Democracy and legitimacy - Democracy - Democracy in practice
9 important questions on Democracy and legitimacy - Democracy - Democracy in practice
What are the central features of the worldwide accepted view of democracy (liberal democracy)?
- Based on competition and electoral choice.
- Characterized by a clear distinction between the state and civil society
- It provides protection for minorities and individuals
There are certain ways to to interpret this form of liberal democracy. What are these?
- Elitism
- Corporatism
- The New Right
- Marxism
What is a pluralist democracy?
1. A wide dispersal of political power amongst competing groups
2. A high degree of internal responsiveness, group leaders being accountable to members
3. A neutral governmental machine that is sufficiently fragmented to offer groups a number of points of access
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What is the corporatist view on democracy?
What is neocorporatism and peak associations?
Peak association : A group recognized by government as representing the general or collective interests of businesses or workers
How has the emergence of the New Right generated a critique of democratic politics?
(shows also the bad side of corporatism: it empowers sectional groups to make demands on government. So it allows interest groups to dominate government. This leads to a drift towards state intervention and economic stagnation).
How is government overload a consequence of the electoral process?
The economic consequences of unrestrained democracy are: high levels of inflation fuelled by public borrowing and a tax burden that destroys enterprise and undermines growth.
So New Right theorists see democracy in strictly protective terms (no social transformation)
What is the ruling class?
What is the marxist critique on liberal democracy?
So power cannot be widely and evenly dispersed in society as long as class power is unequally distributed.
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