Democracy And Participation

Question 1

What is direct democracy?

Answer 1

A system were the people make decisions directly on an issue in the form of yes no response.

Question 2

What are examples of direct democracy in the uk?

Answer 2

Referendums

Citizen juries

Public petitions if completed on parliaments website and receive over 100,000 signatures issue may be discussed In parliament.

However these two require input of elected representatives so are not entirely direct.

Question 3

What is representative democracy?

Answer 3

A system where the people elect a person or group of people to represent their interests and make decisions on their behalf.

Question 4

What are features of representative democracy?
3ps

Answer 4

Popular participation is indirect
Public don’t exercise power themselves but elect a rep

Popular participation is mediated public are linked to gov through elected representative institutions eg parliament and MP - Constituency link

Popular participation in gov is limited to voting in general elections every 5 years in the meantime voting in local elections.

Question 5

How does representative democracy work?
What must people do to elect a rep?
How should elections be conducted?

Answer 5

Popular control is the idea that MPs should represent their constituents and not act in their self-interest.

People should therefore vote in elections to ensure representatives are elected by enough of their constituency to carry out their wishes on a mandate stopping the tyranny of the minority due to low turnout. To prevent this elections should be:

-Free and fair free to express their views
-Universal suffrage one person one vote to all adults
-party and candidate voters should have choice and opportunity to lean about alternative choice.

Question 6

Has voting opportunity increased?

Answer 6

Yes has increased especially depending on where you live

Scot/Wales/NI - devolved assembles/ parliaments

London - mayor and assembly

Metro mayor - 2021 Greater Manchester mayoral election Andy Burhan Labour MP turnout 35% he won with 67%

Police crime commissioners - make sure local police meet the needs of the community - 2021 England and Wales police and crime commissioner elections Turnout was an average of 33.2% across the elections.

Question 7

Advat

Question 8

Did as

Question 9

Did

Question 10

Adv

Question 11

Dos

Question 12

Did

Question 13

What are the ways in which people can be apart of a representative democracy?

Answer 13

Constituency - MP - constituency link redress grievances

Party - electorate votes for the party they want as gov the one with the largest majority down gov

Government- gov rep and serves the interest of the public.

Pressure groups - rep a specific group of people. Public can join groups through membership or without aim to rep minority groups in society.

Question 14

What is pluralist democracy?

Answer 14

Gov make decisions due to pressure of groups or organization who have diff ideas to the gov.

Example:

Question 15

List the democratic features of the UK and its 👍👎?

Answer 15

Peaceful transition of power

Free elections
👍 18 vote, little electoral fraud 2022 elections act
👎Prisoners, homeless, Hol, 16

Fair elections
👍Devolved regions use PR voting system
👎 FPTP in eng leads to wasted votes and votes don’t equal seats.

Widespread participation
👍 public can stand for office, join party memberships, pressure groups, E-democracyonline petitions
👎Party membership in decline since 2001

Freedom of expression
👍Critise the gov without fear
👎Rising violence against MPS Matt Hancock mp that died

Freedom of association
👍Member of political party, PG, stand for office.
👎Extremist pressure groups have a voice.

Protection of rights and liberties
👍HRA 1998, Equality Act 2010
👎British Bill of Rights, uncodified Constitution, Brexit ~ UK left the European Convention of Human Rights.

Constitution
👍 unmodified easy to amend updated laws
👎Rights not entrenched BB of Rights

Question 16

What is the uk experiencing in terms of democracy and why?

Answer 16

Democratic deficient
Elected representatives lack legitimacy due to not having appointed sufficient democratic support or there is no accountability.

Question 17

What are the types of representation in a representative democracy?

Answer 17

I

Question 18

1) Constituency Representation
Representing constituents as a whole or individual and how can this affect an mp when voting.

Answer 18

FPTP creates a strong MP constituency link each constituency will have the same economic and social concerns that the MP must represent in parliament

MPs can represent their whole constituency this can be through levelling up funding for their area

Redress grievances MPs should represent the interest of individual constituents who have been treated unfairly or who have issues they need support for such as complaints against local services or tax problems

MPs represent their constituents and I expected to vote on their behalf even when their personal opinion may be different to the interest of their constituency

Our voting system for MPs in parliament can allow MPs in the governing party with conflicts of interest between their constituents and a bill. However they should vote based on their constituents interest even if this goes against the government however this is not always the case as sometimes MPs can go against their constituents interest

Question 19

2) social representation
Social makeup of institution/public
Occupations

Answer 19

The social characteristics of a political institution should represent the social characteristics of the public as a whole patient legislation positively impacts of minority groups.

