research, rather than testing sweeping theories, the majority of articles proceeds inductively in capturing key features of the politics of opposition in these countries. In a field that has been infamous for the striking immunity of its key subjects to grand-scale theorizing (see De Giorgi and Ilonszki 2018 : 244), anything else would seem unreasonable and misplaced.

In his article on political opposition in Putin’s Russia, Andrey Semenov offers a succinct assessment of the complex evolutionary dynamics of the past two decades. The particular focus of this piece is on the regime’s continuous efforts to deal with its challengers by operating a sophisticated system of organizational control, and the oppositions’ desperate attempts of coping with this. Focusing on Erdoğan’s Turkey, Bülent Aras and Ludger Helms show how the attempts of a longstanding power-holder to tighten his grip, and institutionalize his predominance, may generate inverse effects by creating unintended incentives for opposition actors to pool their resources.

Both articles provide new evidence for the well-founded assumption that longstanding political strongmen and their supporters can give opponents and oppositions a particularly hard time. Still, their findings are not at odds with the observation that “personalizing autocrats” are marked by a particular vulnerability to challengers and challenges from beyond their close environment. Overall, recent opposition-related developments in Turkey have been considerably more heartening than developments in Russia. This finding is in line with other recent research suggesting that—notwithstanding apparent parallels between “Erdoğanism” and “Putinism”—for the time being at least, Erdoğan’s Turkey and Putin’s Russia, remain distinctly different regimes (see Bechev and Kınıklıoğlu 2020 ).

Two comparative analyses follow these two single-case studies of the symposium. Authored by Gabriella Ilonszki and Agnieszka Dudzińska, the first one of these assesses oppositional behavior in Hungary and Poland—two “post-communist” EU member states. Finally, Claudia Laštro and Florian Bieber provide a wide-ranging comparative assessment of the political opposition in the three competitive authoritarian regimes of the Western Balkans, i.e. Montenegro, Serbia and North Macedonia.

Echoing the lessons drawn by Aras and Helms, the key findings of these two papers point to the limits of purely institutional (as well as cultural and historical) explanations of political opposition. Neither institutional similarities nor shared historical legacies determine the nature of political opposition. There is no single pattern of opposition politics valid across these samples of cases, and no determining effect of contextual parameters. Political agency (of both governments and oppositions) shapes the patterns of oppositional power and performance to a significant extent. These findings concur with other recent research on the varied performance of Central and Eastern European political oppositions during the Corona pandemic (see Guasti 2020 ).

For oppositions in political regimes beyond liberal democracy, the central proposition emerging from this symposium is that their actions can make all the difference.

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Acknowledgments

I am immensely grateful to the anonymous reviewers and the editors of this journal, in particular Daniel Stockemer, for their most valuable constructive critique of an earlier draft of this paper and this Symposium more generally. Further, I gratefully acknowledge the generous support by Agnieszka Dudzińska and David M. Willumsen who commented on a previous draft of this intro piece. Finally, I would like to thank Sebastian Dettman for kindly sharing his unpublished Cornell PhD dissertation, and the inspiration provided by this major work. Needless to say, the usual disclaimer applies.

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Helms, L. Introduction: The nature of political opposition in contemporary electoral democracies and autocracies. Eur Polit Sci 20 , 569–579 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-021-00323-z

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2 Government and Opposition

• Published: September 2012
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The success of democracy rests in large part on both the opposition and the government. In order for democracy to operate successfully, the opposition must be recognized as legitimate and given an institutional form. The emergence of the political party as an institution has played a critical role in shaping the relationship between government and opposition as a distinctive feature of democratic political systems. This chapter discusses the contribution of the party system to the development of a symbiotic relationship between government and opposition, focusing on the case of Britain. It examines the role of the opposition, and the relationship between government and opposition, both within and outside Parliament, in India. It also considers ‘partyless democracy’ in India along with factions and factional politics, party politics, and the importance of trust between government and opposition in strengthening the foundations of democracy.

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Role of Opposition in Democracy

• Date: {{formatDate('Mon Nov 15 2021 21:36:18 GMT+0530 (India Standard Time)') }}
• By: Empower IAS
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Opposition in Democracy Meaning :

• Opposition is the largest non-government party or coalition of parties who are elected representatives of peoples, who are not members of the treasury benches and play an important role of questioning government decisions and actions and also raised matter of public importance in functioning political democracy .

Role and functions of opposition in democracy :

1- Constructive criticism of the Govt. policies, plans, bills, law and programs, and make the Govt. to work in accordance with social welfare and public good.

2- Main role of the opposition is to question the ruling Govt. and hold them accountable to peoples.

3- Opposition carry the suggestions of the civil society to the parliament/ ruling Govt.

4- Opposition should not criticize each and every decision of the ruling Govt. but its support is necessary to the decisions which are good and in public interest.

5- Constructive opposition expose the weakness of the ruling Govt.  

6- Opposition is the guardian of the public interest and remind the ruling Govt. its duty towards the people who elected them to power.

7- Opposition and the ruling party are the two faces of the same coin.

8- Opposition provides checks and balances in the functioning of democracy e.g., members of opposition included in various parliamentary committees.

9- Members of the opposition who are members of parliamentary committees have a further opportunity to scrutinize new legislation as part of the committee process.

10- Opposition may utilize the media to reach the electorates with its views. 

Malfunctioning of opposition in parliamentary proceedings :

• Fragmented opposition : Degree of fragmented opposition has consequences for the electoral performance of the parliamentary proceedings.
• Agenda for discussion: The Govt. alone has the right to set the agenda for discussion but some times opposition trying to distract discussion and raised other issues in house which creates hurdles in time management .
• Interruption: Interjection by a member during the speech of another member/discussion on a listed item.
•  Disruption: A longer break in parliamentary proceedings, encompasses an undesired statement, action and gesture that delay the transaction of business in house, also violates the dignity of house e.g., showing placards, shouting of slogans, entering the well of the house, and adjournment motions.
•  Walk-outs : Constitutes a legitimate form of protest to show their disagreement with ruling Govt.

Leader of opposition (LOP) :  

• LOP is only the leader for the time being of the Chief Opposition Party (2nd main party temporarily in a minority), who are ready to form an alternative govt. when time arises. The process of parliamentary govt. will break down if there is absence of mutual tolerance. Meeting of the LOP with the Prime Minister/ Ministers, helps to remove barriers in parliamentary proceedings to reach on constructive solutions. LOP with the helps of other opposition members demands debates, watches for encroachment on the rights if minorities.
• LOP can develop his own proposals and policies without the power to implement them.
• In India LOP on Lower House and the Counsel of States are accorded statutory recognition. Recommendation of PAGE committee suggest that the leader of the largest recognised opposition party should be recognised as the LOP.

Role of opposition in various parliamentary committees:

1- Public Accounts Committee : is a committee of elected members of parliament to check expenditures bill and the Audit report of CAG after it is laid in the Parliament. PAC consists of not more than 22 members. PAC is headed by the LOP. Presently Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary is chairperson of PAC.

2- Standing Committees : is a committee consisting of MPs. These committees constituted as per "Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business" of Parliament. Members of opposition who are nominated in these committees give their contribution via raising issues related to general public and good,

3- Ad-hoc committees : are formed for specific purpose such as Select and Joint Committees on Bills.

Measures to strengthen role of opposition in enriching democracy :

1- Provisions related to give right to hold ruling party accountable instead of having to resort to disruptions of the house may introduce in rules for conduct of business in the Parliament.

2- There should be provisions to answer every question of the opposition's parties,

3- "Opposition days" is a parliamentary oversight mechanism under which certain days has to be allotted for the opposition parties to set the agenda of the house.

4- Presently Parliamentary time is controlled by ruling party which, as a rule, does not give sufficient time for opposition to seek matters of public importance.

Conclusion:

Functional parliamentary democracy completely depends upon political maturity of the elected representatives which make check and balances on the Executive and Legislature, and also fixed the accountability of the executive to improve the governance. In India as a parliamentary democracy a strong opposition is indispensable in a modern democracy.

