POL101Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Resource Curse, Inclosure Acts, Modernization Theory
Document Summary
Political systems are meant to create some sort of order-based society. Democracy can be derived from the words demos (meaning people) and cracy (meaning rule). Democracies should have free and fair elections as well as have certain unalienable rights (i. e. freedom from interrogation, freedom of the press, etc. There are some tensions in democracy; for example, we can think of democracy as system of majoritarianism or as a supporter of minority rights. Also, there is a trade off between democracy and stability. Instead of thinking why democracies fail, we can consider why they succeed. The rst wave of democracy was in the early 19th century to 1922. During this period, suffrage was extended to propertied males, all males, and in some cases, women: political parties also grew during this time period to accommodate these new voters, during 1922, there were 29 democracies. The second wave followed the allied victory and went into the 1970s.
