POL201Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Joseph Schumpeter, Direct Democracy, Minority Rights
Document Summary
Thick and thin democracy jan 15 th. Capitalism, socialism and democracy; an introduction to government and politics. In the last 60 years, the number of democracies has steadily risen, especially since 1989. 2009, the distribution of freedom in the world (correlated with democracy) was measured along a continuum. Not as a continuum, because then it would be a dichotomous variable; either you have elections or you don"t. Democracy literally means power to the people, demos (people) + kratos (power). Democracy was first practiced in the form of direct democracy in athens, where the citizens would vote on different things (ex. war). An institutional arrangement that realizes the common good through decisions that carry out the. The idea of a common good is a utilitarian ideal in which a common good is discernible as the condition under which everyone is better off than they would be under other conditions.