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Muhammad Akhtar Rind

Sebnem Cansun

This study investigates the bibliometric characteristics of publications on democracy in Turkey, a country arguably having recently gone through a particular democratic backsliding. Focusing on SSCI and A&HCI between 1980 and 2019, a total of 691 publications were found: articles (83.79%) and book reviews (11.43%), with a particular increase of publications starting with the late 2000s. Most of the publications were written in English (95%), under the research category of Political Science. Turkish Studies was the journal where most of the publications appeared. The phrases that were mostly used within abstracts were the Justice and Development Party, the European Union, the Middle East, and democracy in Turkey. The results show that publications on democracy tend to appear mostly in regionally focused journals, be written mostly in the Political Science research category and in English, highlight the contemporary democratic advances and deficiencies of the countries, and be mostly within comparative frameworks. Öz Bu çalışma, son zamanlarda özel bir demokratik gerileme geçirdiği iddia edilen ülke Türkiye'de, demokrasi üzerine yayınların bibliyometrik niteliklerini incelemektedir. SSCI ve A&HCI'de 1980 ile 2019 arasında toplam 691 yayın bulunmuştur: makaleler (%83,79) ve kitap incelemeleri (%11,43) 2000'lerin sonunda özel bir artış göstermektedir. Yayınların çoğu İngilizce (%95), Siyaset Bilimi, araştırma kategorisinde yazılmıştır. En çok yayının basıldığı dergi Turkish Studies'dir. Yayın özetlerinde en sık kullanılan ibareler Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, Avrupa Birliği, Ortadoğu ve Türkiye'de demokrasi'dir. Sonuçlar, demokrasi üzerine yayınların ağırlıkla bölgesel odaklı dergilerde çıktığını, çoğunlukla Siyaset Bilimi araştırma kategorisinde ve İngilizce yazıldığını, ülkelerin güncel demokratik ilerleme ve eksikliklerine dikkat çektiğini ve özellikle karşılaştırmalı çerçevede olduğunu göstermektedir.

Nathalie Brack

JWP (Jurnal Wacana Politik)

Muhammad Syaifuddin

Politics is a discipline of science that is part of social science. What distinguishes political science from other social sciences is the object studied. The development of research on the theory of political science and politics becomes a question in this paper. Topic mapping and topic classification based on keywords, countries, and themes discussed were the main focus of this research, including visual density based on keywords, showing the level of saturation political science theory. In this study, the data used were data that had been downloaded from the Scopus database with several limitations to limit and be more specific to the results of the discussion. After the documents to be reviewed and analyzed are bibliographical using the VOSViewer and NVivo 12 Plus software, the data is exported .CSV and .RIS formats. This study aims to provide insights into subsequent research on the theory of political science

DEMOCRACIES UNDER PRESSURE A GLOBAL SURVEY (VOLUME I)

Dominique Reynie

The idea of democracy has revolutionized the world. It is based on a political order whose main feature is makingtheexercise ofpower subjectto theconsent ofthe governed. SinceitsancientandgloriousAthenian roots, the idea has spread across land and sea. The EnglishBill of Rights in 1689, the United States Constitution in 1787, and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1789 marked the arrival of political freedom in the world with distinction. It spread across Europe in the 19th century, powering nations with the emancipating force of the peoples’ right to self-determination. During the 20th century it triumphed over modern tyrannies, repelling fascist regimes, the Nazis and their allies, then defeating communism after a Cold War that ended with the collapse of the USSR, defeated economically, technologically, politically and morally. During this same period, the world also embarked on a new phase of democratization. In 1970s Europe, the Greeks, Portuguese and Spaniards overthrew their military dictatorships. In Latin America in the 1980s, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil went through the same experience. Then, on the Old Continent during the 1990s, it was Central and Eastern Europe’s turn. In 1992, a symbolic milestone was reached: more than half of the world’s States were democracies. The world was becoming democratic. The wave lasted until the beginning of the 21st century, with the number of democratic states doubling between the late 1970s and the early 2000s. However, as we enter the 21st century, the horizon looks darker. In the 2019 edition of its annual report Freedom in the World, the NGO Freedom House expressed concern over “global declines in political rights and civil liberties for an alarming 13 consecutive years, from 2005 to 2018. The global average score has declined each year, and countries with net score declines have consistently outnumbered those with net improvements”. Today it is no longer simply a question of strengthening the democratic process where it is still fragile, in Liberia, Uganda or Tunisia, but also of helping regain democratic momentum where countries have slid back, in South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia and encouraging progress where it can be seen, in Ethiopia, Angola, Armenia, Malaysia or Ecuador. It is now a question of protecting, or even defending, established democracies. This is the case for the countries that emerged from the post-Soviet democratic transition that seem to be tempted down a backwards path, an authoritarian transition feared throughout Europe, advocating for a paradoxical model at once democratic and “illiberal”. The wave of populist elections is weakening the European Union. Here we do not see the traditional political, economic and social factors that have always threatened the solidity of the democratic world, such as growth, employment and the educational system. These are challenges that must be faced time and time again. Rather, under the emerging concerns, the media has been disrupted by social media, where the best and the worst of humanity exist side by side. How can we keep the democratic discussion alive if the truth is to lose its mediating power, if opinions and debates are constantly oversimplified and radicalized, if the legitimacy of journalism is no longer recognized? From now on, not just election campaigns but also electoral processes themselves are likely to be seriously disrupted by new forms of public debate. The heart of democracy is under threat. This moment of doubt is also the product of the forces unleashed by globalization. A paradoxical triumph of the West, globalization destabilizes democracies while offering unprecedented opportunities for development and expansion to new powers. Among these is China, which is no longer hiding its ambition to dominate the 21st century. It is increasingly powerful both economically and technologically. In the strategic field of artificial intelligence and biotechnology, it is fighting for the leading position. But China achieves these stunning successes without renouncing its authoritarian system, or even the hegemony of the Chinese Communist Party, by building a state model that could be described as “high-tech totalitarianism,” ready to export its concepts, methods, and tools. For the first time since its creation, democracy is no longer certain of inspiring the world. It is in this new and troubled context that we wanted to bring together our two institutions: on the one hand, the Fondation pour l’innovation politique, a French think tank committed to defending the values of freedom and progress and the ideals of the European Union; on the other, the International Republican Institute, an American organization that promotes democracy worldwide. Our two organizations were pleased to welcome the Brazilian think tank República do Amanhã into this partnership in order to carry out this international study, conducted in forty-two democracies, presented here under the title Democracies Under Pressure. The document is comprised of two volumes: the first is devoted to themes and issues, such as trust in institutions, support for the model of representative democracy, support for abortion or the death penalty, the decline of democratic values among younger generations, etc.; the second volume is dedicated to the forty-two countries of the survey, offering a fact sheet for each that summarizes the state of national public opinion. We also present the reader with an “Index of Democratic Culture”.

