Mahathir Mohammad Political Dynamics and Institutions

12-1262 Dr. Nick Alviar

“Government and Society”

As what Pia Mancini said, we are 21 st-century citizens with a very advanced technology to a 15 th
century institution wherein the internet did not exist yet. She was talking about the problem in
traditional political system nowadays in which we have a technology that is advanced but somehow it
was not gravely used in a way of connecting the public to the government. We live in the internet era in
the present and we only exercised democracy for a few times only. Through the internet, we were able
to find information what was happening internationally, get in touch with our families and friends across
the globe, and there is also the existence of social networking sites such as Facebook, twitter and the
like wherein each citizen can most likely use their freedom of speech and expression. However, the
problem nowadays is that despite the advanced technology we have right now, political party system
remains the same for 200 years and expects us to be contended with being simply passive recipients
according to Mancini. Most likely, the problems being faced by political parties right now are the issues
pertaining their goal.

Until now, a lot of issues still exists within the boundaries of political parties. “Parties and party
systems are under attack due to several problems such as the failure to articulate new and more diverse
aspiration that have emerged in modern societies, and failure to solve or even address their most serious
problems.” Moreover, majority of political parties are only after their purpose which is to win an
electoral seat to which they will be able to hold power through how they will advertise or whatever
ways to endorse themselves to the society. These statements above are still happening right now in a
way that they ignore the interests of the public. Ergo, until now, political parties are self-interested. She
also mentioned how apathetic people are nowadays especially those in some democratic countries.
They cared less of what is happening to the society because of the consistent system that has been
going on for centuries. Mancini then introduced that a particular group was able to take advantage of
the internet and made the DemocracyOS in which the public will be able to connect with their
representatives to signify them effectively and efficiently. This idea is very effective in terms of
interaction with the government so that the ones who are in office right now will be able to know what
their people wants and how they want to be governed based on not he government’s interest but the
public per se.

As for the Philippines, this can be a very significant tool to encourage the development of
progressive political parties in the country. Nowadays, Filipinos apathetic in which It is one of the
reasons why it is a poor country and with that Filipinos does not exercise or practice democracy
anymore in which majority will just follow what the government will say and few will revolt. This can be
an answer since a lot of representatives in the past few years until the current still have the same
problems in which they were not able to achieve what their society wants. It is not necessarily that the
people will decide but at least the people will be heard by the government.