الأغلبية المستبدة والأقلية المتسلطة

There is no democratic government today that can claim to represent its people one hundred percent. Conversely, there is no government that openly states that its legitimacy is derived from outside the general will of its people. As a general rule, the general will, which is the will of the nation represented by an absolute majority (50% + 1), at least, is agreed to represent the nation in a political system that allows the opposition, which has not achieved that (quantitative) threshold of the general will, to try its luck (peacefully) in a future opportunity to assume power.

The French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778) argues that the absolute majority represents the will of the nation... and that the absence of consensus on a specific political elite representing the nation at a specific time does not mean the absence of a general will that encompasses the entire nation. The majority, in his view, represents the will of the nation, which is the basis of the political legitimacy of governments. The general will, from his perspective, does not err. The embodiment of the general will in a specific political elite does not require it to gain the absolute trust of the general will. Rather, the general will of the nation is represented here by both the majority and the minority together. Thus, in democratic governments, the opposition participates in governance by representing the minority, while the majority holds power, having gained the trust of the majority.

Consequently, the opposition enjoys the legitimacy of political existence, just as the majority enjoys the legitimacy of governance. Both (the government and the opposition) together represent the governance equation that expresses the general will of all, at a specific time, constitutionally, for the government to remain in power and the minority to be in opposition. This balanced equation of governance legitimacy in a society is the foundation of political stability, as it serves as a solution to the problem of governance stability that political theory (historically) has tried to find a solution for.

In organizing the movement of power between the government and the opposition (the majority and the minority), the political community in the entity of the modern nation-state has reached the equation of political stability for the system of governance, through organized peaceful means, via the mechanism of peaceful power transfer, away from the specter of violent (historical) conflict over power. This mechanism of peaceful power transfer determines the level of political development in its various degrees and forms, from one society to another. The options remain open for any political community to choose what suits it from a specific political system through which it controls the direction of the general will, whether the chosen political system is parliamentary, presidential, semi-presidential, or a national assembly system, or even any other political system that reflects political pluralism in society, where sovereignty always belongs to the general will.

In less developed societies, politically speaking, such as the southern societies, referred to as the third world societies, the general will does not define its scope with flexible political criteria, but rather reflects a non-political pluralism that defines the movement of conflict between the majority and the minority, within decisive, intolerant cultural, sectarian, tribal, ethnic, and religious lines, rather than clear, tolerant political criteria, such as community, economic, developmental, and service ideological criteria, where sufficient flexibility is allowed to accept the opposition within any modern political system, whose legitimacy is determined by the mechanism of peaceful power transfer, through which the general will is reflected (peacefully), with complete transparency, tolerance, and trust.

For this reason, the problem of minorities has developed and entrenched due to the confusion between political pluralism and non-political pluralism, and political movement in those less developed societies has not evolved towards the development of a tolerant liberal culture that distinguishes between the majority and the minority, in flexible and tolerant political systems, viewing power not through the lens of violent conflict, possibly bloody, over it, but rather attempting to tame this conflict and adapt it with the aim of removing the red lines that delineate the movement of both the majority and the minority, by developing a quantitative peaceful behavioral mechanism (elections) to determine the position of the general will competently between the two wings of power (the majority and the minority).

From here, manifestations of political instability dominate in southern societies, compared to northern societies. In northern (democratic) societies, the majority and the opposition alternate in power through free peaceful competition, leading to governance and remaining in it or exiting from it, without any form of violent attempts to "usurp" power, away from the choices of the free general will.

As we observe: the lack of trust between the axes of non-political pluralism in southern societies leads to violent conflict over power, where minorities do not feel secure except by seizing power and fighting to remain in it... while the majority feels a sort of eternal right to obtain power and remain in it, without the need to take into account the positions and needs of minorities and guarantee their natural and acquired rights, the most important of which is participation in power.

For this serious structural reason, stable political systems have not developed in many southern societies, while manifestations of political stability prevail, along with the resulting progress in all aspects of development (political, social, economic, cultural, scientific, and technological) in the advanced northern societies.