Global quality of democracy as innovation enabler: measuring democracy for success

Alexander Chvorostov

A fresh monograph of an Austrian and American political scientist Prof. David F. J. Campbell "Global Quality of Democracy as Innovation Enabler" (Campbell 2019) is a comprehensive and conceptual summarizing theoretical and empirical study. The book is published within Palgrave Macmillan series "Studies in Democracy: Innovation and entrepreneurship for growth" and scrutinizes the meanings and tangible manifestations of democracy as a societal trend and mode of political, social and economics regimes in 160 countries worldwide (whether democratic or non-democratic ones) for the period of 2002-2016. The author interprets democracy as a continuum of social, political and economic modus vivendi and modus operandi of contemporary societies along various societal axes and suggests a theoretical matrix and a data-driven framework that allows consistent crosscountry as well as cross-regional comparisons. "Democracies", "semi-democracies" and "non-democracies" are thoroughly analysed in terms of their factual functionality in such areas as social equality, economic and political freedom, sustainability of development and self-organization. David Campbell comes to a conclusion that there exist and co-exist a magnitude of patterns of regimes with various degrees of democratic features and the related modes of securing societal, economic and ecological sustainability. Furthermore, concludes the author, the raising quality of life can be functionally secured also under conditions of "limited" democracy or in non-democratic regimes. At the same time, however, in the post-industrial mode of development, when knowledge becomes a main driver of growth and sustainability, only the countries with prevailing democratic trends along all societal axes would become true winners in the global competition. The latter is exemplified, inter alia, by 35 OECD member countries. David Campbell follows rather a positivist approach that assumes a fact-based investigation and systematic observations using the empirical data. However, a solid theoretical background was elaborated in order to construct a conceptual framework of the matrix for the subsequent and systematic empirical analysis. As a result of the profound and critical theory reviews, the sound empirical data mining and the modelling of a comprehensive analytical matrix, the book can be seen as an unprecedented compendium of up-to-date knowledge about the structural dynamics of modern polities. It provides a reader with clear methodological apparatus, reliable and verifiable data and a wide palette of possible interpretations of yielded data-driven outcomes. In the suggested model, the main components of any political regime that can be empirically measured are (1) the degrees of freedom, were one distinguishes economic and political freedoms; (2) social equality exemplified by income and gender (in-) equalities; (3) control by the government and of the government; (4) sustainability of development measured through the redesigned Human Development Index, Gini index, rate of CO 2 emissions and GDP per capita; (5) political self-organization of a society understood as government-opposition cycles (pp.40-41).

Mathieu Bortot

A comprehensive and integrated framework for the analysis of data is offered and used to assess data sets on democracy. The framework first distinguishes among three challenges that are sequentially addressed: conceptualization, measurement, and aggregation. In turn, it specifies distinct tasks associated with these challenges and the standards of assessment that pertain to each task. This framework is applied to the data sets on democracy most frequently used in current statistical research, generating a systematic evaluation of these data sets. The authors' conclusion is that constructors of democracy indices tend to be quite self-conscious about method-ological issues but that even the best indices suffer from important weaknesses. More constructively, the article's assessment of existing data sets on democracy identifies distinct areas in which attempts to improve the quality of data on democracy might fruitfully be focused. T he study of democracy—a core concern within comparative politics and international relations—increasingly has drawn on sophisticated statistical methods of causal inference. This is a welcome development, and the contributions of this quantitative literature are significant. However, with a few notable exceptions, 1 quantitative researchers have paid sparse attention to the quality of the data on democracy that they analyze. Indeed, the assessments that have been carried out are usually restricted to fairly informal discussions of alternative data sets and somewhat superficial examinations of 5 AUTHORS' NOTE: We would like to thank

Communications in Humanities and Social Sciences

Iqbal Rasyad

This article analyzes the trend of international publications related to the Muslim Brotherhood using the Scopus database. This study aims to determine the publication trends by region, subject area of publication, type of publication, number of documents for each author, and number of papers for each university. The data collected by the authors were taken from the search results in the Scopus database with a combination of the keywords &quot;Ikhwanul Muslimin or Muslim Brotherhood&quot; with the categories of article titles, article abstracts, and article keywords in the publication period of 1954 - 2023. Based on this search, the authors found 738 scientific publication documents related to the Muslim Brotherhood. The studies conducted in 2023 were 17 publications, and the highest number found by the authors was 69 scientific publications (9.3%) in 2016. The United States became the most productive country or region in scientific publications with 175 papers (23.7%). The most pro...

DANY FLAVIO TONELLI

Interdisciplinary Political Studies, Vol. 1, No …

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Essay on “The Role of Opposition in Democracy ” Complete Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

The Role of Opposition in Democracy 

Democracy is the government of people, by the people and for the people. It is the most common form of the government in this world. In democracy, the opposition has a great role to play. In a parliamentary system of government the party or the group of parties commanding majority forms the government and remains in power as long as it enjoys the confidence of popularly-elected house. Regarding seating arrangement, the house is divided into two wings. On the right-hand side of the speaker the ruling party or the parties are allotted seats and in parliamentary terminology these are called as treasury benches. While on the left-hand side of the speaker, the Opposition party members or parties are allotted seats. Parties and group on either side have their own elected leaders. The Prime Minister is also the leader of the House, while the leader of the largest Opposition party enjoys the status of the leader of the Opposition in the House. The leader of opposition often raises the issue with the government, when he finds the government is not functional as per the will of the people. The government is free to determine the policies and programmes and make decision, so long as it retains power that is again subject to the approval of the House in a prescribed manner.

The Opposition parties play a very significant role in a democracy as representatives of the people who have returned them to the House to safeguard their interests. With this view, they criticise government in case the later ignores them or conceal facts and they resort to protestation in the House and at the public level. It counts very much for awareness among the people over the specific issues of national importance and raises levels of political consciousness among them. However, sometime, just for the sake of opposition the opposition even criticizes the right policy of the government. This proves very harmful for the democracy.

The opposition act as watch dog’ a of the system. In such countries where there is a two-party system in vogue, the Opposition party forms a ‘shadow cabinet’ to exercise vigil over the performance of the government. This is more true in case of United Kingdom. Two-Party system is also in vogue in United States of America. Since there is no parliamentary system of government, the Opposition party in the House of Representatives of the US Congress (the lower House of the Parliament) forms as many committees as the ruling party does and present their views over the policies and performance of the US administration in National and International Affairs before the official committees. Joint committees are also formed on important subjects or issues.

In countries where there is multiparty system in vogue, including India, the Opposition parties try to cooperate among themselves over particular issues. Arbitrary and despotic behaviour of the government is checked by the Opposition parties demanding information and debate in the House. It is the Opposition in the Parliament that has a very important role of check and balance to play in the larger public interest and correct democratic practices.

Members of the Opposition parties are also included in the various committees attached to the respective ministries. All the measures of the government connected with the respective ministries are discussed and finalized by them. The Opposition plays a significant role in it through its recommendations.

Therefore, in shaping of the legislative measures, the Opposition has a say, or at least influences it. Still, if their recommendations are ignored, they have another chance when the Bill is introduced in the House and debated.

Opposition in Parliament enjoys a good status and the members of the House has a privilege of raising such issues that are more relevant to the cause of public; particularly when the government overlooks them or conceals the facts related to them. It is very clear, therefore, that the role of Opposition parties is more vital to the healthy growth of democracy and in the larger public interest.

In extreme cases of confrontation, if the government is all powerful to crush the Opposition, the later is potent enough to make a stir against the former and force them to exit by means of mass movement and agitation. Only then they can save the democracy. Plato has rightly said, “The punishment of wise man who refuse to take part in the affairs of the government, is to live under the government of unwise men.”

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Policy Brief 45: What is the Role of Opposition Parties in Developing Democracies

By William Gumede

The role of opposition parties is critical in determining the level of accountability by governing parties and governments, the effectiveness of public service delivery and the overall quality of a country’s democracy.

Opposition parties provide alternative visions, policies, and leaders to the governing party. They scrutinise government decisions, policies, and actions – and play oversight over the Executive and the public administration. They defend the voters’ interests – not only their constituencies but all the country’s voters.

Opposition parties’ ability to show the electorate they are credible alternative governments is crucial to the credibility of the democratic system. A democratic system is significantly undermined if the opposition does not offer any credible alternatives to the governing party, is invisible in the public debate or does not have a public profile beyond during elections.

Without clear alternatives offered by opposition parties, a country cannot have constructive debates on policy options, the direction of the country and the future. In fact, the strength, effectiveness, and quality of a democracy largely depend on the opposition parties’ efficiency, relevance, and ability to credibly show they are ready to govern. This means the strength of the opposition in a country play a key role in the quality of democracy, effectiveness of the state and the levels of corruption.

In most Western democracies, opposition parties are accepted as part of the democracy. In fact, the presence of opposition parties is “highly institutionalised and surrounded with legal protections” (Dahl 1966).

