AP Comparative Government and Politics Democracy

Democracy Defining Democracy ● A democracy is a political system where the citizens participate in making important decisions. REQUIREMENTS FOR A DEMOCRACY 1. A political system supported by free and fair elections ● In an indirect democracy, elected officials and representatives make decisions for people. ○ The Member of Parliament (also known as MP) and the constituency are examples of elected officials in the United Kingdom. ● In a direct democracy, people are allowed to vote directly on a policy issue. ● Referendums are citizen votes on essential policy changes. 2. Citizen participation ● Civil society is a group formed by people that helps them define their interests. ● Pluralist societies allow civil societies to form naturally. ● Corporatist societies’ civil societies are controlled by the state. ● In other words, pluralist societies have associational autonomy (the ability to choose one’s affiliation to a sicil society), whereas corporatist societies do not. 3. Protection of the human rights of all citizens ● Liberal democracies fully respect the rights of the people when it comes to policy making. ● Illiberal democracies hold valid elections, but will not always guarantee said rights. (Take Russia as an example.) 4. An unbiased, impartial law ● Rule of law emphasizes the importance the law has on a country. ● The Magna Carta was the first document to separate the government from the regime. ● The government is limited by a constitution. ● The law must protect and persecute different groups of people on the same standard. Components of a Democracy A Political Party ● Although it is not entirely true to say that democracy requires political parties, all modernday liberal democracies have political parties. ● A political party is an institution that is motivated by the desire to have political power. They represent goals that are shared in their members. ● Parties differ from civil societies because: 1. Political parties provide candidates in elections. 2. Political parties tend to cater to more general, broad interests. ● Interest articulation is a process of communicating a group’s interests. ● This is done by interest groups. ● Interest aggregation merges different interests and turns it into a policy program. ● This is done by both interest groups and political parties. Proportional Representation and Single-Member-District ● Proportional representation means that different parties’ number of seats and how many votes they got will be equal. ● After how many seats one party should have is determined, they grab the same number of representatives from the party list. For instance, if there are 10 seats given, the top 10 members of a party list will gain seats. ● PR systems oftentimes result in a coalition government, which means that different political parties cooperate to form a government. ● Single-member-district systems will give seats to whichever candidate has the most votes in a given district. ● SMD systems are based on plurality, or who got the most votes (not to be confused with the majority, which represents over 50% of something). ● A related term is first-past-the-post. In the image below, there is a “post” in the middle, saying 270 electoral votes to win, which is a similar concept. ● SMD systems generally have two party systems, because the voting system promotes division to two main camps. Presidential and Parliamentary ● In a presidential system, the voters directly vote for a leader. ● The executive is a different branch of government from the legislature, leading to the separation of powers. When the two parties leading each differ, it is called a divided government. ● Parliamentary systems give power to the leader of the majority party. ● They do not have separation of powers. ● However, this does not mean that there can’t be conflict; occasionally, a vote of no confidence is cast, indicating that the party no longer supports its leader. Head of State and Head of Government ● Head of state has the responsibility to represent the power of a state in different situations. ● Head of government has responsibilities to administer different policies in the state. Measuring Democracy ● Freedom house is a measure of democracy. It combines a political rights ranking, as well as a civil liberty ranking, to establish a total freedom ranking. It is given on a scale of 1 (most free) to 7 (not free).