Democratic Theory and Democracy in Practice

Question 0

What is the modern conception of Democracy and what classical origins does it have?

Answer 0

Derogatory - state is ruled by the uneducated masses, stifling liberty and wisdom - such criticism came from Aristotle and Plato

Question 1

Define democracy according to the Greeks

Answer 1

Demos - people
Kratos - Rule
Traceable to 5th Century BC, in Athens

Question 2

What are the forms of Democracy? (2)

Answer 2

Direct democracy - Athenian Democracy in which relative small numbers of citizens gathered in assemblies to discuss issues, pass laws and adopt policies by majority vote. Town-hall democracy, still in New England. Largely outdated.
Representative Democracy - Developed in Europe and N America in the 18th Century - allows the masses to elect a representative body

Question 3

1. Who are the people?
2. What is meant by rule?
3. How far should this rule extend?

Answer 3

1. Theoretically all, however practically restricted
2. Government, which takes control of the decision making process. In its most extreme version this actuates in a dictatorship, where the leaders claim that they are operating in the interests of the people
3. Debate of public vs private - essentially, should be community issues that do not infringe on the public

Question 4

What did Lincoln call for during the Gettysburg address?

Answer 4

Government by the people, for the people

Question 5

What was Schumpeter’s view on Democracy?

Answer 5

Democratic process was just a battleground in which power seeking politicians sought to win the vote - “democracy means only that the people have the opportunity of accepting or refusing the men who are to rule them”

Question 6

What did Crick say about Democracy?

Answer 6

Bernard Crick - “Democracy is perhaps the most promiscuous word in the world of public affairs”
democracy can mean anything to anyone, no settled model of democracy

Question 7

Direct Democracy: Who, how many, and when?

Answer 7

City states in Athens. Solon and Cleisthenes designed democratic system. Only 30,000 of the 250,000 population were ‘citizens’. Only 5000 regularly attended an ecclesia, which met on a hill called the Pnyx

Question 8

How did Aristotle define a citizen?

Answer 8

A man who has a share in legal judgement and office

Question 9

How were threats to democracy handled?

Answer 9

Reverse elections could be used to ostracise members of societyq

Question 10

What, according to John Stuart Milll, were the dangers of democracy?

Answer 10

not all political opinions have equal value, rejected political equality. Mill believed that society had the right to interfere with the freedom of an individual when that individuals actions harm others. Mill was in favour of extending franchise, to the educated.

Question 11

Models of representation

Answer 11

Trustee - Representative should be in a position to exercise their judgement on matters of importance. Rep may rep their own interests, not others
Delegate - Rep must act on behalf of voters - no personal judgement. Act for constituency, not the nation
Resemblance - Representation must be in direct correlation to the demographic and ethnic composition of society
Mandate - politicians elected for the party they represent, rather than their personal appeal. Manifesto is key

Question 12

What are the four models of democracy?

Answer 12

• Classical democracy
• Developmental democracy
• People’s democracy
• Protective Democracy

Question 13

Classical Democracy - what is it? (5)

Answer 13

• Oldest. The Athenian model
• Decision making made by the masses in ecclesia, councils of 500
• Theoretically strong, in rallying support
• Practical limitations - not all people, only ‘citizens’
• Lives on in New England and in Swiss Cantons. Basis behind e-Democracy, people’s panels, referendums, and initatives

Question 14

What is developmental democracy? (6)

Answer 14

• Concerned with the development of the individual in a community
• Rousseau believed that democracy was a way in which individuals could achieve freedom by obeying laws which they design
• The citizen has freedom when they participate in a direct manner
• Not supportive of elections - representative assemblies will corrupt, invalidating the general will: citizens must participate in their own affairs
• Democracy must be open, accountable and decentralised - grassroots democracy
• Fourier and Owen - Communal democracy. Amitai Etzioni believed in common expression in the 1990s

Question 15

Criticisms of developmental democracy

Answer 15

General will can be manipulated by interest groups - if sold as general will. This could lead to a totalitarian democracy.
J.L. Talmon argued elevating the collective interest above the individual would lose freedom - Rousseau believed in forced freedom
Milder developmental democracy from JS Mill - who wanted stronger local authorities and expanding public office as an educative tool

Question 16

What is a People’s Democracy

Answer 16

• Marxist ideas, rejected traditional democracy whilst it was associated with Capitalism. Common ownership of wealth could bring about egalitarian social democracy, but political democracy was not desireable - true proletariat interests would be protected by a vanguard party, acting on a different form of general will - species being
• Decisions would be made on democratic centralism, where the party elite would make the decisions based on scientific tenets of Marxism - which would be up for discussion among the masses

Question 17

What did Marx say about Democracy

Answer 17

Democracy could only be achieved if capitalism was overthrown. Removing the bourgeoisie democracy is removed for the proletarian one, class would disappear. There would be no need for a government, and society would work on the maxim ‘from each according to their ability to their need’. No need for democracy

Question 18

What did Fourier say about Democracy?