Opposition parties are formally recognised, entitled to public resources, and has the freedom to criticise the sitting government, access the public media and organise openly (Dahl 1966; European Commission 2010). At the same time opposition parties must conduct their operations within the prescripts of the country Constitutions, laws, and parliamentary rules – and with integrity.

Opposition Party Role in Mature Democracies

Opposition parties in many mature democracies are well institutionalised (Arter and Kestila-Kekkonen 2014; Barbera and Barrio 2019; Harmel, Svasand and Mjelde 2018; Huntington 1968; Janda 1980; Randall and Svasand 2002). Institutionalised parties have well-developed organisational structures, deeply rooted in their constituency, with clear policies and ideologies and core followers who vote for the party, not just its current leadership.

The parliamentary systems of many mature democracies are influenced by the Westminster system – the parliamentary form originating in the British parliamentary system. In many Western democracies, the role of opposition parties is officially recognised as holding governments accountable (Dahl 1966; European Commission 2010).

In Western democracies, the role of the opposition parties is widely accepted to be one of questioning the governing party, holding its leaders and the Executive accountable and, more importantly, presenting themselves credibly as alternative governments and opposition party leaders as the country presidents in-waiting.

The opposition holds the Executive accountable by scrutinising government actions, decisions, and policies. The scrutiny of the Executive is conducted both in and outside Parliament. By playing an oversight role over the government, the opposition also ensures a separation of power between the Executive and the legislatures (Gregory 1990).

The role of the main opposition is often formalised. In Portugal, for example, there is a law formalising the role of the opposition (European Commission 2010). The leader of the opposition is also often formal position. They question the government’s decisions, policies, and actions. Their role is to play an oversight role over the government of the day.

Many mature democracies also have laws that protect opposition parties from prosecution, banning and dissolution by majority parties based on political motivations or from prosecuting individual public representations from oppositions for political reasons, whistleblowing and criticisms of the governing party or country leader.

Outside Parliament, opposition parties issue press statements, call press conferences, appear in interviews, and write opinions in the major media, expressing their views or criticisms of the governing party. Opposition parties have free access to the media – including public media. The opposition parties, therefore, build their identity as governments in waiting through engagements in the parliamentary processes and the media.

Entrenched Special Powers of the Opposition in Mature Democracies

In mature democracies, opposition parties scrutinise governing parties and leaders mainly through Parliament, using formal processes such as Question Time, Budget Debates, Parliamentary Replies and No Confidence Motions.

Parliamentary Rules of Procedure can formalise the oversight role of the opposition. In many Western democracies, country Constitutions stipulate that Parliamentary Rules of Procedure – which entrenches the role of protection of the opposition, can only be changed by two-thirds majorities. For example, the Swedish Constitution states that the Rules of Procedure can only be changed by a constitutional amendment or by a three-quarter majority (European Commission 2010). In some democracies, such as Germany and Turkey, allows for judicial review of Parliamentary Rules of Procedures, which disadvantages opposition parties (Laundy 1989; March and Olsen 1995).

Members of opposition parties are also part of parliamentary committees, where they scrutinise activities of the Executive, new policies and new laws coming from the governing party. The main opposition party appoint a shadow cabinet, with a shadow portfolio mimicking that of the governing party Cabinet. The opposition’s shadow Cabinet respond with alternative policies to that of the government. The opposition’s shadow Cabinet is the government in waiting when the governing party falters.

In some Western democracies, the opposition has special oversight powers. They can initiate inquiries into government conduct. In Norway, the one-third of the members of the Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Control can call for a public inquiry into government decisions, conduct or policies. In the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, only 20 MPs are required, out of 120 to call for public inquiries into government conduct, thus allowing the opposition, even if they are a small minority to hold government accountable and prevent governing party majorities steamrolling them (European Commission 2010).

In some mature democracies there is a provision for opposition parties to block certain majority parliamentary decisions, such as policies deemed to be of critical national interests – this is to prevent the majority party from using its majority to prioritise self-interest issues, rather than the broader public interest. In such cases, majority parties need a “qualified majority”, meaning they need a majority that is beyond a simple majority, usually two-thirds or three-quarter majority. Such “qualified majority” provisions are to ensure that majority secure a reasonable consensus with the opposition to change or introduce critical national interest policies, such as those impact on fundamental rights and freedoms. It is also another way to formally empower opposition parties.

In many mature democracies there is the possibility for opposition parties to take policies pushed through by majority governments for constitutional review. For this to be successful many mature democracies have often set low thresholds for the numbers of Parliamentary members that needed to be in favour for taking policies for constitutional review to empower the opposition to do so. In Germany, only one-quarter of MPs are required, in Austria one-third and in France 60 MPs out of the 577-member national assembly.

Opposition Parties in Africa and Developing Countries

However, in many African and developing countries opposition parties are often seen as the enemy by governing parties (Gumede 2017). They are deprived of public resources, access to public media and often prosecuted using supposedly democratic institutions, such as courts, police services and parliaments (Bulmer 2021; Melber 2007). This has been the case in countries as varied as Tanzania, Turkey to Malaysia (Robinson and Hoffman 2009; Wilks 2023; Mugabi 2023; Lemière 2020). Governing parties often do not consult the opposition on decisions, policies, and laws – or bring them into their confidence in matters of public interest.

In many African autocratic, military, and religious regimes opposition parties are banned. Not many African and developing countries have a political culture of tolerance for opposition parties, freedom of expression and a diversity of opinions. Many governing parties and leaders in Africa and developing countries prosecute, ban or dissolve opposition parties and leaders deemed critical of the ruling party and leader. In many African and developing ruling parties criminalise political opposition, freedom of expression and whistleblowing, prosecuting genuine democratic opposition as criminal activities.

In the most recent elections, including in Uganda, Tanzania and the Ivory Coast, as usual saw ruling parties and leaders harassed opposition parties and leaders, suppressed the media, civil society, and electoral oversight organisations and on occasion closed down the internet, social media networks and messaging services.

Opposition parties in African and developing countries have often been forced to take to the streets to protests government policies, as they are sidelined in Parliament and repressed outside it. More recently opposition parties, in countries such as South Africa, Kenya and Turkey, have increasingly used the courts to challenged governing party decisions that undermine democratic rights, freedoms and inclusive development.

In African countries governed by dominant liberation and independence movements, many citizens often vote for these movements based on their past anti-colonial and anti-apartheid roles, and not on based on the present performance (Bulmer 2021; Gumede 2017; Melber 2007).

In some African and developing countries, parties, both governing and opposition, are organised along ethnic, religious, or regional lines. Voting in such cases often become an ethnic, religious, or regional census, rather than for holding governing parties accountable for their performance in government.

There have been notable successes in some African and developing countries in building well-institutionalised, policy-focused, nationally inclusive with diversified leadership opposition parties. Brazil’s Workers’ Party (PT) is a former opposition party that institutionalise itself and gained power because of that. Seychelles Linyon Demokratik Seselwa, or Seychelles Democratic Alliance, has successfully institutionalise itself when it was an opposition party, and subsequently won power in 2021.

In Cape Verde, the Movement for Democracy, also transformed itself into an institutionalised party with proper structures, coherent policies, and a crop of leaders, and eventually secured power. In Zambia, trade union leader Frederick Chiluba in early 1990s established the Movement for Multi-party Democracy in alliance with trade unions and civil society and was elected into power.

In Zimbabwe the Movement for Democratic Change similarly like Zambia’s Movement for Multi-party Democracy also formed a movement-party, by setting up branches across the country, prioritising ethnic inclusivity and partnering with civil society and community groups. The MDC was cheated out of an electoral victory by the governing Zanu-PF. Crucially, all these opposition parties build movement parties with branches across the country, targeting voters across ethnical and regional lines and allying with civil society and community groups to build party movements (Gumede 2017).

