Liberal Democracy

Question 1

Finish the sentence:

The liberal democracy is the dominant…

Answer 1

Political force in the developed world

Question 2

Who proclaimed the worldwide triumph of western liberal democracy?

Answer 2

Francis Fukuyama

Question 3

Why did Fukuyama say liberalism had triumphed?

Answer 3

Collapse of communism and democratisation of Asia and Latin America

Question 4

What are liberal features of a liberal democracy reflected in?

Answer 4

A network of internal and external checks in government that are designed to guarantee civil liberty and ensure a healthy civil society

Question 5

What is the democratic character of liberal democracy based on?

Answer 5

The system of regular and competitive elections

Question 6

What do the regular and competitive elections conform to?

Answer 6

The principles of universal suffrage and political equality

Question 7

What are liberals ambivalent towards?

Answer 7

Democracy

Question 8

Why are liberals ambivalent towards democracy?

Answer 8

They fear collective power

Question 9

How did 19th century liberals often see democracy?

Answer 9

As threatening or dangerous

Question 10

How did Plato and Aristotle see democracy?

Answer 10

As a system of rule by the masses at the expense of wisdom and property

Question 11

What can democracy become?

Answer 11

The enemy of individual Liberty

Question 12

How did de Tocqueville describe democracy?

Answer 12

As the tyranny of the majority

Question 13

What did James Madison argue that the best defence against majoritarianism is?

Answer 13

A series of checks and balances that would make government responsive to competing minorities and also safeguard the propertied few from the propertyless masses

Question 14

What did JS Mill think about political wisdom?

Answer 14

It’s unequally distributes and is largely related to education

Question 15

How did JS Mill think the classes would vote?

Answer 15

The uneducated would vote according to narrow class interests while the educated are able to use their wisdom and experience for the good of others

Question 16

How did John Stuart Mill Argus politicians should speak?

Answer 16

On behalf of themselves rather than their electors

Question 17

Describe John Stuart Mill’s proposal of a system of plural voting

Answer 17

The illiterate would be disenfranchised and individuals would be allocated one, two, three or four votes depending on their level of education or social position

Question 18

What did Gasset warm that the arrival of mass democracy had led to?

Answer 18

To overthrow of civilised society and the moral order

Question 19

What did Gasset say mass democracy had paved the way for?

Answer 19

Authoritarian rulers to come to power by appealing to the basest instincts of the masses

Question 20

By the twnetieth century, what had a large proportion of liberals come to view democracy as?

Answer 20

A virtue

Question 21

What was the earliest liberal justification for democracy founded on?

Answer 21

Consent

Question 22

What did John Locke develop in the 17th century?

Answer 22

A limited theory of protective democracy

Question 23

What did Locke argue should happen?

Answer 23

Voting rights should be extended to the propertied who could then defend their natural rights against government

Question 24

Finish the sentence:

If government through taxation, possess the power to…

Answer 24

Expropriate property, citizens are entitled to protect themselves by controlling the composition of the tax making body, the legislature

Question 25

Give a quote from the American Revolution

Answer 25

“No taxation without representation”

Question 26

What did Utilitarian theorists develop the notion of democracy as a form of protection for the individual into?

Answer 26

A case for universal suffrage

Question 27

What did Bentham come to believe?

Answer 27

That universal suffrage was the only way of promoting the greatest happiness for the greatest number

Question 28

What did JS Mill say about democracy in its unrestrained form?

Answer 28

It will lead to tyranny, but without democracy, ignorance and brutality will prevail

Question 29

What does democracy promote?

Answer 29

The highest and most harmonious development of human creatures

Question 30

How do citizens enhance their understanding?

Answer 30

By participating in political life

Question 31

What does developmental democracy say about democracy?

Answer 31

It’s an educational experience

Question 32

Who did Mill believe franchise should be extended to and not extended to?

Answer 32

Extend to women

Not the illiterate

Question 33

What has liberal theory focused more on since the 20th century?

Answer 33

The need for consensus

Question 34

What have pluralist theorists argued?

Answer 34

That organised groups rather than individuals have become the primary political actors

Question 35

How did pluralist theorists portray modern industrial societies?

Answer 35

As more complex, characterised by competition between and amongst rival interests

Question 36

Finish the sentence:

From the pluralist point of view…

Answer 36

Democracy is the only system of rule capable of maintaining balance or equilibrium within complex and fluid modern societies

Question 37

Why do pluralists think democracy is the only viable system of rule?

Answer 37

It gives competing groups a political voice and it brings them to the political system and so maintains political stability