POLSCI 1G06 Lecture 17: November 7, 2013 - Institutionalizing Democracy - Lecture #17.doc
31 Dec 2014
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Institutionalizing democracy: our political system is a representative democracy rather than a direct democracy. Elected representatives in government are supposed to give voice to the will of the people. There are a number of institutional solutions to the problem of representation: single member plurality system first past the post winner takes all. This is the institutional procedure used in canada, britain, us. Some problems with respect to the democratic character of the results: o o o. It tends to suppress the political power of minorities. It tends to lead to voter disenchantment with the act of voting. Votes do not translate proportionately into representation: proportional representation, by contrast, is designed to correctly translate between votes cast and electoral outcomes. In general, the proportion of votes cast for a party are translated into the equivalent proportion of seats that that party wins.
