Democratization through Social Welfare

Argument: Before a country becomes truly democratic, it has embrace policies that are non-too-democratic. By this I mean that democracy, especially in developing countries, would remain the paradox that it is if no steps to lessen political, social, and economic inequality is taken by the government. The State must therefore intervene to provide social welfare to its people.

Paradigm Shift: Creating a True Democracy
Democratization continues to be the global trend during the past few decades. after the two waves of democratization, a considerable percentage of the world states are a democracy or in the process of being a democracy. Democratic and neoliberal ideals are what many deems as the future, the inevitable path that countries must tread.
However, the achievement of a genuine rule of and by the people would remain as a quixotic venture if the people are deprived of that equal opportunity for political articulation and participation. Democracy, as it would pertain to the people as the heart of the polity, would see the achievement of its ideals if its peoples are consensual to how the society operates. If these people would remain secluded from the state structures and no solutions are made to alleviate social problems, then no true democracy would be achieved.


The Strong State
The state, in its interaction with the society, has assumed different roles through the past decades. The bureaucratization and the liberalization of the state made its separation from the society an eventuality. The state became that labyrinthine arrangement of structures and institutions – coldly professional, unemotionally rational. But as Migdal and postmodernist would aptly contend, institutions, as essential as they are in the shaping of socio-political outcomes, still remain and operate at the behest of the people within it. Fortification of the state would ultimately be determined by the manner by which its components operate.
What scholars would prescribe is the marriage of the two formerly separate entities - the state and the society, thus recognizing the inevitable dependency in their relationship. I would subscribe to such perception as to the extent of the role of the state and the essential indispensability of the society. Hence this forms the rationale in the innate (though arguable) propensity to move towards a polity that is non-exclusive to those who hold governmental power. Democracy would thus find its essence in the incorporation of social actors in the once institution-monopolized state.

Democratization: State, Social Welfare, and Developing Countries
A consequence of shrinking the role of the state would be the swelling of the income gap, as the all too ideal equality of opportunity in the liberal democracies provides the exact opposite of what it promises. Abolishing the barriers of protection is argued to boost external trades and augment of GNP, as it follows the dictates of the global trend. A global trend embraced even by the formerly-Colonized, non-Western, supposedly-Underdeveloped countries, who sought dire solutions to escape their perpetual cycle of poverty and economic crises. The economic prescriptions of liberalism may provide momentary solutions, but I doubt its capacity to alleviate deep-rooted social problems of a state. The market is too profit-driven to devote itself to providing social welfare, or at the very least, to contributing significantly in order to fasttrack solutions. If the state processes are dictated merely by those who hold economic and political power, then there is no democracy. What a country would be is an oligarchy - in the guise of a one pretending to be democratic.
Social actors could only permeate the governance realm if they are provided the venue and equipped with the capability to do so. The widening of the income gap similarly augments power and social gap. Incurable, this societal dilemma would remain, if no efforts are diverted into the promotion of social and economic equality. If so, then democratization and democracy would remain but a paradox. Its inability to provide to the social milieu the relative freedom that it promises would in fact make it non-democratic.
This problem could perhaps be remedied by revitalizing social welfare efforts.
The economic and social gap that is a reality in developing countries, like our own, requires the intervention of the state in the provision of the basic needs, like education, employment assistance, health services, among others. What is essentially required, in a country taking on the democratization path, is the adequacy to provide social conditions that are indispensible requisites in the formation of a truly democratic state. As social conditions in underdeveloped/developing countries remain less than laudable, the vision of the just and free society would be a perpetual reverie.
Take for instance the Philippines. Despite experiencing democratization, and having the bragging rights as it is one of the first to do so, remains but a glaring contradiction. People do vote, but their votes are subject to manipulation as they submit themselves to offers of vote-buying and cheating. Everyone is free to articulate their political stances, yet few voices are listened to, because the elites still have the power monopoly. The market is left to operate without significant constraints, yet many are mere spectators as the economic arena is but exclusive for the moneyed.
This is to be owed to the lack of education, the widening income gap, the lack of government services, to mention a few. The citizens, unable to taste the fruits of what claims to be people-centric, are forced to submit themselves to the (oppressive) structures of the society. Thus and so, democratization, at the absence of social welfare, is an effort in futility. If a government envisions a democracy that is true to its ideals, then it must give premium to the welfare and conditions of its peoples.