In South Africa, the Democratic Alliance, Economic Freedom Fighters and more recently ActionSouth Africa appear to be prioritising setting up branches, affiliate organisations and specialist policy structures. In Zimbabwe, the Citizens Coalition for Change has been working to institutionalise its organisation, structures, and policies.

Nevertheless, the challenges for opposition parties are therefore often starkly different in many African and developing countries than in Western and mature democracies.

Role of Opposition Parties in African and Developing Countries Dominated by former Liberation and Independence Movements

Liberation and independence movement parties which govern many African and developing countries are often well institutionalised (Gumede 2017). They have well-defined structures – branches, affiliates, and election machinery. They also have strong ideologies, deep roots in society and support based on their past record in struggles for independence and liberation. In some cases, opposition political parties which also fought in the independence or liberation struggle, or which were aligned with former colonial and apartheid powers are also well institutionalised (Gumede 2017).

In many cases opposition parties in Africa are poorly institutionalised, set up mostly as business vehicles by their leaders, with no clear policies. Many African and developing country oppositions parties do not have well-developed policy-making institutions so they do not constantly work on policy development.

The big challenge for many opposition parties in African and developing countries is that they often do not credibly present themselves as alternative governments and country presidents, and do not speak directly, and regularly, to solutions to the critical issues of their countries.

Many lack a Shadow Government structure, which allocate portfolios to their leaders in line with that of the governing party – and could help them better serve their role as government-in-waiting.

Many opposition parties in African and developing countries do not build lasting structures such as branches, organisational structures, and affiliates. When leaders leave, many such poorly institutionalised parties often also whither. Furthermore, for long stretches between elections, many opposition parties appear to be in hibernation, Rip van Winkel-like, only to appear during the election or by-election campaigns.

It is crucial that opposition parties in African and developing countries institutionalise themselves: establish branches, set up organisational structures and come up with credible policies. They have to recruit members, volunteers, and supporters. They will also have to nurture a cadre of leaders, rather than organising themselves around one supreme leader. Opposition parties must also become more ethnically, religiously, and nationally inclusive, to become fully representative of their diverse societies, rather than ethnic, religious, or regionally-focused.

Many African and developing countries solely oppose governing parties through rebutting government policies through the parliamentary, provincial legislature and municipal council debates. This partially fits into the Westminster Parliamentary style of opposition party scrutinising governing party policies and the administration through Question Time, Budget Votes, and No Confidence Motions. This not necessarily wrong.

However, to oppose liberation and independence movement parties, demands opposition movement style politics, which is different to that practice in Western democracies.

In movement style opposition, large parts of happens outside Parliament, provincial legislatures, and municipal councils. They happen directly in communities. Movement style politics are not like Westminster style politics, it is where political parties almost operate like civil society organisations, supporting their supporters and potential supporters at the coalface of service delivery failures, even if they are not the governing party there.

This means the opposition parties must be seen day and night in the communities responding to areas where there is no public service delivery failures, violence, and corruption – standing with the victims, articulating their policies plainly on the hustings, in real time, with the real people, not only through the mediation of Parliaments and municipal council debating chambers, as important these may be for democracy.

Effective opposition parties should operate in election mode 24/7, responding to government decisions, service delivery points and incidents of public corruption in real-time. If one put aside the repression by governing parties of oppositions parties, many of Africa’s opposition have in the main failed to establish identities as credible alternative governments – and their leaders, as alternative state presidents, in waiting.

Institutionalising Opposition Parties in African and Developing Countries

It is critical that African and developing countries institutionalise opposition parties. The first is for countries to legally guarantee the rights of opposition parties – to allow them the space to oppose, to participate freely in Parliamentary and Extra-Parliamentary politics and to be involved in co-governing. Giving opposition parties legal protection through regulation may be critical to entrench the normalising of opposition, induce a culture of tolerance and allowed unfettered participation by opposition parties in the political life of societies that come from autocratic traditions and are struggling to develop democratic cultures.

There has to be a high threshold for such regulations – not just a simple majority vote, but at least two-thirds majority vote, before any governing party can remove the legal protection for opposition parties (European Commission 2010).

In many African and developing country democracies country Constitutions are often not taken seriously by governing parties – or are contested either by traditional, religious, military and liberation movement cultures. So even if country Constitutions’ guarantee the democratic exercise of state power and the multiparty politics, the ruling parties and leaders can still flout it to repress the opposition.

African and developing countries should adopt rules that allows for proportional allocations of speaking time in Parliament, appointing to committees and allocation of budgets to opposition parties. There could be formal rules that critical committees, such as the Parliamentary Finance Committees or Public Accounts Committees should be chaired by opposition parties. This is the case in Norway, where Parliament’s standing Committee on Finance is by tradition chaired by an opposition party member (European Commission 2010). In SA, the Parliamentary Accounts Committee has in recent times been chaired by an opposition party member (Gumede 2005).

Developing democracies should also consider introducing Parliamentary rules that give opposition parties elevated powers to hold the majority governing party to account. For example, they could introduce rules that allow say a quarter or a third of MPs to be able to call for inquiries into misgovernance – and so allow opposition parties to be able to hold the Executive to account without governing party MPs using their sheer numbers to block oversight.

Developing democracies should consider introducing “qualified majority” voting in Parliaments when it comes to constitutional amendments, changes to fundamental rights and freedoms, to prevent majority parties from using their majorities to take rights away from citizens. Such “qualified majority” provisions could be two-thirds, or three-quarters of the fifth-sixth majority vote requirements.

Developing countries should also introduce legal protection for opposition parties: laws that protect opposition parties from prosecution, banning and dissolution by majority parties based on political motivations or from prosecuting individual public representations from oppositions for political reasons, whistleblowing and for criticisms of the governing party or country leader. Obviously, genuine criminal activities should be prosecuted – and there cannot be parliamentary immunity from criminal acts. Nevertheless, opposition parties must conduct their operations within the prescripts of the country’s Constitutions, laws, and parliamentary rules – and with integrity.

Claude Ake (1996) Development and Democracy in Africa . Brookings, New York.

Arter, D. & Kestila-Kekkonen, E. (2014). “Measuring the extent of party institutionalisation: the case of a populist entrepreneur party”, West European Politics, Vol 37(5), pp. 932-956

Barbera, O. & Barrio, A. (2019) “Podemos’ and Ciudadanos’ multi-level institutionalisation challenges”, Zeitschrift fur Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft , Vol 13 (2), pp. 249-272.

Elliot Bulmer (2021) “Opposition and Legislative Minorities: Constitutional Roles, Rights and Recognition”, Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), July 9

https://www.idea.int/sites/default/files/publications/opposition-and-legislative-minorities-constitutional-roles-rights-recognition.pdf

Michael Chege (1995) “Democracy’s Future: Between Africa’s Extremes. Journal of Democracy , Vol 6 (1), pp. 52-64

https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/authors/michael-chege/

Michael Chege, Afrifa K. Gitonga, and Walter Oyugi (1988) Democratic Theory & Practice in Africa . Heinemann.

Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and Commonwealth Secretariat (1998) “The Role of the Opposition”, CPA Workshop, Marlborough House, London, June.

Robert Dahl (ed.) (1966) Political Oppositions in Western Democracies. Yale University Press.

Arthur Donahoe (1999) “The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in the 21 st Century”, Speech Delivered at the 38 th Canadian Regional Conference of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, August, Quebec City.

http://www.revparl.ca/english/issue.asp?param=75&art=172

European Commission (2010) “Report on the Role of the Opposition in a Democratic Parliament”, European Commission for Democracy Through Law (Venice Commission), Study no. 497/2008 CDL-AD (2010)025, Strasbourg, November 15.

Roy Gregory (1990) “Parliamentary Control and the Use of English”, Parliamentary Affairs , Vol 43 (1), pp. 59-76

William Gumede (2017) “The Democracy Deficit of Africa’s Liberation Movements Turned Governments”, Politikon, Vol 44 (1) pp. 27-48.

William Gumede (2005) Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC . Penguin Random House.

