POL 101W Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Liberal Democracy, Direct Democracy, Limited Government
6 Feb 2017
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Democratic ideal is that all adult citizens should have an equal and effective voice in the decisions of the political communities to which they belong. Many countries claim to be democratic but is actually authoritarian or a hybrid regime. Notio(cid:374) of ho(cid:449) people gai(cid:374)ed po(cid:449)er i(cid:374) s(cid:373)aller u(cid:374)its, (cid:449)e did(cid:374)"t say (cid:373)u(cid:272)h a(cid:271)out this. In smaller kin units moving up to protostates, it was often decided by male heads of household who decided who would be leader. Power was given to people who could forcible gain it or gain it through a divine process. No formal process or recognition like elections. We do(cid:374)"t k(cid:374)o(cid:449) (cid:449)here ideas (cid:272)a(cid:373)e fro(cid:373)! Recognition that you can lose and its okay since the process was fair. Plato viewed democracy as involving leaders of the mass of people plundering rich and distributing their wealth: democracy degenerate into tyranny as the mass would give up its freedom to a popular tyrant leader.
