Democracy and Participation Flashcards
1
Q
What are the advantages and disadvantages of direct democracy?
A
Advantages:
* Increases political participation
* Less chance for comprimise with voting - can choose with each issue
* Decisions tend to be agreed with by the majority of the public - tyranny of the majority
Disadvantages:
* Less impact per vote
* Takes time for political change
* Meida has a large impact - can advertise false information
2
Q
What are the advantages and disadvantages of representative democracy?
A
Advantages:
* Ease of use - people choose experts to make informed decisions on matters
* More flexible in making ammendments in what politicans promised
Disadvantages:
* Have to make comprimises with what representative to choose as not all with have an individual’s stance on the same issues
* Representatives may not follow through on their promised policies during campaigns
* Decrease in political participation
3
Q
Explain the two types representatives
A
- Delegate model: representatives is given direct instructions by the people
- Trustee model: representative is chosen for their ability to make decisions - Burkean model
4
Q
What are the key rules for referendums?
A
- Referendums tend to focus on large constitutional changes
- There’s always two clear sides to the referendum
- The government must be for the change proposition
5
Q
Reasons For Referendums
A
- An exercise in direct democracy; increases political engagement
- Politicians will come up with proposals which are politically sustainable
- Ensure there’s a broad base of political support for a controversial decision; binds a present or future government to the policy
- Settle highly controversial issues
- Objectively decide on issues in a way general elections don’t; their leaders will do on many issues rather than specific issues
- Referendums raise the issue as an open + public debate allowing voters to become educated on the issue through the media etc
- Referendums are a check on the government + ensure that key changes only occur with public support
6
Q
Reasons Aganist Referendums
A
- Engage voters who have little information about the issue, making them much more susceptible to false information
- Politicians who have the power to call for referendums tend to only do so if they’re in the majority, may suffer from the ‘false consensus effect’ where they believe they have more support than they do + lose the referendum
- A referendum cannot replace participatory, informed and deliberative decision-making but is instead a ‘procedural shortcut’
- Referendums are too simplistic; people vote once on issues with no responsibility to engage in political debate
- Referendums undermine Parliamentary democracy + sovereignty ( in which Parliament alone decides the law)
6 There are often unequal resources between the opposing campaigns in a referendum so that the electorate becomes submerged in one side of the argument; the media also has an impact - Tyranny of the majority - causes more division
7
Q
Explain the Representation of the People’s Act
A
- Gave the vote to all working-class men
- Mainly due to the argument that many of the armed forces weren’t property owners + couldn’t then vote in the country they were sacrifing their life for
- Women 30 or over who owned property or husbands owned property were also given the right to vote
8
Q
How did the government react to the suffragettes?
A
- The government generally disregarded the suffragettes pleas + ensured that they took a hard line on the violence by arresting them + placing them in horrifc conditions whilst in prison
- 1913 ‘Cat and Mouse Act’ -
- many women would go on hunger strike in prison, and the government decided they would be force fed so that the didn’t become martyrs
- The act meant that women who became ill due to their hunger stikes would be temporarily released, until they began to eat + got better, before being re-arrested and sent to prison
- The suffragettes stopped their work during the war in exhnage for the government releasing all WPSU prisoners who had been arrested for protesting
- WW1 led to a change in the perception of gender roles and eventually helped to led to the Representation of the People’s Act - giving some women the vote
9
Q
What arguments are the arguments for a reduced voting age?
A
- Earlier acess to voting increases voter particpation throughout people’s lives
- 16-year-olds already have personal autonomy - they can consent to sexual relationships, join the military etc
- If 16-year-olds had the vote there would be an increase in political education
- Politicans would be forced to focus on youth issues; such as bullying and mental health issues - reduce voter apathy + faith in politics - survey of yp wanted a dictatorship?
- 15 year-olds can be Party members such as the Conservative Party; so they can help pick the Prime Minister but not vote
- There is no maximum voting age; by having a minimum voting age democracy has become structuraly unbalanced
10
Q
What argumens are there aganist a reduced voting age?
A
- Adulthood is reached at 18
- Young people may be overly influenced or manipulated by other; parents or social media
- People don’t support lowering it; YouGov poll of 3017 51% opposed and 26% supported it
- Lack of life experience + maturity to make informed and responisbiresponsible voting decisions
- Inconsistend Age thresholds; to drink, smoke, gamble, be on a jury you need to be 18
- In the long-term the same trend of low voter participation may just be extended to 16+17 year-olds
11
Q
What are the types of pressure groups?
