Based on the film’s premise, I expected to see no similarities between the democracy of the United States and the democracy of a Chinese third-grade classroom. The U.S.’s government has theoretically had years to mature and perfect itself, and the third-graders had just learned what a democracy a few days before the election. But I was quickly surprised to find commonalities everywhere. Both had all the key foundations of what a democracy needs to prosper: available political information, multiple candidates, and the ability to vote freely. But the similarities went beyond these basic foundations.
The candidates attempted to sabotage their opponents’ campaigns and even had their own forms of campaign advisors – their parents. In the end, the parents’ availability to resources decided the election. Just like in American elections, access to funds is crucial to running a successful campaign. Xiaofei had only a single mother who even acknowledged early in the film that she could not help her daughter as much as the other candidates. So she was immediately at a disadvantage. Cheng Cheng and Luo Lei both had two parents, but Luo Lei’s parents had access to resources that allowed him beat Cheng Cheng and win the election. Just like in the U.S., elections are all about funds and popularity. So based on the premise that the United States is a democracy, yes. The film portrays a working democracy. Both had the same fundamental flaws, suggesting an innate problem with democracy itself.
I too noticed the many similarities between the election in the documentary and and the elections that take place in the world’s democratic countries, including the US. That leaves the question of why democratic elections often (if not always) see sabotage attempts, attacks on the opposition, a lopsided distribution of funds, and more. You write in your blog that this seems like an it could be an “innate problem with democracy”, but I think it’s more a problem with the people taking part in the system than the system itself. It’s not democracy that forces candidates to try to sabotage one another. Rather, it is a result of their own personalities.
Then again, it might just be that democracy attracts these kinds of people as candidates for leadership positions.
I completely agree that the film underscored the importance of funding in running a successful campaign. You bring up an interesting idea that this is an “innate” problem with democracy. This is intriguing to me, because the problem occurs even in the absence of the structures that mediate the same phenomenon in American elections (ads, partisan media, super pacs, etc). Maybe this problem is more generally an innate property of power – that those with more resources will tend to be able to hold on to the people’s support, using bribery if necessary.