Harmel, R., Svasand, L.G. & Mjelde, H. (2018) Institutionalisation (and De-institutionalisation) of right-wing protest parties: The Progress parties in Denmark and Norway , Rowman & Littlefield, ECPR Press, London.

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Philip Laundy (1989) Parliaments in the Modern World , Dartmouth

Sophie Lemière (2020) “The never-ending political game of Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohamad”, Brookings, October 30.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-never-ending-political-game-of-malaysias-mahathir-mohamad/

James G. March and Johan P. Olsen (1995) Democratic Governance , Free Press

Henning Melber (ed) (2007) Political Opposition in African Countries: The Cases of Kenya, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, Discussion Paper 37, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala.

Isaac Mugabi (2023) “Tanzanian president ends ban on opposition rallies”, Deutsche Welle, January 6.

https://www.dw.com/en/tanzania-president-samia-suluhu-hassan-scraps-opposition-meeting-ban-imposed-by-magufuli/a-64303922

Randall, V. and Svasand, L. (2002) “Party institutionalisation in new democracies, Party Politics , Vol 8 (1), pp. 5-29.

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Andrew Wilks (2023) “Turkey’s opposition denounces fairness of vote under Erdogan”, Associated Press, Istanbul, May 8.

https://apnews.com/article/turkey-elections-opposition-43f8d2c0aba17958c8e7123cf39eeabf

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Role of Opposition

Last modified on August 31st, 2023 at 11:54 am

Tags: Constitution & Polity of India GS Paper 2 Union Legislature

Context: There is a consistent effort by the opposition parties in India to build unity but has failed in past two general elections.

The topic of the role of opposition in Indian democracy holds significant relevance for the UPSC CSE (Civil Services Examination) preparation as it is directly connected to the syllabus of GS Paper II (Parliament: Issues and Challenges). Understanding the functions and challenges faced by the opposition in a democratic system is essential for aspirants to have a comprehensive understanding of the functioning of the Indian polity.

The main parts of this article will delve into the crucial role played by the opposition in a democracy, the factors that hinder the growth of a robust opposition in India. Furthermore, the article will discuss the issue of formally recognizing opposition parties and the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha under the Salary and Allowances of Leaders of Opposition in Parliament Act, 1977 , and the implications of not recognizing the leader of the largest opposition party in the 16th Lok Sabha. The article will highlight the need to revisit this matter in the context of the 17th Lok Sabha , which witnessed a fiercely fought election and a decisive victory for the ruling alliance.

The crucial role played by the opposition in a democracy

In the context of Indian democracy, the opposition plays a crucial role as a check and balance on the ruling party or coalition. According to the principles of political science, the opposition serves as an important component of the democratic system, providing a counterforce to the government and serving as the voice of dissent and alternative policy proposals.

• The opposition acts as a “loyal opposition” by holding the government accountable for its actions, policies, and decisions. This involves engaging in constructive criticism, raising questions, and demanding transparency and accountability from the ruling party. The opposition plays a vital role in scrutinizing the government’s actions and policies to ensure that they are in the best interest of the people and in line with democratic norms and principles.
• The opposition serves as a “watchdog ” by monitoring and critiquing the performance of the government. Through parliamentary debates, discussions, and other forums, the opposition brings attention to any shortcomings, failures, or irregularities in the government’s actions, policies, and implementation. This helps in maintaining transparency, integrity, and effectiveness in governance.
• The opposition acts as a “representative of diverse voices” by providing a platform for marginalized or underrepresented groups to voice their concerns and opinions. The opposition often represents different ideologies, interests, and perspectives, providing a forum for deliberation and debate on various issues affecting society. This helps in promoting inclusivity, diversity, and representation in the decision-making process.
• Th e opposition also plays a crucial role in “ensuring a competitive political environment” by offering an alternative vision and policy proposals to the ruling party. It acts as a catalyst for healthy competition, which is essential for a vibrant and dynamic democracy. The opposition also serves as a “potential alternative government” by presenting itself as a credible option to the ruling party, providing choices to the electorate during elections.

Hence we can see that the role of the opposition in Indian democracy, as per political science principles, includes holding the government accountable, acting as a watchdog, representing diverse voices, promoting competition, and offering alternative policy proposals. It serves as a crucial check and balance on the ruling party, contributing to the functioning and health of the democratic system.

Currently, we have a weak and divided opposition. Even Supreme Court Chief Justice NV Ramana recently lamented, “There used to be mutual respect between the government and Opposition. Unfortunately, the space for Opposition is now diminishing.” Some feel that the secret weapon

Factors that Hinder Growth of Robust Opposition

India is unable to produce robust Opposition parties or leaders due to several features of its system of government. At least six fundamental problems come to mind:

• By design, and in the name of efficiency, the parliamentary system keeps the Opposition toothless. It can make speeches, ask questions in Parliament, or walk out. 
• But it cannot pass legislation, affect government programmes, or influence executive officials. This makes the members of the Opposition useless to their constituents. Within a short while, they begin to lose support.
• Second, our system grants power to parties, not to individual MPs. This causes fragmentation of the Opposition. Ambitious Opposition leaders must form their own outfits to bargain with the ruling party and come to power. Small local and regional parties proliferate.
• Third, India’ s system impairs the Opposition by driving them to vote banks and extremism . To stay relevant and avoid breakups, parties begin to represent one special interest, caste, or religion. They inflame the feelings of their constituents, make outrageous promises, and breed hatred of other groups. Since in the parliamentary system, there are no nationwide elections, parties don’t have to come together on a centrist programme.
• Fourth, our system also doesn’t help Opposition parties acquire good leaders or become strong organisations . Most parties stay small due to the reasons cited above, and thus remain one-man shows.
• Fifth, our system doesn’t provide Opposition parties with institutions to hone their skills. Unlike the UK, India’s Opposition is not offered a shadow Cabinet, or opportunities to pass private member bills. So the Opposition always lacks an agenda, and its members become party hacks adept only at bluster.
• And last but perhaps worst, India’s system allows the ruling party to scare the Opposition into submission. The use of the CBI, tax, and other government agencies against Opposition leaders is commonplace. This harms their reputation and scares good people away from politics.

Lok Sabha under the Salary and Allowances of Leaders of Opposition in Parliament Act, 1977

• After the election of the Lok Sabha Speaker, the question of a formally recognised Opposition party and Leader of the Opposition (LoP) of the Lok Sabha under the Salary and Allowances of Leaders of Opposition in Parliament Act, 1977, will arise. 
• The Act extends to LoPs in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha the same official status, allowances and perks that are admissible to Cabinet Ministers. In the case of the Lok Sabha, however, this is subject to recognition of the leader by the Speaker. In the 16th Lok Sabha, the largest party in the Opposition, the Congress, had 44 seats. After careful consideration, it was decided not to recognize the party’s leader as LoP. Now, the matter needs to be revisited in the context of the 17th Lok Sabha.
• The election to the 17th Lok Sabha was the most fiercely and bitterly fought one in the history of the Republic. The decisive victory of the ruling alliance and its leadership has been widely welcomed as being in the best interests of the polity and the people. Above everything, the nation needs a stable government and a strong leader capable of taking firm decisions to ensure security, development and good governance within the rule of law. 
• However, for the success and survival of democracy, an effective Opposition is also a categorical imperative. It is said that if no Opposition exists, one may have to be created. Also, if there is no Opposition outside, there is every danger that it may grow within.

Leaders of Opposition over time

• The 1977 Act defines LoP as that member of the House who is the “Leader in that House of the party in opposition to the Government having the greatest numerical strength and recognised as such by the Chairman of the Council of States or the Speaker of the House of the People, as the case may be.” 
• The Speaker’s decisions in this regard have so far been determined by Direction 121(c) which laid down one of the conditions for recognition of party or group as having “at least a strength equal to the quorum fixed to constitute a sitting of the House, that is one-tenth of the total number of members of the House” . 
• The Leaders and Chief Whips of Recognised Parties and Groups in Parliament (Facilities) Act, 1998 also refers to a recognised party in the Lok Sabha as a party that has not less than 55 members.

