Political Science 1020E Lecture 11: Democracy 1 – Lecture 11
12 Feb 2019
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Document Summary
Rule (kratos) by the many (demos: collective self-rule, a certain kind of method (process) of collective self-rule, government of, by, and for the people. Democracy is political equality: every vote counts equally, historically unpopular view. Degrees of democracy: directness of decisions, accountability of representatives, equality of opportunity for influence, scope of the authority of democratic will. Directness or indirectness of decisions: direct: everyone votes on every single issue. Indirect: voters choose a representative who then makes decisions. More direct is more democratic but not necessarily better (uninformed voting) Extreme accountability: immediate recall: delegates votes as told by people; do not like it, able to recall at any time. Extreme lack of accountability: representatives are elected for life. Our system: retrospective recall : division of labour, we spend time choosing the right people to make decisions on our behalf and evaluate their performance by either re-electing them or choosing someone else after a set term.
