POL101Y1 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Human Rights, Democracy, Canada
12 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
POL101Y1
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
Introduction to Political Science - Critical Thinking and Reading
Reading Kaplan - Was Democracy Just a Moment?
(All diagrams are my own created with LucidChart on Google Docs)
●1980 National Anthem Act passed to celebrate Quebec’s decision to stay in Canada
●Adding the land acknowledgment to the start of the school day includes indigenous identities
and histories to the national identity of Canada
○This is a political shift, the result of a particular political moment
●In this course
○Understand the background of politics and different political systems
○Discuss topical issues in politics
○Also teach us how to write an essay, create a thesis, make a persuasive essay, how to
cite properly
○Learn critical thinking
First Assignment Due October 14th by 11:59
On Information in LECTURE 2, must attend
Fukuyama’s Argument → The End of History
●Fukuyama argues democracy was the end of history
●That it is the final form of human government
●Democracy is the end of mankind’s ideological evolution
Teleology is the philosophical study of design and purpose
- A teleological theory is one that arranges all things to be leading towards and end or a purpose
- A classic example of this is Marx’s teleological theory of history
Fukuyama argues that democracy is the end of history, not communism.
Fukuyama’s Argument
●Democracy is good
●Democracy is widespread
●Democracy is here to stay
Kaplan’s Argument
●Democracy is not necessarily good
●True democracy is not widespread
●What is called “democracy” is less
democratic, therefore not here to stay
We now break down the key points of Kaplan’s article and think about our stance on the same issues,
understanding this article is rather old as it was published in 1997.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
1. Democracy is value neutral
●Kaplan argues that democracy is simply a set of institutions which translate the will of the
majority
●The people may elect negative or positive leaders (Hitler and Mussolini were elected
democratically)
●There is nothing inside a democracy that would prevent bad people or bad things
●The ‘thin’ definition of a democracy is that they must include free and fair elections
●This means
○The majority of the population can vote in the election (women, minorities, different
classes, etc)
○The voters have choices and they are actually voting to decide something
○The party who wins the election is actually able to take power
●Democracy is often not what is spreading across the world, because it is difficult to ensure from
the outside
●However, elections are, therefore the ‘thin’ concept of democracy is spreading, while the ‘thick’
one is not
●Kaplan argues that if a country is not ready for the elections that come with democracy, it will
result in chaos
2. “Democracy emerges successfully only as a capstone to other social and economic achievements”
-Kaplan
●Literacy and Education
○Kaplan argues that democracy can’t work with an uneducated and illiterate public for
various reasons
○They’ll be unable to understand the political platforms and therefore would be
uninformed
○They will make decisions for the wrong reasons (race, religion, appearance)
○Democracy imposes obligations on its citizens, like being informed
○However, literacy and education have been used to limit the franchise by limiting voting
rights to those who may not have access to an education, like women, lower class
people, minorities
●Example: 1865-1877 US Reconstruction
○Freedmen (African Americans post slavery) could vote or even run for office
○BUT racist governments worked to prevent this from happening by passing restrictive,
literacy based voting laws
○Literacy was used to exclude black people from voting
○This example shows us that restricting people from voting based on education levels is
not random, but restricts the voice of uneducated people who may be uneducated
because of class, race or gender
○This makes things complicated!
○Many countries have a large population of illiterate people
○Furthermore, literate people don’t necessarily make good, informed decisions (see 2016
American election, the USA has a large literate majority)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Introduction to political science - critical thinking and reading. Reading kaplan - was democracy just a moment? (all diagrams are my own created with lucidchart on google docs) 1980 national anthem act passed to celebrate quebec"s decision to stay in canada. Adding the land acknowledgment to the start of the school day includes indigenous identities and histories to the national identity of canada. This is a political shift, the result of a particular political moment. Understand the background of politics and different political systems. Also teach us how to write an essay, create a thesis, make a persuasive essay, how to cite properly. Fukuyama argues democracy was the end of history. That it is the final form of human government. Democracy is the end of mankind"s ideological evolution. Teleology is the philosophical study of design and purpose. A teleological theory is one that arranges all things to be leading towards and end or a purpose.
