Democracy
Test your knowledge
Rowena Hammal
Democracy: Test your knowledge
How to take the quiz
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Write your answers down as you go.
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Find out your total score at the end of the quiz.
Democracy: Test your knowledge
Questions: types of democracy
1. From which country does the word ‘democracy’ originate?
2. What term describes the system of democracy in which citizens can vote on all
issues?
3. What term describes the system of democracy in which citizens elect individuals
to make decisions on their behalves?
4. What term describes the system of democracy in which elected individuals make
most of the decisions but citizens are also given the opportunity to influence
some decisions directly, for example through referendums?
5. What term describes the system of democracy in which the protection of
individual freedoms is particularly emphasised?
Democracy: Test your knowledge
Questions: referendums
6. Referendums are increasingly used in the UK to provide a mandate for which kind
of change?
7. Which group of voters were allowed to vote for the first time in the 2014 Scottish
referendum on independence?
8. Tony Blair’s Labour government held referendums in Scotland, Wales, Northern
Ireland, London and North East England. What was the issue at stake?
9. A referendum has only been held across the whole of the UK on two occasions.
What were they?
10. Fill in the blank: Low turnout is a problem in referendums as it weakens the
__________ provided by the referendum result.
Democracy: Test your knowledge
Questions: UK turnout
Match the elections to the turnout figures:
31.1%
65.2%
15.1%
35.4%
11. 1950 UK general election
12. 2010 UK general election
13. 2011 AV referendum
14. 2012 English local elections
15. 2012 police commissioner elections
16. 2014 European Parliament election
42.0%
83.9%
Democracy: Test your knowledge
Questions: participation
Fill in the blanks:
17. 100,000 signatures are required on an _____________ to ensure that it is
considered for debate in the House of Commons.
18. 4.1% of the electorate (1.69 million people) were members of a _________
________ in 1980. By 2010 the figure was 0.8% (397,000).
19. One way to ensure high turnout would be to introduce __________ ________,
though this solution is disliked by liberals.
20. Another way to improve turnout might be continued reform of parliamentary
institutions, for example by giving more power to _______ governments.
Democracy: Test your knowledge
Answers
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When you are ready, go through the answers on the slides that follow.
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Add up your score: 1 mark for each correct answer.
Democracy: Test your knowledge
Answers: types of democracy
1. Ancient Greece
2. Direct democracy
3. Representative democracy
4. Participatory democracy
5. Liberal democracy
Democracy: Test your knowledge
Answers: referendums
6. Constitutional change
7. Scottish 16- and 17-year-olds
8. Devolution
(In 1997 Wales chose to have a Welsh Assembly, and Scotland chose to have a
Scottish Parliament with tax-varying powers. In 1998 London chose to have an
elected mayor and a London Assembly, and Northern Ireland chose to accept the
Good Friday Agreement. In 2004 the North East chose not to have a regional
assembly.)
9. 1975 – membership of the EEC, and 2011 – electoral system change to AV
10. mandate
Democracy: Test your knowledge
Answers: UK turnout
11. 1950 UK general election
83.9%
12. 2010 UK general election
65.2%
13. 2011 AV referendum
42.0%
14. 2012 English local elections
31.1%
15. 2012 police commissioner elections
15.1%
16. 2014 European Parliament election
35.4%
Democracy: Test your knowledge
Answers: participation
Fill in the blanks:
17. 100,000 signatures are required on an e-petition to ensure that it is considered
for debate in the House of Commons.
18. 4.1% of the electorate (1.69 million people) were members of a political party
in 1980. By 2010 the figure was 0.8% (397,000).
19. One way to ensure high turnout would be to introduce compulsory voting,
though this solution is disliked by liberals.
20. Another way to improve turnout might be continued reform of parliamentary
institutions, for example by giving more power to local governments.
Democracy: Test your knowledge
Final score
Add up your marks to discover your score out of 20, and which country you are:
20-17: Congratulations! A superb effort! You are…Switzerland! This country is
widely known for its clocks, alpine scenery and fantastic tennis players, but it is
also home to a thriving (and highly unusual) form of direct democracy. To watch
a short video about Swiss democracy, click here.
16-13: Not bad at all, but certainly room for improvement. You are…Belgium! A
well-established democracy with a proportional representation voting system,
Belgium has perpetually high turnout as voting is compulsory. However, its
parties often struggle to find common ground. Belgium was without a
government for a year and a half from 2010 to 2011 as the parties failed to form
a coalition. Click here for more details.
Democracy: Test your knowledge
Final score
12-9: Definitely a work in progress. You are…Venezuela. Elections are hotly
contested, but governments are too powerful once elected. Censorship and the
lack of an independent judiciary mean that this country lacks a layered system of
checks and balances to control the executive. Read more here.
8-5: More work needs to be done! You are…China. Home to over a billion people,
China is a one-party state which allows its citizens to vote, in theory for a range
of political parties or independent candidates, but in practice the ruling
Communist Party is overwhelmingly dominant. Ordinary citizens are also limited
in who they can elect: they vote for representatives of the local People’s
Congress, those representatives then elect representatives to the next level of
government, and so on.
Democracy: Test your knowledge
Final score
4-0: Bad news. You are…North Korea. Elections in this totalitarian state are purely
for show: sadly, democracy is a distant dream for North Koreans. Click here for
more details. It’s time to hit the books and master some basics!