Answer 18

Marx is too idealistic, Fourier suggested independent communities where production would be communal. Everything shared on an equal basis and all decisions made on an equal basis. Similarities with the Israeli Kibbutz system.

Question 19

What is Protective Democracy?

Answer 19

• Democracy is not concerned with political participation, but how a citizen can protect himself from the government.
• Early liberals supported on the basis of individual liberties - protected from overpowerful governments
• Locke - ‘life, liberty and property’
• Voting was a fundamental inalienable right that could not be removed by government; no taxation without representation - war for independence
• Central to the principle is the accountability of those involved in government - Montesquieu, fragmented government

Question 20

What is a liberal democracy?

Answer 20

• Invention from the 19th C - modern form of representative democracy with polyarchy.
• Limited government with checks and balances.
• Liberal democracies form of electoral democracy, government derives authority or legitimacy through popular vote.
• Incorporate a mixed rule by an elite along with popular participation - voter uses their power as a consumer would use their power to buy products and services.
• Accountability is affirmed through pressure groups - liberal democracies are pluralist democracies

Question 21

What was the study taken by Dahl to identify polyarchy?

Answer 21

The New Haven Study.

Question 22

What do neo-pluralists say?

Answer 22

Belief in deformed polyarchy - Lindbolm, Galbraith, alongside the corporatist model

Question 23

Critics of the liberal democracy? (Elites)

Answer 23

• Elitists believe tha political power is concentrated in the hands of a few, exercised by elites.
• Mosca, Pareto - elites ruling in democracies through force and cunning
• C Wright Mills - society controlled by the power elite - based on the military-industrial complex ( relationship between government, the armed forces and industry)

Question 24

How do elites work?

Answer 24

The elite controlled the hierarchies and organisations and were non-elected bodies, such as the military, the judiciary and the police.

Question 25

Liberal and Conservative criticisms of liberal democracy?

Answer 25

- Capitalism is a precondition for democracy and that the right to own property is an essential part of this

Question 26

What do revolutionary Marxists say about liberal democracies?

Answer 26

Cannot be a democratic way to socialism. Real democracy cannot exist without economic equality

Question 27

Why do radical democrats reject liberal democracies?

Answer 27

Lib Dems reduce participation to just a ritual. Citizens do not rule and there is an enormous gulf in interests and understanding between those in government and those who have elected them.

Question 28

What is the modern appeal of liberal democracy?

Answer 28

- Fukuyama suggests liberal democracy has triumphed over socialist USSR and China would have to collapse to Western economic liberalisation

Question 29

What did Alexis de Tocqueville think on the tyranny of the majority?

Answer 29

- liberty was threatened by public opinion, which he called the tyranny of the majority. He believed that individuality, self-assurance and liberty could be lost if the majority imposed uniformity

Question 30

What are the characteristics of dictatorships

Answer 30

- the exercise of absolute authority by a single individual; which is very similar to the concept of autocracy - Examples include Adolf hitler, Benito Mussolini and Saddam Hussein - associated with despotism - this is generally related to slavery

Question 31

What are the eight types of dictatorship (and what are they?)

