Political Science 1020E Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Benevolent Dictatorship, Direct Democracy, Judicial Independence
23 Jan 2020
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Document Summary
Democracy: rule by the people (kratos by the demos) Democratic decision-making gives each citizen an equal say at some stage of the process. Modern representative democracies are necessarily indirect forms of political decision-making in which voters choose representatives who make particular policy choices. On the scope of authority question, we note the existence of disputes about which issues should be open to democratic decision rather than being left to individuals to decide for themselves. Historically, democracy originated in the 2600 years ago in greece. In athens, democracy was direct: citizens participated in making decisions for themselves, and discussion was followed by a show of hands. The athenians were culturally homogeneous and their democratic system excluded many people altogether, including women, slaves, and resident foreigners. In comparison, modern representative democracy is a different system of popular self-government, characterized by frequent elections, universal suffrage, decision-making by elected representatives, freedom of speech and association, and judicial independence.
