Democracy
Definitions, concepts and
classifications
Ideologies
• Democracy or the Free Market?
• Communism: Stalinism, Revisionism,
Eurocommunism or Marxism?
• Islam: Sunni, Shia, Shariat or Secular?
• Anti-colonialism, Neo-colonialism
• Feminism
• Trotskyism, Anarchism and terrorism
What is Democracy?
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Regular, contested elections
Alternation of Governments
Rule of Law
freedoms: speech, association press, etc.
pluralism/polycentrism/civil society
Privacy
Separation of powers/checks and
balances
Important events
• Death of Socrates: Plato blames democracy
[399BC]
• The Roman Republic [SPQR]
• Anglo-saxon and Viking ideas of warrior
community [Dark Ages]
• Magna Carta 1215
• Glorious Revolution 1688
• American Revolution 1776
• French Revolution 1789
“Modern” Events
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Chartists and 6 demands:
Universal Suffrage [well, male]
Equal electoral districts
Payment for MPs
Abolition of property qual. For MPs
Vote by ballot
Annual parliaments
Even more modern events
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Struggle for decolonisation
Russian revolution 1917
Chinese protracted revolution
Globalisation
United Nations
European Union
Collapse of Communism and Westphalian
settlement
• Idea of Universal Human rights
What sort of democracy?
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Participative
People’s Democracy
Representative
Liberal
Free market?
Eurocommunist?
Totalitarian /Rousseau-style General will
Fabian one-party
Models of Democracy
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British
American
French
Asian
Islamic
Variables
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Electoral system and party system
monarchy or republic
uni- or bi-cameral
fusion of executive and legislature
separation of powers
President and prime minister: 4th or 5th
Rep
• ministers in or out of Assembly
Choosing a system 1:
legislature and executive
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Presidential or parliamentary?
British model?
US model?
French 4th Republic?
French 5th Republic?
Other European?
Asian?
Choosing 2: electoral system
• PR or first past the post?
• Constituency size: whole country, German
model or multi-member?
• Qualification for representation: what
proportion of electorate?
• How do we want to fix the result? CPs
thought single-member constituencies
would benefit them. Turned out differently.
Choosing 3: Presidents
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Direct or indirect election?
How much power?
Relationship with Prime Minister
Can Prexy dissolve Assembly?
The Tyranny of the Market
W[h]ither the Nation-state?
Marx [or was it Engels?]
• “The state will wither
away”
• Was this the state as
“executive committee
of the bourgeoisie”?
• Or as an instrument
of class oppression?
• Or did he really mean
what anarchists
mean?
Globalisation
• Are we moving to a
single global market?
• Does that mean
forget national and
regional markets?
• And does that
demand global
governance, rather
than regional or
national?
Would Marx agree with
Friedman and Hayek?
• Capitalism is supposed to create the
conditions necessary for socialism
• The revolution is an international one
• So capitalism must presumably create an
international state for the proletariat to
overthrow.
• “Man creates his own history but in
conditions not of his own choosing”
• So F and H may be friends of Karl!
Friedrich Hayek
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Austrian, 1899-1992
Chicago after 1950. Previously at LSE
Anti-Keynesian/ free market economist
Law Legislation and Liberty 3 vols 1973-9
Keith Joseph gave a copy to all civil
servants in DTI when he became sec of
state in 1979
Milton Friedman
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New Yorker 1912Theoretical Economist
Monetarist
founder of “Chicago School”
Governments should not intervene in the
workings of the market
• Studies in the Quantity Theory of Money
The Market
• Hayek
• recognises the
existence of market
failure
• specifically to provide
collective goods
• Friedman
• that the market can
be relied upon
• to generate not only
the best world but the
best of all possible
worlds
Fairness and Justice
• Hayek: the market
• Friedman
and therefore
• the distribtion of
inequality is
income found in a
justifiable
capitalist society is
• individuals do not
just
deserve their lot
• in that it reflects the
• market can be cruel
different talents
and unfair: hard
abilities and efforts
work and bright
of the people in that
ideas not always
society
rewarded
• money is not a
The State
• Hayek
• state has a role in
licensing
• quality must be
guaranteed
• services must be
contracted out
• Friedman
• State should be kept
to a minimum
• market will guarantee
quality
• services must be
privatised
Issues
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Pollution
Can government prevent deforestation?
The safety-net
caveat emptor?
How do you form an army?
Or: if the state no longer has a monopoly
of coercive force, is it a state?
In conclusion
• Is the nation state withering away?
• Is Marx about to make a come-back?
• Is there an era of regional superstates
around the corner, or a world state?
• Or is the term “state” redundant?
• “The executive committee of the global
corporations” what will it look like and what
power will it have?