This can extend the occupation some MPs especially who have been in trade unions themselves feel it’s their responsibility to pursue the cost of trade union workers this is often the case for MPs who have worked in health service they will try to represent the group of workers they belong to.

Question 20

3) national interest
Conflicting interests

Answer 20

By sitting in parliament MPs are expected to represent the national interest + local interest sometimes this conflicts with the representation of their constituency especially if something is unpopular with their constituents however it may be beneficial for the country + economy such as a third runway at Heathrow HS2 of Brexit.

Example

Question 21

4) Party representation
Political party ideology and it’s importance.

Answer 21

The majority of MPs belong to a political party that shit a set of aims values ideas policies they believe in
This is important because it allows the public to understand what individual MP stands for due to the party they belong to something vital during elections so that people can vote accordingly .

Question 22

5) causal representation

Answer 22

Sometimes mPs will represent those who share ideas rather than social groups eg some MPs may concern themselves with human rights abuse environmental causes (this is a minor representation function as it’s more often carried out by a pressure group)

Amnesty International

Question 23

What institutions in the UK allow for a representative democracy?

Answer 23

Town Council (eng+wales)

Local council

Combined authorities

Metropolitan authority’s (eng+wales)

Devolved gov

National gov

Question 24

What does it mean if power has become decentralised in the uk?

Answer 24

Power is more spread out from the central government to regional areas this is through the use of devolution or P giving power to local councils so they can make bylaws

Question 25

How has uks democracy been reformed?

Question 26

What was the majority in the commons?
What did the Hol Act 1999 do?

Hol Act 1999

Answer 26

The act was passed by a majority of 340 to 132 maps in the Commons in March 1999.

The Weatherill amendment proposed that 92 hereditary peers would remain in the HOl.

Question 27

PR electoral systems
STV

Answer 27

STV
• Northern Ireland’s Assembly
• Local government in Scotland and N. Ireland

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 2022 Scottish local elections turnout 45% Nicola Sturgeon snp leader won 453 seats.

NI ensures a power share between nationalist and unionist parties 2022 assembly election Sinn Fein (nationalist) won the most seats 27 and DUP (unionist) won 25 seats.with a turnout of 63%

Advantages:
• Delivers proportional outcomes and ensured that votes are largely of equal value.
• The most popular candidates overall are elected.
• Government is more likely to consist of a party or group of parties who won over 50% of the vote
• Voters choose between wide range of candidates, parties including different candidates from the
same party meaning there is a greater choice
• Helps small parties/independents get elected

Question 28

PR electoral system
AMS

Answer 28

• Scottish Parliament
• Welsh Assembly
• London Assembly

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 scot parliament election 2021
Turnout 63%
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon won with 64 seats however resigned in 2023 and her successor is Yousaf Humza who won with 48% at the leadership election.

Welsh - 2021 Senedd election
Turnout 47%
Labour party won 30 seats

2021 London assembly
Turnout 43%
Labour won with 11 seats Conservatives won 8

Advantages:
• Combines the best of FPTP and proportional representation – constituency representation with
fairness of outcomes
• Results are broadly proportional
• Fewer wasted votes
• Voters have greater choice – more evidence of split-ticket voting where voters use their
constituency vote for a preferred candidate but their list vote for a different party
• Helps smaller parties who could not win constituency seats
• Some parties use the system to improve representation of women – placing female candidates at
the top of their lists
• Voters are easy to count and is not difficult for voters to understand how the outcome is reached.

Question 29

Recall of MPs Act 2015
When is a recall triggered?
What is the process?
Impact

Answer 29

1) mp convicted of an offence and has received a custodial sentence or detained.

Example - fiona onasanya was removed from office in 2019 after a successful RP under recall of the MPs act 2015 for criminal conviction of lying to the police about who was driving when being prosecuted for speeding.

2) can not sit in the hoc for 10 sitting days

3) convicted of providing misleading/false info for allowance claims under Parliamentary Standards Committee Act 2009.

For example Christopher Davis pleaded guilty to fraud as he mislead parliament over an expenses invoice of £700 photographs to decorate his office by making fake invoices.

Opened for 6 weeks and 10% of the constituency have to sign the petition to trigger a by-election.

Impact - the recall of mps act 2015 is important as it holds MPs to account for their wrongs doings it enhances democracy as the public get tou the MP should stay inside the decide if the mp should stay and serve the house of Commons and represent them it also helps to build trust which boosts participation and turnout and sets the standards and expectations for MPs

Question 30

E-democracy
Example
Impact

Answer 30

100,000signatures on the parliament website to be debated by MPs

E democracy makes political participation more accessible to people

Eg revoke Article 50 petition got over 6 million is signatures

Do not prorogue parliament got over 1 million signatures the public wanted to stop gov from suspending parliament early ahead of the credit deadline.

