A LOOK AT KARL POPPER’S CONCEPT OF DEMOCRACY

Abstract

As the most popular system of government, democracy has over the years received considerable interrogations and studies which have resulted into diverse perspectives and conceptualisations. This paper examines the conception of democracy as enunciated by Karl Popper. It evaluates the driving force behind Popper’s vigorous defense of liberal democratic tradition over and above other systems of government. The paper established the fact that the Open Society that is characterised by public criticism of established order represents significantly Popper’s notion of democracy. Therefore, in pursuance of a society driven by open criticism, Popper took a swipe on Plato’s thought pattern and down played his emphasis on personality in leadership as totalitarian while elevating the imperativeness of situating governance on sound institutional framework that will ensure checks and balances for productive leadership. In Popper’s thoughts, the prospects of leadership degeneration is a given in human society and this raises the concern for instituting enduring checks and balances on the political process to guard against tendencies towards impunity. Popper thinks that in the face of an eventual leadership degeneration, the democratic instrument of periodic election can be activated to occasion a seamless change of leadership without recourse to revolutionary upheavals, violence or bloodshed. This work engages expository, historical and critical-evaluative methods of philosophical analysis of data in view of unraveling the crux of Popper’s notion of democracy and to historically locate the underpinning factors that informed popper’s idea of democracy. The paper equally deploys the critical approach to interrogates Popper’s conception of democracy for better appreciation of his perspective towards the enrichment of philosophical discourse on democracy as a system of government.