Ugs 303 1st Edition Lecture 9 Outline of Last Lecture I Reverence II Justice III Questions Outline of Current Lecture I What is Democracy II False Democracy III What is Wrong with Our Democracy IV Representative Systems V The History of Democracy VI Closing Question Current Lecture I Democracy is a government by the people for the people A In order to understand what this means we have to know who the people are II Not everything that resembles democracy is democracy A For example America tried to bring democracy to Iraq Unfortunately the Shia majority simply overruled the Sunni minority This is called rule by majority and isn t really democracy B Similarly election is an aspect of democracy But Saddam Hussein was elected This was not a democracy C What makes a democracy is freedom most importantly freedom from tyranny and freedom to have leaders who take turns leading III What s wrong with our democracy A Woodruff asks the class if they feel that Congress represents them The majority say no Some reasons for this include 1 Congressmen tend to be very wealthy 2 Congressmen are too partisan 3 Congressmen are only worried about keeping their jobs and will never do anything controversial or risk rocking the boat 4 Gerrymandering and closed primaries are unfair B America has the second lowest social mobility among all industrialized nations Britain is first This means that the poor tend to remain poor IV In any government larger than a small town representatives are a necessity Here are some types of representative systems A Lottery sortition 1 Citizens are selected for office randomly This is the most accurate way to represent the citizen body 2 Athens used this method with their system of ten tribes from three regions B Election by party 1 Parties elect a person they feel represents their views 2 The Greeks did not like this method because they noticed that only the rich and well connected tended to be elected 3 Proportional representation if 30 of the citizens belong to Party A 30 of the representatives will be of Party A 4 This system will inevitably create coalitions 5 Does prevent gridlock C Election by district 1 Each area has a representative 2 This can be problematic especially if it is a SMD single member district system a This means that only one person represents an area So if 51 of people in a district are Party A and 49 of people are Party B the representative will be of Party A meaning that 49 of the people will not be represented V The History of Democracy A Very early in Athenian history groups of adult men armies usually would meet to discuss ideas and make decisions This was necessary because all members of the army needed to be on the same page Over time this practice evolved to become the Athenian Assembly B The most sacred right to the people in Athens was parrhesia the right to speak at Assembly C In 594 B C E Solon replaced the Assembly with the rule of law D In 510 B C E Athens was finally free from tyranny E In 462 B C E Athens established the People s Courts 1 The jury was large and selected the day of the trial to prevent bribery 2 Athens tried very hard to create a system of government that could not be influenced by money F In 411 B C E the oligarchic 400 came into power G In 404 B C E the 30 tyrants came into power 1 They were installed by Sparta after Athens military defeat 2 They ruled for only 13 months before they were overthrown and democracy was restored H In 403 B C E Athens began a series of reforms to give perks to aristocrats so they would stop hating democracy so much 1 This worked I Democracy flourished in Athens for 188 years J It finally ended because of Alexander the Great VI Closing Question A Why should a state that is democratic at home be tyrannical abroad