Democracy

What is and where is it going?

Democracy

Community offers us security and fraternity but often imposes demands of conformity and responsibility. Heterogeneous plural societies offer considerable autonomy to individuals but do so at the price of “alientation’ or loneliness.” Is it possible to combine the best features of community and plural society?

How do we all get along?

What is democracy?• Elections• Essential characteristics• Freedom• Popular sovereignty

• Liberal democracy • System of government in which the people rule themselves,

either directly or indirectly (through chosen officials), but in either case subject to constitutional restraints on the power of the majority.

• Representative democracy

Descriptions of Democracy

• Who gets to play• Dahl: degree of contestation of political power and

extent of popular participation in such contestationPolyarchy

• How they get to play?• Lijphart: Marjoritarian and consensus democracies

• How democracy is done?

Lipjhart: Majoritarian-Consensual

Institutional Variable Majoritarian Consensus

Executive power Single party majority Multiparty coalitions

Executive-legislative relationship

Executive dominance Balance of power

Party system Two-party Multi-party

Electoral system Majority or plurality PR

Interest group system pluralist corporatist

Levels of gov’t unitary federalism

Legislative chambers Unicameral Bicameral

Constitutional amendment

By simple majority By special majority

Judicial review no yes

De Tocquevillian

Formal Substantive•Rule of law•Inclusive citizenship•Elected power holders•Free and Fair elections•Freedom of Expression and alternative sources •Associational Autonomy•Civilian Control of Security Forces•Separation of Power

•Legitimized public authority. Acceptance of limitations of power•Rights based culture•Participatory culture•Strong civil society•Support for dissenting opinions and free speech.

Colin Hay

1. Politics as any and all social interaction occurring within a sphere of government

2. Politics as government, where government is understood as a formal decision-making process the outcomes of which are binding upon members of the community in question

3. Politics as a public and formal set of processes and rituals through which the citizens of a state may participate, often at arm’s length, in the process of government.

4. Politics as the noble art of preserving a community of citizens (the republic) through the construction, pursuit and defence of the common or public interest.

5. Politics as the art of stabilizing and insulating the power and authority of those with access to and control over public institutions through the use of the resources that they thereby possess.

6. Politics as a process of public deliberation and scrutiny of matters of collective concern or interest to a community.

Hay (con’t) 7. Politics as a process for holding to account those charged with

responsibility for collective decision making within the community.8. Politics as a perverse set of influences upon society, associated

with deception, duplicity and the promotion in the name of the collective good of singular or sectional interests.

9. Politics as a descriptive noun for a range of collective and public, yet informal and extra-govenmental/parliamentary, activities designated to draw attention to issues of contention.

10. Politics as concerned with the distribution, exercise and consequences of power.

11. ‘Political’ as an adjective to describe the motivation of participants and non-participants in a range of both formal and informal, public and private, processes – where such motivations are political to the extent to which they reflect or express a view as to the legitimacy of the process.

12. ‘Political’ as an adjective to describe the motivations of participants in matters of public governance or social interaction – where such motivations are political to the extent to which they reflect or express the narrow self-interest of the participant.

Hay’s definition of politics

Politics is the capacity for agency and deliberation in situations of genuine collective or social choice. (pg. 77)

Politicization/Depoliticization

• Politicization• Read Mansbridge!!!

• Depoliticization• Down-loading public policy to the public non-governmental

sphere• Privatization• Uploading to the transnational sphere• Issues as consumer choices• Disavowal of a capacity deliberation. Making issues non-

negotiable» Defining something a religious issues

» Fatalism – pessimistic and opptimistic

• The lose of public civic space