Democracy and participation

Democracy and participation

1. The Nature Of Democracy

   • Demos Cratia: people power
   • Different types
     • Direct Democracy
       • The electorate decide legislation they don't elect representatives to do it for them
       • Advantages
         • Purest form of democracy
         • Power of entrenchement
         • More participation.
       • Disadvantages
         • Issues may be too complex for the voter.
         • People may become irrational in their voter decisions
         • voter fatigue
     • Representative democracy
       • The electorate elect representatives to decide legislation.
       • Disadvantages
         • Difficult to make representatives accountable between elections
         • Party lines mean the rights of representatives to represent their constituents is cut
       • Advantages
         • Can create consensus of all the different opinions of the electorate
         • Most people don't have the time to make decisions about politics all the time. This solves such a problem.
         • Representatives can be made accountable, the electorate can't
     • Liberal Democracy
       • Democracy exists. But minorities are protected from majoritarianism
       • Rights constitutionally enshrined
     • Pluralistic democracy
       • As much power is distributed to as many institutions as possible, usually through a seperatios of powers

2. Participation

   • Three types
     • Electoral participation
       • Any adult who is not imprisoned, hasn't been sectioned or isn't a member of the royal family or the Lords can vote.
       • Differential turnout
         • Regional differences
         • Age differences
           • Particularly problematic due to "Grey vote" distortion
         • Gender differences
         • Social Class differences
     • Non-electoral participation
       • Canvassing and leafleting
       • Organising electoral events
       • Staffing campaign offices
     • Other forms of participation
       • Writing to one's elected representatives
       • Party membership
       • Political protest
       • Political debate

3. Democracy in the UK

   • Lowering turnout
     • Turnout is lowering slowly
       • In 1945 80% of the population voted
       • In 1992 77.2% of the population voted
       • In 2005 61% of the population voted
       • Why is this the case?
         • POWER Report
           • People are becoming disilusioned with the political system as there is too much power in the Executive.
         • 'Hapathy'
           • People are satisfied with the way governments are working and so do not want to change it.
   • Is the UK democratic?
     • Yes
       • We have free and fair elections
       • We have a free media
       • We have freedom of speech and human rights
       • We have an independent Judiciary
     • No
       • We still have an unelected upper house and Head of State.
       • FPTP is unfair and benfits the establishmentarian parties
       • We don't have a codified constitution
     • What can we do to improve it?
       • Votes at 16
         • Advantages
           • Keeps it in line with current legislation
           • Will cause more participation
         • Disadvantages
           • 16 year olds don't have the maturity to vote
           • May create a distortion in party policy