Answer 31

- Class dictatorship = a version of dictatorship of the proletariat, in which revolutionary change is considered to be the permanent state of affairs. Society should be run by the majority class, and institutions should reflect this. Shown in the Irish republican socialist party , led by James Connolly - Party dictatorship - situation when a party gains political power and then strips all other parties of opportunities to run for government or criticise its actions. For example, Zanu-PF or Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe - Military dictatorship - stratocracy, where power resides with military chiefs. Usually they come to power by coup d'état. Burma, Pakistan, Libya. Cult of personality occasionally - Idi Amin and Muammar al-Gaddafi - Personal dictatorship - a prominent individual assumes dictatorial powers and focuses their efforts into creating a positive public image for themselves - a cult of personality (Kim Il- Sung, Kim Jong Il, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Saddam Hussein) - Dictatorship of the proletariat - Marx and Blanqui, need for a temporary revolutionary elite to extinguish capitalism and impose a revolutionary agenda - Autocracy - unchecked, overriding political power given to an individual in high office. Government is carried out in the name of the individual inheriting the title. I.e. A monarch - Authoritarian oligarchy - political power is lodged in the hands of a small number of people that make a small, single, cohesive elite; such as a one party state: I.e. Communist seizure of power in Russia, 1917, and the emergence of Stalin as an autocratic ruler in 1922 - Absolute democracy - democratic but unconstitutional government. Majoritarian dictatorship, popular despotism or tyranny of the majority - no restraints on their power. French Revolution

Question 32

What did Hobbes say about absolutism and anarchy?

Answer 32

Hobbes believed that stability and order could be ensured by an absolute and unlimited state, the leviathan, whose power could not be challenged or questioned - choice was absolutism or anarchy

Question 33

What did Hannah Arendt say on social movements?

Answer 33

Arendt believed that social movements, or collectivist ideas, such as nationalism, were inevitable stepping stones towards totalitarian government

Question 34

List some pro-democracy arguments

Answer 34

- undemocratic elites become remote from the people. As society is made up of a great number of different groups, no elite can know what is best for everyone - preventing domination - governments prefer rule by consent than by force and democracy provides the basis for legitimacy, as well as stability and cohesion. Freedoms and education, prosperity and accomplishment - development of citizen, provides knowledge. - morality - everyone has a stake in society - engine for social change

Question 35

What are the arguments against democracy?

Answer 35

- need of a special elite, masses = idiots - ignores economic democracy of Marxism - equal political rights are a sham - democracy supports male dominated society

Question 37

What is the pluralist perspective of democracy?

Answer 37

Locke, Montesquieu, Madison and Dahl. Pluralist theory similar to liberal democracy. Government is neutral and fragmenting, allowing a number of groups to access and influence them simultaneously

Question 38

What is the neo-pluralist or corporatist perception of democracy?

Answer 38

- Corporatist or tripartite. Democracy = state officials employers and unions work directly with one another. Individuals represented through groups. Government selects groups they work with. Policy through negotiation with powerful economic groups, not electoral democracy.

Question 39

Marxist

Answer 39

Focus on tensions between democracy and capitalism. Liberal democracies are controlled and manipulated by the ruling classes. Gramsci referred as bourgeoisie hegemony. Habermas argued that capitalism will ultimately undergo a crisis of legitimacy and this was the basis of the economic and political problems encountered in the 1970s

Question 40

What is the elitist perspective of democracy?

Answer 40

Pareto, Mosca and Michels. Classical elitists = democracy is a sham, power belongs to a small elite. Democracy is a political method a way of making decisions. Through competition they are accountable, but this makes for a weak form of democracy, as one elite is replaced with another.

Question 41

What is the New Right perspective of democracy?

Answer 41

Primary focus on the New Right view is that political systems

Question 42

Which model of representation best describes the role of MPs?

Answer 42

Two forms - the trustee model, and the mandate model

Question 43

What are the four models that Commons subscribe to?

Answer 43

Trustee - Burke, enlightened conscience Delegate model Mandate Model Resemblance Model

Question 44

How representative is the House of Commons

Answer 44

Average age dropped in 1997 to 48.8, creeped up to 50.6 in 2005

Question 45

Average age of members of main political parties?

Answer 45

Labour - 52.2 Conservative - 49.3 Lib Dem - 46

Question 46

What were the percentages of women in 1979, 1992 and 2005?

Answer 46

3% 18% 20%

Question 47

Dangers of majoritarianism?

Answer 47

- Tyranny of the majority - Repression of minority rights - Dull conformity - Guarantees the majority view is always right

Question 48

What are the checks and balances against majoritarianism

Answer 48

EU Council through QMV

Question 49

Majoritarian genocide

Answer 49

Rwanda

Question 50

What are the two types of abstainer?

Answer 50

Passive abstainer - no interest in politics | Active abstainer - politically active, for political reason

Question 51

Dangers of widening participation?

Answer 51

Stagnation of the decision making process mechanism. Classical elitist theory suggests that wider participation is undesirable