Politics - lecture 1

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Key Points

Input-ouput model - assumptions...

Input: everyone votes

Process: fairly counted, fairly geographically distributed, each one weighted equally

Output: many individuals preferences can be weighted to produce a majority socia preference. Polititians are representative.

Advantages of democracy -

1) social peace,

2) economic stability & growth,

3) political accountability

Concerns of democracy -

Arrows Theorum - when voters have >3 options - no 'rank order voting system' can output the ranked preferences into a community wide preference and still satisfy three fairness criteria.

Geographical concerns: e.g. bias in 1997 British election

Mallaportionment: of the EU & Luxembourg

Gerrymandering: e.g. minorities in the UK

Pork-barrelling e.g.

Improving...

Apathy - compulsory voting

gerrymandering - by proportional representaton

pork-barrelling - by e-voting - which means whole

Dissensus and genuine politics

modern consensus politics

post-politics/post democracy

Definitions

Mallaportionment = Apportionment is the process of allocating the political power of

a set of voters among their politicians. Mallapportionment is the creation of electoral

districts with divergent ratios of voters to representatives. voters in smaller states have way more influence per person than larger states - e.g. luxembourg vs Germany during european union council elections. Mallapportionment may be

deliberate, (gerrymandering) or (favouring equity of groups over equality of individuals).

Gerrymandering =

manipulate the boundaries of (an electoral constituency) so as to favor one party or class.. So by redrawing political boundaries, you ensure a number of safe seats/ giving your party a numeric advantage and most likely winning that constituency, thus ensuring another seat in parliament.

In addition to its use achieving desired electoral results for a

particular party, gerrymandering may be used to help or hinder a

particular demographic,

such as a political, ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious, or class

group, such as in U.S. federal voting district boundaries that produce a

majority of constituents representative of African-American or other

racial minorities, known as "majority-minority districts

Pork-barreling = Pork barrel - when gov. funds allocated for a local project in a constituency of a local politician are appropriated by the local politician- solely to bring money to that politicians district. They will unofficially undertake projects that will benefit a group likely to return the favour with support or donations - usually benefits small select groups (ones perhaps likely to have the means to donate) despite whole community funds being used. Also referred to as "patronage".

First past the post = simple one vote per person = one point for the candidate. the candidiate with > half the votes wins.

Proportional representation =A way of organizing elections so that each party’s proportion of legislativeseats= proportion of votes won in the poll. As a rule, PR voting systems ..

provide more

accurate representation of parties,

better representation for political and

racial minorities,

fewer wasted votes,

higher levels of voter turnout,

better

representation of women,

greater likelihood of majority rule

little

opportunity for gerrymandering.

Proportional representation voting (PR) is the main rival to

plurality-majority voting. Among advanced western democracies it has become the

predominant voting system. For instance, in Western Europe, 21 of 28 countries

use proportional representation, including Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark,

Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway,

Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

The basic approach of proportional representation is simple: legislators are

elected in multimember districts instead of single-member districts. Party list voting: Each party puts up a list or slate of candidates equal to the number of available seats in

the district (e.g. 5). On the

ballot, voters choose a party and the parties

then receive seats in proportion to their share of the vote. So in a five member

district, if the Democrats win 40% of the vote, they would win two of the five

seats. The two winning Democratic candidates would be chosen according to their

position on the list - positions (in open list party list voting) are dependent on how voters have ranked them by preference 1-5.

Development of underdevelopment = The economic processes that occur in the periphery of the world-economy that are the opposite of the developmentwhich occurs in the core. The phrase was coined byGunder Frank of the Dependency School of Develop-ment to show why poor countries were failing tocatch up economically.

Hegemony = A position held by a state or a class when it so dominates its sphere of operation that other states or classes are forced to comply with its wishes voluntarily. States are defined as hegemonic at the scale of the world-system, classes at the scale of the state.

Reading

Crouch (2004) - post democracy - "Behind

this spectacle of the electoral game, politics is really shaped in private" by

interaction between elected governments and elites that overwhelmingly

represent business interests.

Johnston et. al. (2001) - demostrate seven ways in which two constituencies can be created, apportioning votes for party x and party y respectively in a manner that benefits the party doing the gerrymandering. the larger the party

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