The Speaker’s discretion

• Since there is no constitutional provision, the 1977 law does not provide for the requirement of 55 members as an essential pre-requisite. As it all depends on the Speaker’s directions and discretion, it may be hoped that rightful action will be taken. The simple way out is to substitute ‘pre-poll alliance’ for ‘party’ or say ‘party or pre-poll alliance’. In any case, pre-poll alliances are a fact of our political life and are already being extended credibility and legitimacy in the matter of the President and Governors deciding on who to call first for forming the government in cases where no party secures a clear majority support in the House.
• Incidentally, what is decided in the matter of recognition of the LoP, and in treating pre-poll alliances at par with parties, may hold tremendous potential for the growth of a sound two- or three-party (or alliance) system. It could end the present system, a preposterous one, of more than 2,000 parties being registered with the Election Commission. If and when the much-awaited law for political parties is enacted, it may provide for candidates of an alliance contesting on a common symbol and an agreed common minimum programme with only national alliances or parties contesting for the Lok Sabha. These aspects, however, call for separate in-depth analysis, consideration and debate.

In conclusion, the role of the opposition in Indian democracy is of paramount importance in ensuring a healthy and functioning democratic system. The opposition acts as a check and balance on the ruling party, holding the government accountable, acting as a watchdog, representing diverse voices, promoting competition, and offering alternative policy proposals. However, there are several factors that hinder the growth of a robust opposition in India, including the lack of power, fragmentation, reliance on vote banks, absence of strong leaders and institutions, and the use of government agencies against the opposition.

The issue of formally recognizing opposition parties and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha under the Salary and Allowances of Leaders of Opposition in Parliament Act, 1977 is a matter of significance. The absence of a recognized leader of the opposition can weaken the functioning of the parliamentary system and diminish the space for dissent and accountability. In light of the challenges faced by the opposition in India, there is a need to revisit this matter in the context of the 17th Lok Sabha, which has witnessed a fiercely fought election and a decisive victory for the ruling alliance.

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Explain the role of the Opposition Party in a democracy.

1. the success of the democracy depends to a great extend on the constructive role of the opposition parties. 2. in every democracy all the parties cannot get majority seats all the time in the parliament. 3. the parties which do not get majority seats are called opposition parties. 4. the party which gets majority seats in the lok sabha next to the ruling party is called the recognised opposition party. the leader of the opposition party enjoys some privileges equivalent to that of a cabinet minister. 5. all the powers mentioned in the constitution are exercised by the ruling party. the opposition party also functions in an effective manner, and their work is no less important than that of the ruling parties. functions of opposition party (1) to check the government from becoming authoritarian and to restrict its powers, the opposition parties keep a watch over them. (2) the main duty of the opposition party is to criticize the policies of the government. (3) outside the legislature the opposition parties attract the attention of the press and report their criticism of the government policy in the news papers. (4) the opposition parties have the right to check the expenditure of the government also. (5) during the question hour, the opposition parties criticism the government generally.

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Role Of The Opposition Party In Democracy

In a democratic system, the opposition party plays a vital role in the functioning of the government. The opposition party also referred to as the minority party, is an essential component of any democratic society as it acts as a check and balance on the ruling party or government. The opposition party provides an alternate viewpoint, scrutinizes and challenges the ruling party’s policies, and holds them accountable for their actions. The role of the opposition party is crucial for maintaining a healthy and functioning democracy, as it ensures that the government is constantly being challenged and that alternative viewpoints and policies are being presented to the public. This article will discuss in detail the role, functions, strengths, and weaknesses of the opposition party in a democracy, highlighting the importance of its presence in a democratic system.

Importance of Opposition Party

The importance of the opposition party in a democracy cannot be overstated. They play a crucial role in ensuring that the government is held accountable for its actions and policies. The opposition party acts as a counterbalance to the ruling party, providing an alternate viewpoint and challenging the government’s policies and actions.

• One of the most important functions of the opposition party is to act as a watchdog, monitoring the government’s actions and highlighting any issues or problems that may arise. This helps to ensure that the government is always working in the best interests of the people and that any issues or problems are addressed. This is essential for maintaining the trust and confidence of the people in the government and democratic institutions.
• The opposition party also provides a vital role in the democratic process by presenting alternative policies and proposals to those of the government. This allows the public to have a choice and a voice in the political process and ensures that the government is responsive to the needs and concerns of the people.
• Additionally, the opposition party plays an important role in fostering a healthy and robust political discourse. They provide an alternative perspective and challenge the ruling party’s policies and actions, leading to a more informed and engaged public. This is essential for the functioning of democracy as it allows for a free exchange of ideas, and helps to prevent the ruling party from becoming too entrenched and entrenched in power.
• Furthermore, opposition parties serve as a safeguard against abuses of power and authoritarian tendencies. They are the ones who will point out the wrongdoings of the government and will provide a barrier against the government becoming too powerful and oppressive. This is essential for maintaining democracy as it ensures that the government is always held accountable for its actions and policies.

Role of the Leader of the Opposition Party

The leader of the opposition party is a key figure in a democratic government, as they play a crucial role in holding the ruling party accountable and keeping them in check. The leader of the opposition is typically the head of the political party that has the second-largest number of seats in the legislature, and they are appointed by their party.

• One of the main responsibilities of the leader of the opposition is to scrutinize the actions and policies of the ruling party and to challenge them when necessary. This includes monitoring the government’s performance on issues such as the economy, national security, and social welfare, and highlighting any shortcomings or failures. The leader of the opposition may also propose alternative policies and legislation, and work to gather support for them among other opposition parties.
• Another important role of the leader of the opposition is to act as a spokesperson for the opposition party, communicating its views and positions to the public and the media. They often represent the opposition in parliamentary debates and question periods, where they have the opportunity to question the government’s actions and policies.
• In addition, the leader of the opposition also serves as an alternative head of government, and is next in line for the position should the ruling party lose the confidence of the legislature or if the head of government is unable to serve.
• The leader of the opposition is an important figure in keeping the government in check, by representing the views and interests of the citizens who did not vote for the ruling party and by being a strong voice for alternative ideas and policies. They play an essential role in ensuring that the government remains responsive to the needs and concerns of all citizens and not just those who voted for them.

Function and Role of Opposition Party

The role of the opposition party in a democracy can be summarized into several key functions:

• Acting as a check on the government’s power: The opposition party is responsible for scrutinizing and criticizing the government’s actions and policies and holding them accountable for any mistakes or failures. This helps to ensure that the government is always working in the best interests of the people and that any issues or problems are highlighted and addressed.
• Presenting alternative policies and proposals: The opposition party presents alternative policies and proposals to those of the government, providing the public with a choice and a voice in the political process. This ensures that the government is responsive to the needs and concerns of the people.
• Monitoring government’s actions: The opposition party act as a watchdog, monitoring the government’s actions and highlighting any issues or problems that may arise. This helps to ensure that the government is always held accountable for its actions and that the public is informed about the issues that affect them.
• Fostering a healthy political discourse: The opposition party provides an alternative perspective and challenges the ruling party’s policies and actions, leading to a more informed and engaged public. This is essential for the functioning of democracy as it allows for a free exchange of ideas, and helps to prevent the ruling party from becoming too entrenched and entrenched in power.
• Safeguarding against abuses of power and authoritarian tendencies: They are the ones who will point out the wrongdoings of the government and will provide a barrier against the government becoming too powerful and oppressive. This is essential for maintaining democracy as it ensures that the government is always held accountable for its actions and policies.
• Representing the voices of the minority groups or sections of society: The opposition party also represents the voices of the minority groups or sections of society that may not be represented by the ruling party. They bring forth the issues and concerns of these groups and ensure that their voices are heard and addressed by the government.