A
- Sectional groups (interest) - protect + promote the interests of their groups - BMA, NEU
- Cause groups (promotional) - a policy area that they seek to change - RSPCA, Greenpeace
- Social movements - loosely organised groups focused on one cause - MeToo, BLM, Pride
- Insider groups - work closely with government + have access - National Farmer’s Union, Ash
- Outsider groups - have no access to government + work outside it - NEU, Just Stop Oil, CND
Groups can change with what party is in power + for different issues
12
Q
Explain the three problems with pressure groups
A
- Particiaptory failure
* doesn’t actively engage citizens - lacks legitmacy
* only really allows for short-term involvment over long-term engagement
* Tend to be single-issue - Reinforcement of social bias
* favours membership of privilege people and involvemnt in pressure groups despite socially execluded groups becoming the focus of government policy
* more collectivistic forms of participation decline in favour of more individualist forms - Underming effective governments
* outsider groups are more likely to force government to take a populist side
* parties are failing to to deliver the political functions of cohering interests
* outsider groups lacks close government relationships to influence policy - link to Public Order Act 2023
13
Q
Explain three ways presure groups promote democracy
A
- Supplementing electoral democracy:
* allows for minority voices to be heard and thought of in policy - might be disenfranchised
* offers alternative viewpoints - Flexibility:
* its flexibility allows for increased participation as new causes emerge + reaches people who were previously politically disengaged - Widening power:
* there’s no ‘power elite’ as one group becomes powerful, other groups challenge it - links to direct democracy
14
Q
Explain three ways pressure groups don’t promote democracy
A
- Holding unaccountable power:
* pressure participants exert their influence ‘behind closed doors’
* groups aren’t held to political account so their influence isn’t democractically legitmate
* leaders of the groups are rarely elected
* some methods, strikes + violence essentially ‘holds the country to ransom’ - Concentrating power:
* wealthy can gain power through the revolving door e.g donations, lobbying
* sectional groups interests don’t usually reflect the wider publics interests
* politicans often only listen to groups which they support + impose costs on those which oppose them - Narrowing participation:
* empowers the already powerful rather than dispersing it among ordinary citizens
* pluralism argues political inequality is mostly demoratic - largest groups = have most members but mostly have more money + links to the government
* groups are execluded because they cannot be organised so have to rely on others who may not accurately understand such experiences e.g children + asylum seekers
* members have superfical political engagement
15
Q
What are human rights?
A
- Human rights are universal as they belong to all humans everywhere regardless of nationality, ethnic or racial origin + social background
- Fundemental in that they’re inalienable; a human being’s entitlement to them cannot be removed
- Absolute as they’re the basic grounds for living a genuinely human life; they must be fully upheald in all circumstances
16
Q
What are the ways in which rights are protected in the UK?
A
- Universal Decleration of Human Rights (1948) + European Convention on Human Rights (1950)
* UK lacked any equivelant legislation domestically; in the 1970s the ECHR began to show up in the UK’s civil liberties - Human Rights Act
* Key symbol + protection of civil liberties in the UK
17
Q
What are the three aims of the Human Rights Act?
A
- Bringing Rights Back Home
* made rights more readily available by ensuring British citizens could bring cases to British courts
* still possible to challenge an Act of Parliament + the courts can issue a declaration of incompatibility with rights in the convention - Creating a Culture of Respect for Human Rights
* placed a legal duty on organisations to protect rights in the act (e.g NHS, schools, police)
* They developed safe spaces for relatives to visit children in secure mental health settings that complies with Article 8 (right to respect for private + family life) - Increasing Public Awareness of Human Rights
* by placing civil liberties in one document it make people more aware of their rights + they can challenge when their rights are violated
18
Q
Explain the Freedom of Information Act
A
- Allows the public to access information held by public authorities about them
- Aimed to create more open goverenment where decisions taken by public authorities are impacting people’s lives + decisions that affect spending taxpayers money
- Between 2005 and 2015 there were over 40,000 requests under the act + the gov rejected 90,000 requests that weren’t in public interest
- e.g in 2019 Liberty published a report Policing By Machine which claimed that at least 14 police forces in the UK had used or intended to use discriminatory computer programs to model where + by what groups crime would be committed by
19
Q
Explain the Equality Act
A
- Brought together 116 separate legislation on discrimination together to both make the law clearer + easier to understand + strengthen protection in certain areas
- Nine protected characteristics - age, disability, marriage + civil partnership, race, sex, sexual orientation, religion or belief, gender reassignment, pregnancy + maternity
- Lays out what an individual can do if they’re unlawfully discriminated aganist in the workplace + makes public bodies elimnate discrimination + advance equality
20
Q
How can human rights limit power?
