This is just a hard bit so that I can sort out what I'm going to do with it...

While there are many Democratic governments, there are also many that have been and no longer are. There are even some that never will be. This paper has researched the governments that were once Democracies and no longer are, due to certain events. The countries without democracy are indeed in a minority of the governmental statuses of the world, which makes them all the more necessary to be thoroughly examined. In this paper governmental status, characteristics, branches, and individual economies will be introduced to explain the changes of democracy into other forms of governmental rule. From my research I have concluded that the form of government is changed by a military leader and not by the economical status of the government at the time.

To understand the changing of democracy to another form of government, we must first understand democracy as a whole and its place in the world today. Democracy is generally considered to be one of, if not the most, desirable forms of government. Democracy is in all essence a government for the people whether ruled through elected representatives or directly by the people (Morris 351). Both democracies and republics are commonly confused with each other as they are similar, but they have a few differing characteristics. A republic official will prioritize their opinion and judgments over all else, while a democratic official must, by definition, take in all the opinions of their people. Democratic principles are included in nearly every government around the world today, but it is practiced with many alterations in each separate country (Pious).

Democracies are growing in the western world despite some of the social and political problems they now seem to be associated with. Perhaps this is caused by not adhering strictly to rigorous standards. Some of these problems are the falling standards of personal and public conduct in the common people, declining educational standards, destruction of the family unit that is so important in many cultures, increased drug use, inflated criminal activity, and huge amounts of the population being sexual promiscuous (Lindbom 1). These problems and many more, now inherent in the western society and culture are severe enough to raise doubts about democracy and its ability to survive, says Tage Lindbom in The Myth of Democracy (2). Also Erik Von Kuhnelt-Leddinn believes that the main problem of democracy is enclosed in the government setup itself. He calls his theory ‘systembedingt’ meaning roughly that the elected representatives must rule at a lowered political standard, which results in a general erosion of civilization of the selected country. Also, some thinkers like Lindbom believe that democracy is an attempt to create the Kingdom of Man here on Earth, thwarting God and all that is upheld in the Kingdom of God (2). These are just some of the few negative opinions of democracy today in the western world found while researching, they by no means represent all of the population, but they bring up many valid points and hostile feelings. There are obviously many more positive opinions of democracy otherwise it would not exist as the chosen form of government for so many different countries. Now that information about democracy is known, we can actually see democracy in action and its various demises.

Burma (formerly known as Myanmar) is currently under a military government. For a brief time, compared with the usual government, beginning in the 1940s and ending in the early 1960s, the country was a constitutional democracy ruled by the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPL). Their main leader at this time and movement was a young man named U Aung San, who had created the Burmese Independence Army (BIA). The AFPL joined in the Nonaligned Movement with many other countries such as India, Yugoslavia, and Indonesia, which had the purpose of allowing all of these countries to accept help from both the Unites States and that Western block of nations and the USSR and its Communist block of nations, but not allowing an alliance with either side in so doing. The AFPL won the national election in 1951-1952 and 1956, but in 1958 a military rule had to temporarily takeover (for a period of about 18 months led by General Ne Win). Later, U Nu preached that Buddhism should become the national religion and was in agreement with ethnic separatism, and thus, his government was extirpated. Ne Win then started another period of reign with his military, forming the Revolutionary Council (Guyot 5). This kind of military leadership is called a junta, or group of military officers or council leading a country (Morris 711). The Revolutionary Council declared its purpose to be ‘…guiding the nation through the period of transition to a socialist society and a socialist democracy…’, but the Revolutionary Council never did fulfill its prophecy. It put out two papers, one titled ‘The Burmese Way To Socialism’ in April of 1962 concerning the government and the coming about of Burma’s socialist status (Bixler 82), while the other official document titled ‘The System of Correlation of Man and Environment’ was issued in January of 1963. It concerned the philosophical views of Burma according to the Revolutionary Council. These papers also never led to any development of the socialist ideal (Bixler 83).

Another country that underwent a change from democracy into another governmental form was Chile. In 1970 Salvador Allende was democratically elected with 36.2% of the vote in his favor. One of Allende’s head generals, General Augusto Pinochet, had opposite views from Allende, and when the economy began failng due to foreign withdrawal of funds he started his plan to take over. It was September 11, 1973 when Pinochet decided to take the final decisive action on his plan. At 6:30 AM the act started in Concepción, a main city of Burma, and ended at 1:30 PM in La Moneda with the supposed suicide of Allende. The strategy used by Pinochet was entirely military oriented, and ran through all of the different military strands. Many Chileans died during the conquest by Pinochet, but many, many more Chileans and those of other nationalities suffered the same fate as his military rule continued on (‘Ashley’). Perhaps the economy would have changed the form of government, but instead the military coup burst upon the scene right away, so yet again military changed the status of the government.

As seen in this paper, democracy is widely used and hence has many opinions concerning it. Democracy changes into different governmental forms mainly through the military, which is easier to wield in power, though many citizens are put in at least a major inconvenience because of this. Chile and Burma (Myanmar) both underwent this transformation and still are not democracies, which was and is still plaguing to their citizens’ lives. All in all, democracy is usually overcome by some massive use of military.