Political Science 1020E Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Body Politic, Amartya Sen

• School: Western University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: Political Science 1020E
• Professor: Charles Jones

Document Summary

The craft analogy: consider jobs requiring lots of skill, piolets, architects, medical doctors, health of the (cid:271)ody a(cid:374)d the state (cid:862)the (cid:271)ody politi(cid:272)(cid:863) What is modern representative democracy: frequent, free, and fair elections. In which every citizen has the right to vote and the right to stand for office: elected representatives make decisions, freedom of speech, independent media, freedom of association. Intrinsic reasons: freedom as autonomy, auto = self, nomos = law/rule, autonomy = giving laws to oneself, democracy embodies a commitment to freedom or self-rule. Instrumental reasons: better decisions, democracy always produces better results than its alternatives, no famine in a democracy with a free press (amartya sen) india vs china, the democratic peace hypothesis: democracies do not fight each other. Accountability & interest protection: dictators need not take the peoples interests into account, accountability to citizens constrains democratic leaders, pro(cid:271)le(cid:373): (cid:374)e(cid:272)essary (cid:271)ut u(cid:374)popular poli(cid:272)ies (cid:449)o(cid:374)(cid:859)t (cid:271)e adopted.