Is Competitive Politics Democracy

The easy answer to the title question is NO! The reason is very simple, in a democracy, or democratic form of government, all must participate as equals, all must vote to reach a majority consensus of all that are assembled as the democracy!

To comply with these requirements, the composition and distribution of power through rights of suffrage must be specified unalterably to all those assembled as the democracy. Competitive Politics assembles And distributes suffrage based upon competitive partisan elections to determine the composition and control of the legislative assembly based upon party affiliation. This is highly mutable, and the resulting assembly does not meet the requirements of composition and distribution of suffrage in the legislative assembly to qualify as a democracy.

These defects of consolidation and mutability lead to division, disagreement and insurrection! It’s not possible to balance and maintain that balance in a system that is based upon a mutable mode of assembly!

Just to be clear, all governing systems that are based upon party affiliation are competitive political systems, no matter how many parties are involved. Political parties are domestic factions, as defined by Madison in Federalist #10, “The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection”, c.1788:

[By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.]

Madison goes on to say that 

[There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.

There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.]

​The idea of giving every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interest, is what is at the root of a party governing system, where people migrate to the ideological pole which mirrors their own opinions, passions, and interests. This is why Madison concluded that it’s not possible to control the causes of factions, and why they chose to control the effects of factions through the principles of Republican Government which relegates Factions to their footprint in our society controlling the influence and spread of factions, which is why a large republic is preferred over a small republic.

In a democracy, or democratic form of government, all composition and distribution of suffrage must me specified unalterably before the system is assembled in order for the system to operate properly as a democracy, or democratic form of government, and the same is true for Republican Forms of Government.