Impact -
-avoid the need for a referendum
-more accessible
-informs MPs about issues the public thinks are important and therefore there able debate issues boosting participation and transparency.

Question 31

Is the UK experiencing a participation crisis

Question 32

What evidence suggests that the uk is going through a participation crisis?

Answer 32

Not voting
Not joining a political parties
Not standing for office
Not engaging with politics high levels of dissatisfaction with current political system

Question 33

What is the counter-argument about people not wanting to participate?
Apathy- hapathy

Answer 33

Participation has not declined but rather changed as people may be increasingly disillusioned with party politics and this has driven them to look for participation in other ways eg PG

A few have even criticised the idea of apathy suggesting apathy occurs when voters are won’t err rent with the system experiencing hapathy
However apathy should not be dismissed as elections are vital for democracy and a low turnout signals apathy.

Question 34

1) Voting - the UK is experiencing a participation crisis
What was the turnout for participation in 1950 in contrast to 2019 GE?
What year was the lowest turnout?
Impact - politic

Answer 34

75%
Most recent GE turnout was 67% not up to historic levels
2001 GE 59%

Almost all Uk governments were not the choice of most people since the combined vote for other parties almost always is larger than the party that wins office.

Low voter turnout means that although the UK electoral system routinely fails the basic democratic principle of delivering the choice of the people- yet
governments still govern.

lower turnouts may be due to voter apathy, political cynicism and disengagement from politics. If so this could be a worrying sign that the system of representative democracy is failing to fulfill its most basic function of winning the consent of the people.

Question 35

Voting- Uk is experiencing a participation crisis

-Turnout in devolved elections are lower than in GE
-What was the turnout for Scott, Wales, NI assembly/ parliament.
-why is turnout lower

Answer 35

Scotland- 2021 Scottish Parliament election turnout = 63.5%

Wales - 2021 Senedd election = 46.6%

NI - 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election = 63.61%

This may be because voters see these less powerful bodies as unlikely to make a major difference to their lives. referendums have also generally had a low turnout.

Question 36

Voting - the UK is not experiencing a participation crisis

Answer 36

low turnouts are the result of ‘Hapathy’ There is little difference between the parties and they agree on the basic social and economic structure of our society.Most people may not really mind who wins. An alternative version of this is known as ‘hapathy’ meaning that people are generally content and see no need to push for political change. This may possibly help to account for the unusually low levels of voter turnout in 2001 and 2005 (the economy was booming and presumably levels of contentment were higher) but not for the 2010 election (which took place against a much less optimistic economic background).

Question 37

Voting- the uk is not experiencing a participation crisis

• opportunity to vote has increased

Answer 37

Devolution has produced more voting opportunities.

The 2021 London Assembly election turnout was 43%

Scotland- 2021 Scottish Parliament election turnout = 63.5%

Wales - 2021 Senedd election = 46.6%

NI - 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election = 63.61%

Question 38

Voting - uk is not experiencing a participation crisis

Increased us of referendums allow the electorate to engage with politics and constitutional issues eg..

Answer 38

Brexit 2016

Indy Ref 2014

2004 Northeast regional assembly Ref

Question 39

What act will further lower voter participation?

Answer 39

Elections Act 2022 could lower voter participation as photo ID is required at polling stations which can be burdensome for some.

Question 40

Party membership - UK is not experiencing a participation crisis

• party membership has increased
How many members does con labour and LD have?

• what has happened to the quality of membership

Answer 40

Only 1.6 per cent of the electorate now belongs to one of the three main UK-wide political parties, whereas in 1983 the figure was 3.8 per cent.

Conservatives have over 170,000 members in 2022 a significant drop from an estimated 400,000 in the mid-1990s.

Labour has half a million members there was a significant increase in membership when JC was leader of a labour party in 2016 with 515,000 members.
Membership increased after intro to £3 few in 2015

Liberal Democrats had 49,000 during the 2010-15 coalition with the Conservatives. However, recovered and now has over 90,000 members in 2023.

Snap membership increased due to 2014 indy ref

Num of people have decreased however quality of membership has increased
For example participation is more centres towards politics rather than social benefits like it was in the 20th century. Even though conservative membership declined in 1943 cons claimed they had 2.8 million members now they have 170,000 showing those who remain are genuinely active participants.

Question 41

Party Membership - Uk is experiencing a participation crisis

Answer 41

The decline of partisan alignment.

Simply being a member of a political party does not, of course, mean than a member is an active participant in political party actions.

An active party member is likely to get involved in a much wider range of party activities, not just at elections. He or she might attend regular party meetings, campaign and canvass in the local community, or be a vocal supporter of the party using social media.