Ethical Decay of Democracy

A democracy can hold elections on schedule for decades while the values that made those elections meaningful quietly erode from within — vote-buying normalised, criminalisation of politics tolerated, public office treated as a route to private gain. The institutions survive; the ethics behind them do not. This topic names that specific kind of decline.

In two minutes

Ethical decay of democracy refers to the erosion of the values and norms — integrity, accountability, service, restraint — that give democratic institutions their real meaning, even while the formal institutions themselves (elections, legislatures, courts) continue to exist and operate.

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The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Political Science – II: Foundations of Political Obligation on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.