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การประชุมวิชาการ
สถาบันพระปกเกล้า ครั้งที่ 16 81

Systems, Organizations and People for

Sustainable Democracy :

Thinking of Democracy with Reference
to the Case of Japan

Introduction

As is well known, Lord Acton said in UK in the 19th century “Power
tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Not only dictatorship
but democracy is not free from corruption. Nowadays most of the countries in
the world advocate democracy, even though the specifics of the systems and
practices are different. For the democracy to function appropriately, it is
necessary to prevent the corruption of power and to ensure the appropriate
roles and functioning of the systems, organizations and people responsible for
the functioning of democracy.

In this paper, it is discussed how powers are allocated among what kind
of organizations at different levels of governments in democratic countries and
how they are functioning. It is also discussed what kind of conditions are
necessary for the appropriate functioning of systems, organizations and people
to ensure sustainable democracy.

Specifically, with reference to cases in Japan, it is discussed how
legislative, executive and judicial powers are allocated among what kind of
organizations and what kind of check and balance systems and mechanisms
exist. There must be of course sufficient systems for the general public to play
their role in the democracy. However, for the sustainable appropriate functioning
of democracy, having systems is not enough. There must be non-systemic,
informal conditions such as high quality pro-democracy influential mass media
and informed active citizens as well as intellectuals for the well-functioning of
democracy.

Systems of the Separation of Power and Democracy เอกสารประกอบการอภิปรายร่วมระหว่างผู้แทนจากต่างประเทศ

Separation of power is an important condition to prevent the abuse of
power and protect the right and freedom of the people in democracy. Here in
this paper, separation of power of government is considered at the national and