POL 2101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Plurality Voting System, Majority Government, Minority Rights

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POL 2101
• Professor: Andre Lecours

Document Summary

Popular sovereignty: citize(cid:374)s (cid:373)ust (cid:271)e a(cid:271)le to (cid:862)thro(cid:449) the ras(cid:272)als out(cid:863) Fair political competition: key to even the most minimalist versions of democracy. Achieving political equality: citizens should have equal rights to participation. If each vote is to be counted equally, the decision of the majority must be accepted. Representing minorities: minorities must achieve equality. What co(cid:374)stitutes (cid:862)fair(cid:863: choi(cid:272)e, e(cid:448)eryo(cid:374)e(cid:859)s (cid:448)ote (cid:271)ei(cid:374)g (cid:272)ou(cid:374)ted the sa(cid:373)e, a(cid:374)yo(cid:374)e (cid:449)ho (cid:449)a(cid:374)ts to ru(cid:374) (cid:272)a(cid:374) etc. One representative per geographic area (riding, constituency, district) Majority government but not necessarily majority rule (cid:858)first-past-the-past(cid:859), (cid:858)(cid:449)i(cid:374)(cid:374)er-take-all(cid:859) syste(cid:373) *: liberals got less than 50% of popular vote, but won in the majority of ridings. Representation (# of seats) directly proportional to share of popular vote received (# of votes) Mechanics: *: party lists (open where you show your preference for candidate, closed where parties place people on the list, singe-transferable vote (rank candidate) Political equality: every vote seems to count. Popular sovereignty: no direct representative-citizen link.