Lecture notes Introduction to Contemporary Democracy (PO1ICD) Comparative Government And Politics
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Course
Introduction to Contemporary Democracy (PO1ICD)
Institution
University Of Reading (UoR)
Book
Comparative Government And Politics
The module is intended to open students’ eyes to how democracy works or doesn’t work around the world today. The first section on the Origins of Democracy looks globally at where democratic and non-democratic systems exist and what factors determine this distribution. Later sections draw much o...
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Introduction to Contemporary
Democracy
Lecture 1 - Democracy and Democratisation
Comparative Government and Politics: an intro (Main
Textbook)
Chapter 5: Democratic Rule
Direct Democracy
Main Argument/Heading Notes
- Athenians thought that direct popular involvement + open
deliberation were educational in character, encouraging
Athenian democracy characteristics informed and committed citizens who were sensitive both to
the public good and to the range of interests and opinions found
even in small communities.
- Politics was an amateur activity, to be undertaken by all
citizens to enhance their own development. To engage in
politics was to become informed about the polis, and an
educated citizenry meant a stronger whole.
- As citizenship restricted to men whose parents were citizens,
Flaws with the system most adults (women, slaves and foreign residents) were
excluded.
- Turnout - most citizens absent from most assembly meetings
even after intro of an attendance payment.
Introduction to Contemporary Democracy 1
, Main Argument/Heading Notes
- time consuming, expensive, over-complex, especially for such
a small society.
- Principle of self-government didn’t always lead to coherent
policy + lack of permanent bureaucracy eventually contributed
towards period of ineffective governance - led to fall of
Athenian republic after defeat in war.
- Opinions expressed online not methodically collected and
assessed as they would be in a true direct democracy: voices
Problems with e-democracy
heard often those of people who post most often —> often a
bandwagon effect.
- Many who express themselves are deliberately provocative.
The result is to skew the direction taken by debates, and we can
never be sure exactly who is behind the opinions posted.
- use of social media has led to heightened concerns about
privacy, perhaps feeding into the kind of mistrust of govt —>
decreased support for conventional forms of participation.
- E-democracy relies upon having access to the internet, which
is a problem for poor countries, and even in poorer regions of
wealthy countries.
Representative Democracy
Main Argument/Heading Notes
- Means for choosing reps is through elections but there are problems in
Questions regarding how
the way elections are structured + therefore with the ways voices are
representation works in practice
counted and citizens represented.
- Parties and candidates never given the same attention by the media +
money and special interests often skew the attention paid to competing
sets of policy choices.
- Varying and declining rates in turnout.
- Elections can be manipulated in many ways (intimidation of voters,
miscounting).
Introduction to Contemporary Democracy 2
, Main Argument/Heading Notes
- How elected reps actually represent the needs and opinions of voters
Liberal Democracy
Main Argument/Heading Notes
- Modern democracies are liberal democracies as they are
representative and liberal in the sense that they adopt the principle
of limited government.
- Governance by law, not by people.
- Protection of civil liberties key. Based on the understanding that
there are certain rights and freedoms that that citizens must have
relative to government and that cannot be infringed by the actions of
government.
- Difficulty deciding where the rights of one group of citizens ends
Issue for democracy and another begin + where the actions of government (especially
regarding national security) restrict those of citizens.
- e.g. India classed as a flawed democracy —> in part due to
structural violence, a term used to describe intangible forms of
Flawed Democracy concept oppression, or the ‘violence’ concealed within a social and political
system. In India, structural violence can be found in the effects of
poverty and caste oppression.
Modernisation and Democracy
Main Argument/Heading Notes
- Linking modernity and democracy carries important policy implications
because it suggests that advocates of democracy should give priority to
economic development in authoritarian states, allowing for political reform to
emerge naturally at a later date.
Arguments for the - Using data from the 1950s, Seymour Martin Lipset found strong
argument that economic correlations between affluence, industrialisation, urbanisation, and education,
on the one hand, and democracy, on the other.
Introduction to Contemporary Democracy 3
, Main Argument/Heading Notes
development aids
democratic growth.
- Diamond (1992), Svolik (2008) and Boix (2011) all agree.
- Record of the oil-rich kingdoms of the Middle East suggests that affluence,
and even mass affluence, is no guarantee of democracy. However, although
Arguments against
authoritarian monarchs in the Middle East rule societies that may be wealthy,
they are also highly traditional.
Lipset’s arguments for why
liberal democracies seem - Wealth softens class differences —> more equal distribution of income +
to be the best way of turning the working class away from ‘leftist extremism’, while middle class
governing modern tempers class conflict between rich and poor.
societies.
- Economic security raises the quality of governance by reducing incentives
for corruption
- High-income countries have more interest groups to reinforce liberal
democracy.
- Education and urbanisation - education reinforces democratic and tolerant
values, while towns have always been the wellspring of democracy.
- some argue that global capitalism has been a major cause of political and
Counterargument
economic underdevelopment.
Main Argument/Heading Notes
- Group of transitions from non-democratic to democratic political systems
Huntington’s Waves of
that occurs within a specified period of time and that significantly
Democracy
outnumbers transitions in the opposite direction during that period.
- took place between 1828-1926 when the earliest representative democracies
emerged. But the ‘first reverse wave’ occurred from 1922-1942 where some
First Wave
fledgling democracies were overthrown by fascist, communist, or military
dictatorships.
Introduction to Contemporary Democracy 4
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