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06 page 1
Democracy
A meaningful definition of democracy must include
- collective decision makers selected through fair, honest, periodic eclections
- candidated are free to compete for votes
- all adults are eligible to vote
Dimensions of Democracy
- Contestation
- Participation
- Assumptions
o Freedom of speech
o Freedom of assembly
o Freedom to organize
o Citizens can make intelligent choices?
Direct vs. Representative Democracy, Part 1
Direct Democracy
- Every person may participate directly in the decisionmaking process
- Decisions are not delegated to representatives
- Implies active participation by citizens
Representative Democracy
- citizens delegate decisionmaking power to people whom they elect to
represent them
- representatives are chosen by popular vote.
- Regularly scedualed elections required
- Free and open elecetions are req
- Freedom to politically organize req
Resolving the paradox of democracy
The potential for tyranny of the majority is limited by:
- limiting the power of majorities
- balancing majority rule against the principle of individual liberty
- resraining the power of the government
- protecting personal liberties
Ideology
- Values, ideas, and beliefs held by individuals and groups of individuals
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- Conservative
o Individual righs
o Reduction of government controls in economics
o Big on law and order regulation of social conduct
- Librals
o Strong gov involvement in econiomics
o Redistribute wealth for economic equality
o Protection of individual rights
o Restraint on gov when it comes to regulation of social conduct
Antidemocratic Ideologies
- Fascism / totalitarianism
o Supremacy of state or race over individuals
Constitutionalism
Framework for organization of government
- gov powers
- gov institutions
- dutied/responsibilies of various branches and officials
Power is limited
Rule of law
The articles of confederation
- congress empowered to:
o make peace, coin money, appoint army officers, control the post, and
negotiate with native American tribes.
- retention of each state’s sovereignty
- One vote in the continental congress per state
- Nine stated needed to pass any measure
- The selection and payment of delegates to congress by their respective state
legislatures
Problems with articles
- retention of each states sovereignty
- one vote in the continental congress per state
- nine staes needed
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- no separate executive branch
- no national court
- congress could not regulate interstate commerce
Troubles confronting a new nation
- Financial difficulties
- Commercial obstacles
- Currency problems
- Civil disorder: shay’s rebellion
Daniel Shays rebellion
- Massachusetts (1780) adopted a constitution that appeared to favor the
wealthy.
- Propertyholding requirements for voting and office holding exclude the lower
and middle classes. Stae the enacted law erq payments of all debts in cash
- Outraged, former revolutionary war captian shays gathered 1500 armed man
and marched on the state court to prevent the loos of their farms
Constitutional convention
- congress 2.21.1787. called for a constitutional convention in Philadelphia “for
the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of confederation
- issues: big states v. small states’; slavery
- closed meetings
Virginia Plan: sovereignty in people not states
- 2 house legislature based on population
- veto authority over states
- single executive chosen by legislature
- single term
- national judiciary chosen by legislature
New Jersey Plan:
- one house (unicameral) with equal representation of each state
- legislature power to levy taxes & regulate commerece
- plural executive removable by majority of the state legislatures
- no national courts
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