Democracy and participation

The Nature Of Democracy
1. Demos Cratia: people power
2. Different types
  1. Direct Democracy
    1. The electorate decide legislation they don't elect representatives to do it for them
    2. Advantages
      1. Purest form of democracy
      2. Power of entrenchement
      3. More participation.
    3. Disadvantages
      1. Issues may be too complex for the voter.
      2. People may become irrational in their voter decisions
      3. voter fatigue
  2. Representative democracy
    1. The electorate elect representatives to decide legislation.
    2. Disadvantages
      1. Difficult to make representatives accountable between elections
      2. Party lines mean the rights of representatives to represent their constituents is cut
    3. Advantages
      1. Can create consensus of all the different opinions of the electorate
      2. Most people don't have the time to make decisions about politics all the time. This solves such a problem.
      3. Representatives can be made accountable, the electorate can't
  3. Liberal Democracy
    1. Democracy exists. But minorities are protected from majoritarianism
    2. Rights constitutionally enshrined
  4. Pluralistic democracy
    1. As much power is distributed to as many institutions as possible, usually through a seperatios of powers
Participation
1. Three types
  1. Electoral participation
    1. Any adult who is not imprisoned, hasn't been sectioned or isn't a member of the royal family or the Lords can vote.
    2. Differential turnout
      1. Regional differences
      2. Age differences
        Particularly problematic due to "Grey vote" distortion
      3. Gender differences
      4. Social Class differences
  2. Non-electoral participation
    1. Canvassing and leafleting
    2. Organising electoral events
    3. Staffing campaign offices
  3. Other forms of participation
    1. Writing to one's elected representatives
    2. Party membership
    3. Political protest
    4. Political debate
Democracy in the UK
1. Lowering turnout
  1. Turnout is lowering slowly
    1. In 1945 80% of the population voted
    2. In 1992 77.2% of the population voted
    3. In 2005 61% of the population voted
    4. Why is this the case?
      1. POWER Report
        People are becoming disilusioned with the political system as there is too much power in the Executive.
      2. 'Hapathy'
        People are satisfied with the way governments are working and so do not want to change it.
2. Is the UK democratic?
  1. Yes
    1. We have free and fair elections
    2. We have a free media
    3. We have freedom of speech and human rights
    4. We have an independent Judiciary
  2. No
    1. We still have an unelected upper house and Head of State.
    2. FPTP is unfair and benfits the establishmentarian parties
    3. We don't have a codified constitution
  3. What can we do to improve it?
    1. Votes at 16
      1. Advantages
        Keeps it in line with current legislation
        Will cause more participation
      2. Disadvantages
        16 year olds don't have the maturity to vote
        May create a distortion in party policy

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Democracy and participation

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	Created by Samantha Hepworth almost 9 years ago