In summary, the opposition party plays a vital role in a democracy by challenging the government’s policies and actions, providing an alternative viewpoint, fostering a healthy political discourse, safeguarding against abuses of power, and representing the voices of minority groups or sections of society.

Strengths of Opposition Party

• Acting as a check on the government’s power
• Presenting alternative policies and proposals
• Monitoring the government’s actions
• Fostering a healthy political discourse
• Safeguarding against abuses of power and authoritarian tendencies
• Representing the voices of minority groups or sections of society

Weaknesses of Opposition Party

• Lack of resources and support compared to the ruling party
• Difficulty in effectively challenging the government
• Struggle to gain public support if their policies and proposals are not popular
• Being perceived as being too negative or critical of the government
• Limited ability to implement policies if they are not in power

In conclusion, the opposition party plays a crucial role in a democratic system by holding the government accountable for its actions and policies. The opposition party acts as a counterbalance to the government, providing alternative viewpoints and policies and ensuring that the government is working in the best interests of the people. The importance of the opposition party cannot be overstated as it plays a vital role in maintaining a healthy and functioning democracy. Overall, the presence of an opposition party is vital for the functioning of a healthy democracy as it ensures that the government is always held accountable for its actions and that the public is provided with alternative viewpoints and policies.

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Home » Essay » The Role of Opposition in a Democracy – Essay

The Role of Opposition in a Democracy – Essay

• Place of  ‘opposition in various forms of government and origin of the concept.
• Opposition and the party system.
• Functions of opposition in a democracy form alternative government; check government arbitrariness; build up public opinion and get it incorporated in policies; bring up priority issues for attention of the policy-makers; ensure the upholding of the Constitution.
• In times of national crises, a democracy gains strength as government and opposition act in concert.
• Responsible behaviour required if opposition is to work for the nation’s good.
• Summing up.

SOME  forms of rule cannot tolerate opposition, and root it out wherever it arises. Other forms not only tolerate it, but make room for it within the institutions of government. This feature of internalized opposition’ has sometimes been taken as a mark of limited, as opposed to absolute, government, and also as the mark of politics, as opposed to coercion. It is hard to imagine the feature without extremely complex institutions and constitutional devices: it is one of the principal problems of political thought to discover what makes such opposition possible. he use of the term opposition’, to denote forces within Political institutions that resist the ruling officers or party, is comparatively recent. J. Carn Hobhouse, speaking in the House of Commons in 1826, remarked that it was said to very hard on His Majesty’s ministers to raise objections to some proposition. For his own part, he taught it was take the course. Hansard records laughter at the phrase “His Majesty’s opposition”.

Although the term ‘opposition’ was used as far back as the eighteenth century to refer to a party or a caucus within an assembly, the suggestion of an established opposition is relatively new.It is now, however, quite normal to refer to a loyal opposition’, and to imply that the interests of the State are as well served by the opposition as by the government itself.

The ‘opposition’ in the modern UK Parliament consists not merely of opposition parties or factions, but principally of a ‘shadow formation’. The offices of government are imitated within the opposition, which thereby forms itself into a body prepared to substitute for all the occupants of those offices at any time. The opposition has its leader, its base organisation and committees, and usually responds to every move of the government with counter-proposals, representing, in theory, what it would do if it were in office.

Even in states with high levels of repression it is rare to find no trace of opposition. In single-party systems, the opposition may exist as an underground movement as in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics where no formal opposition to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was permitted but dissidents like Boris Yeltsin continued to exist. Or an opposition may engage in armed struggle as in El Salvador. Undue repression of the apposition often results in bloodshed and even change of government through violent means.

In democratic systems, the opposition is officially permitted and recognised. Even the leader of opposition is given an honourable place in the system. In Britain, the position of the leader of Her Majesty’s opposition is formalised in statute and he or she has certain rights, such as the right of reply to prime ministerial broadcasts. In India, to the opposition leader has been given certain rights and privileges on par with a cabinet minister if he commands the support of the required number of Parliament members.

The concept of opposition in the modern democratic state is closely connected with the idea of the political party. A political party is a more or less organised group of citizens who act together as a political unit, have distinctive aims and opinions on the leading political issues and problems in the state, and who, by acting together as a political unit, seek to obtain control of the government.

The party that is out of the government at a given point of time is called the opposition party. The number of the opposition party/parties may be one or more depending on whether there is a dual-party or multiparty system.

The most prominent question that may strike one’s mind is: Why does democracy demand the existence of opposition? An opposition party always looks for an opportunity to replace the party-in-government, and implement its own policies and programmes. As a result, it serves two purposes. One, the government of the day eschews being arbitrary in its actions and negligent of the interests of the people in general; on the other, the people of a democratic country are offered an alternative in governance of the country in their interests.

The opposition parties also enable men and women who think alike on public questions to unite in support of a common body of principles and policies and to work together to see that those principles and policies are adopted and implemented by the government. Without organisation, the people can neither formulate principles easily nor agree on policy. The opposition makes articulate the inarticulate desires of sections of the masses and gives expression to their pent-up feelings. This goes a long way in checking violence and political crimes which are, in reality, fatal for the healthy survival of democracy.

Out of the innumerable problems which call for solution in a state, the opposition is expected to select those which are comparatively urgent, study them, think out solutions and present them to the people and to the government. And, thus, it acts as a “broker of ideas” as Lowell says. It preserves a sense of continuity in public policy, organises and educates the electorate, and helps to carry on and necessitate regular elections. It also dramatises politics and keeps the nation politically alive. It keeps the government on its toes.

The opposition, like the judiciary, is an agent for safeguarding the Constitution in case the government wittingly or unwittingly does something to violate it. The opposition also necessitates periodic interpretation, re-interpretation and amendment of the Constitution to suit changes in times, circumstances and priorities. In most democracies, the opposition’s views have to be taken into consideration in legislating on socially-sensitive matters.

The opposition has the capacity to initial in the government the confidence and ability to deal with national crises. Here, the opposition’s support means that the entire country is behind the government in the hour of crisis. Not many would have forgotten the thundering speech and support given by Atal Behari Vajpayee in the Parliament (1971) when the Government of India led by Indira Gandhi had to withstand the Pakistani aggression. In the absence of the opposition, the government cannot be sure of the entire population’s support. Moreover, the opposition also gives credence and authenticity to any measures of the government taken in the interests of the people and the state. The parties outside power extend support to certain measures as they cannot afford to be regarded as anti-people or anti-nation as they, too, have ultimately to face the praise or wrath of the public. Thus, the opposition does not always have to oppose the government.

Sometimes the parties in opposition oppose the government measures merely for the sake of opposition. This delays even the progressive steps of the government and results in waste of time, money and material. It also misleads the masses. Not infrequently, the leaders in opposition resort to demagogy which is harmful for the nation’s health. Howsoever apologetically ignorant the people may be, they cannot forgive such irresponsible and delinquent behaviour on the part of an opposition party.

In a democracy, the modes operand of the opposition involves going to the people and criticising the government, s-statements, debating and discussing issues in Parliament, arousing public opinion, both national and international, and placing no-confidence motions against the government. In India, submitting a memorandum to the President is also a common practice. All these are commensurate with the democratic norms and contribute to the consolidation and stabilisation of democracy in the social and political system.

To sum up, the opposition fulfills certain necessary functions-so necessary, indeed, that many competent thinkers consider it essential to the working of representative government. Of course, the opposition sometimes delays the proceedings and the implementation of vital legislation. But the balance tilts towards its beneficial impact rather than the baneful. If democracy has come to stay, it is not becaıse it is the perfect form of self-government. Unlike dictatorship or totalitarian systems, it does not believe in self-evident principles. No plan or policy can benefit the people if we look only at its ‘pros’ and deny the ‘cons’. Only the opposition can provide those Cons.

Above all, it is the opposition that puts a rein on the power of the government and checks it from becoming absolute.

See: List of Essay

• English Grammar
• The Role of Opposition in a Democracy

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