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Introduction

The world of Western democracy has problems. They have been caused primarily by moral decline in its societies, but a large part of the problems has also been caused by the prevalent model of democracy which is defective. It is a model based on the U.S. Constitution of 1787. This is a very simple constitution – it only creates the state by establishing the legislative Congress and the separate executive function of the President. It does also stipulate the establishment of the Supreme Court, but the manner of constituting all courts, including the Supreme Court, is put into the hands of the Congress.
Following the U.S. model, the constitutions of today's democratic states usually establish the national legislative, executive and judicial institutions, define the area of their authority, but give them no tasks. Namely, they do not stipulate that their sole task is to provide public services for the citizens. They rarely set any principles of democracy and democratic public service as, particularly, that

• in a democracy, it is the citizens who are responsible for public service,
• the decision-making in democratic public service must be based on public debate,
• conduct in a democracy must take place with mutual respect, both among the citizens themselves, and between the citizens and the institutions of public service,
• the operation of public service must be just,
• liberty, while indispensable for good life, must have limits; it must not cross the   boundaries given by respect – mutual respect among people, respect for spiritual principles, respect for all creation, even inanimate.

As public administration developed in the democratic countries, these shortcomings have led to the forming of deeply corrupt administrative procedures. Primarily, they

• facilitated the separation of citizens from public administration,
• led to the implementation of election laws and practices enabling rich power groups to decide who will run in the elections; these power groups, “special interests,” remain hidden from the citizens' eyes;
• led to the use of pre-election promises aiming to win election votes rather than promote the well-being of the country; the fulfillment of such promises tends to result in unsustainable budget expenses; and
• caused the public administrations to act to the benefit of the power groups which pushed through their election candidates, rather than to the benefit of the citizens; the citizens then do vote, but they have no influence over the work of the “elected” representatives; all they can do is to view the whole administrative process, called fittingly “government,” as a show.

These established corrupt procedures of public administration cannot be changed without changing the model of public administration itself. In the current model of democratic public administration decisions are made by powers hidden from the public, and within this model it is impossible to eliminate their power. They will always have the upper hand in controlling or forming political parties, in financing election campaigns, and in corrupting the politicians and government officials.
In post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe such powers act through various corrupt  political parties with unknown sponsors, and a significant role is played here by the Russian government. Lately, we can see indications that the Chinese Communist government would also like to take part in this power game. In the Western world the back stage of the political process is occupied primarily by rich individuals of the financial circles and other businesses – “money talks,” as the saying goes. The existing arrangement of the management of the public administration suits them – it is they who adjusted the arrangement over time to suit their needs.
The corruption in public administration under the influence of the powerful rich or of foreign secret services has brought the democratic countries to obvious decline – moral as well as economic, and eventually also the decline of their power. This decline deeply worries most democratic societies but so far they do not have a clue how to correct it. The only force which can effect such a correction are the citizens of these societies themselves – it is they who should have the decisive influence in a democracy. In exceptional cases it happens that an individual attains a high political position who wishes to revive the state of public administration. Recently, this has been the case with the American President Donald Trump or the Slovak President Andrej Kiska. But without a change of the model of public administration they cannot succeed. After a few years they will leave and the backstage powers will go on governing and dragging their countries deeper to further decay.
After years of study we believe we see the key elements of changes that are necessary to the model of public administration. The most important step the citizens must take is the fully-fledged establishment of the civic instruments of democracy. This can suppress corruption and can lead to proper democratic public service. These instruments are

• civic initiative,
• education about democracy,
• election of representatives who can be trusted by the citizens,
• full access to all information about the activities of public service for all citizens,
• public debate,   and
• civic control.

The order of the civic instruments of democracy given here has its logic. The process of change must start with initiatives of the citizens, the citizens must understand the concept of democracy and the necessary changes, they must implement them by employing representatives whom they can trust, the decision-making in the new model of public administration will have to be based on full information and thorough public debates, and finally the citizens themselves will have to control rigorously the work of their employees – the representatives, the officials and all the other  workers of public service.
The study we present identifies the fundamental principles of democracy, in Section II, and the main civic instruments of democracy, in Section III. Respect for these principles, full access to information for all citizens, wise debates preceding decision-making, and eventually adoption of the natural bottom-up way of electing citizens' representatives, may revive democracy and finally fulfill the hopes dreamers have put into it over the ages.

© Strana nové demokracie, 2018 | e-mail: ohlasy-e-sign-strananovedemokracie.cz