A
- UK Parliament has the power to ‘derogate’ from certain articles in the ECHR when passing laws during state of emergency or at a time of war
- In the Labour Goverenment of Blair derograted from Article 5 (the right to liberty + security) in passing of the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001
gave them the power to detain suspected international terrorists for 28 days - Expections to this rule - the UK Parliament cannot derogate from articles 2,3,4+7
- right to life, prohibition of torture, prohibition of slavery + forced labour, no punishment without trial
- e.g Coronovirus Act 2020 massively increased state power + emergency regregulations that allowed the police to prevent people from leaving their homes in order to protect public health - violation of article5 (right to liberty + security)
21
Q
What Clash of Rights often occur?
A
- There is often a clash between individual rights and the collective rights of the state; which often pits the goverenment, backed by the will of those who elected aganist individual rights leaving these matters to be resolved by the courts
- This often leaves the courts into direct conflict with the goverenment + can put the safety of the country at risk + undermine the trust of the public in the legal system
22
Q
Explain how sentencing laws leads to a clash of rights
A
- Sentencing laws; in Vinter and Others v the UK a case involving convicted matters the ECHR ruled that a life sentence (compatible with A3) had the possibility of release
* Former Justice Secretary Grayling said this case led him to propose a new British Bill of Rights to allow UK courts + parliament to have the final say on such matters
*Under 18 year-olds cannot be given whole life tarrifs - some argued this was unreasonable in the case of Southport killings
23
Q
Explain how the treatment of prisoners leads to a clash of rights
A
- In Hirst v UK (2005) the ECtHR ruled that a blanket ban on prisoner voting violated A3 - prohibition of torture + unfair punsihment
- In a case David Cameron described as making him feel physically ill
24
Q
Explain how terrorism often leads to a clash of rights
A
- Has become much more controversial due to the increased terrorist threat since 9/11
*A and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department (2004) (aka Belmarsh case) saw the Law Lords rule that Labour policy of indefinate detention of foreign terror suspects without charge broke the Human Rights Act
- The court ruled that laws like this were a ‘real threat to the life of the nation’
- Charles Clarke the Home Sec didn’t release the suspects until the next uear, once he had passed legislation that allowed him to place the suspects under control orders
- Control orders allowed him to impose strict restricitions on suspects such as electronic tags + limits on who they can meet
25
Q
Explain how the right to privacy + family life v the need to protect others leads to a clash of rights
A
- In S and Marper v United Kingdom (2008), the ECtHR ruled that the blanket retention of DNA profiles taken from innocent people posed a disproportionate interference with the right to private life violating A8 of the ECtHR
- Home Sec Jacqui Smith (Labour) was disappoited in the ruiling arguing the keeping the DNA was vital to fighting crime
26
Q
Explain the changes to electoral law/process from the 2022 Elections Act and how they create a democratic deficit
A
2022 Elections Act
* Voter ID is now compulsory for UK GEs + English local elelections - deliberate attempts at voter suppression since personation in the UK is virtually non-existant - 400,000 people (2024 GE) unable to vote as a result
- Permits government ministers to provide the Electoral Commission with a ‘strategy’ - this undermines the EC’s role as an independant regulator
- Enfranchises UK citizens living abroad removing the 15-year cap on overseas voting - leads to further concerns on ‘dark money’ (electoral campaign fund not properly delcared + more foreign interference)
- Musk plans to donate £100 million to Reform UK - manifesto pledge from Labour to prevent donations outside of elections - especially from foreign actors
27
Q
Explain changes to protest ability due to the 2022 Police,Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act + 2023 Public Order Act and how they create a democratic deficit
A
2022 Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act + 2023 Public Order
* Gives the police the right to curtail protests which cause disruption - introduced new offences e.g locking on and interfering with key national infrastrcuture
* Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights concluded that the government was establishing a ‘hostile environment’ for those wishing to protest
28
Q
Give examples of declining standards in public life
A
- Health Secretary Matt Hancok for breaking Covid-19 rules - June 2021
- Education Secretary Gavin Williamon for sending abusive texts - November 2022
- Conservative Party Chair Nadhim Zahawi breaching ministeral code over his tax affairs - January 2023
- Deputy PM Dominic Raab for behaving aggressively towards officals - April 2023
- Government awarding process for medical supply contracts during the Covid pandemic lacked transparency - government ‘VIP lanes’ to fast-track procurement - Baroness Michelle Mone
- Louise Haigh - resigned as transport secretary for misleading her theft (fraud) - when younger
- Tulip Siddiq resigned over properties in London linked to her aunt’s allies - previous PM of Bangladesh
- Andrew Gwynne MP maderacist + sexist comments in the WhatsApp group - suspended as an MP
