Asha Coutrier

Professor Arnold
INTL 3111
1 December 16

3) Do all forms of governance/politics rely on some form or threat of physical power or other
form of coercion?
All forms of government utilize some sort of coercion, whether it be force or otherwise, to
get the cooperation of their people to reinstate their force. Some governing agencies take brutal
methods like North Koreas immense generational brainwashing and forced labor camps,
Myanmars current war against the civilian uprising for governmental representation, or
Castros Cuba. Others however take more of a subtle approach like Bahrains constitutional
monarchy that is currently undergoing the process of alienating Shia Muslims and will
eventually lead them to disengaging completely from their government. Ours, the United States,
relies on a system of feeding into consumerism and abusing the inherent divides America was
built on to cast a shadow on greater issues that the general populace does not bother to always
concern themselves with. America too utilizes both miseducation and undereducation to
promote an idea that your vote either doesnt matter, or, it does matter when the presidential
candidate is up for election. In between the days before and after the presidential race, no other
election matters. People are not being mobilized for their local elections, people are not being
persuaded to educate themselves on those that directly affect them in their everyday lives and
districts, and people are not being made aware of the power they hold by voting for their local
officials.
There are always those that complain, after abstaining from voting, that politics dont
matter, politics are rigged, so on and so forth. The current scandal around Clinton and the
Democratic National Convention not allowing Bernie Sanders to become the Democratic Party
presidential candidate, shows that even if the election is rigged against one side of the party; that
does not stop them from possibly losing against an unfit candidate when the voter realizes that
they can push their force behind a candidate that gives them an out or an outlet for their ideals
and wishes. One of the many problems with American politics is that the people allow their
freedoms and rights to be taken from others, and eventually themselves, out of uneducated fear
and inherent biases. America allows it to be ok for people to yell redundant and pointless
information at one another and lets the people police themselves with, you guessed it, their
voices and more importantly their vote. The miniscule sliver of that do vote dont represent
ideals of the current younger generation, my generation unfortunately, that must live with the
aftermath of these decisions and the repercussions of my own fellow young adults refusing to
vote out of protest. One can protest with a vote and can effectively dismantle a system that
does not cater properly to them with channeling their duty to vote in the appropriate
mechanisms. However, until we teach American citizens that you do not have to hold yourself

victim to institutional structures and you do however have to educate yourself, there can be
nothing effectively done about problems affecting communities, as of right now, marginalized
communities. The fact that we can vote for whomever, protest freely, is something that should
be treasured and held tightly.