POLISCI 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Thick Description, Plurality Voting System, Wage Labour

• School: UMASS-Amherst
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLISCI 111
• Professor: Alyssa Miraj- Grahame

Document Summary

Contestation > different viewpoints to choose from during elections! Not inviting long responses > ex. providing 1 line to answer what is democracy ! Results of survey don"t end up being in the interviewee"s own words ! Glossing over, trying to put words in their mouths! Context: industrial revolution, wage labor beginning, urbanization, enlightenment, socialism! Elites wanted to maintain in uence within new democratic order! Minimize representation of workers during early suffrage expansion! Indirect voting offset power of numbers, moderating the power of the masses (later becoming the electoral college system)! Cultivates idea that we"re all in this together ! Politics means doing what"s right for the entire country! Exclusionary safeguards > what all of these strategies lead to! Weak protection against existing threats > i. e. alternative parties that already exist! Policy preferences at median income v. at 90th percentile! If the preferences of the people with wealth are re ected!