Essay on Prerequistes of Deliberative Democracy

The behavior of voters has great importance to politics as the people decide mainly who wins. The study of the behavior of the electorate has increased as politicians seek to appeal to the voters and find ways to gain followers and most importantly votes. The two articles Democratic Practice and Democratic Theory and The Responsible Electorate discuss the behavior of voters in the United States, and the importance of the electorate.

Presently, there are three theories that have been posed to explain the American political process. They are, elite theory, hyperpluralism, and pluralism. While all of them have sufficient evidence in regard to discussion and debate, pluralism undoubtedly best explains the American political process. Pluralism states that our democracy is best achieved by the existence and cooperation between various groups, and individuals, which participate in government by means of election. In context of American politics, pluralism is the core which our political process revolves around.

But they do not always listen. Dissent is when you revolt and you fight back against voices that try to drown out yours. History shows that dissent is the true baseline of democracy. In the Civil Rights movement, would talking about racism, segregation, and oppressive laws have changed a thing? No, it took dissent to progress forward. It took protesting in the streets, it took illegal action and subsequently getting arrested for it. Disagreement would have not push America forward, dissent did, does, and will. Discussion is bred from disagreement, according to the author, but does discussion work?

Despite being one of the oldest and most consistently stable democracies in the Western world, the American government, and American democracy as a whole, has frequently come under fire in recent years. Whether it is political parties, pundits, bloggers or citizens, Americans and non-Americans are all lining up to take shots at what they diagnose as a storied democracy crumbling before their eyes. Two of Robert Dahl’s criteria for a healthy democracy are enlightened understanding: are citizens able to acquire the political information necessary to participate in their own democracy, and control of the agenda: do the American senators and members of congress have exclusive and

President Jefferson and President Jackson were two complete different people. Though each one had their flaws, they also had some good intentions throughout their presidency. The government was different under each president because each one had their own ideas for America. There is a chain of causes that made America the way it was under each president. Jefferson was a good person but was not the best president because he always thought about himself and never what everyone else wanted. Jackson was not a good person but he was a good president because he got things done as a president. He did thing that were good not only for him but for America 's future.

A constructive national debate is something that is quite important to the functioning of the American system of democracy. A simple definition of democracy offered by the Merriam-Webster dictionary is that democracy is “a form of government in which people choose leaders by voting” (Merriam-Webster). Now, at a time of heightened awareness from many American people, the political debates in this country don’t seem to be providing them with good cogent arguments. Instead they are filled with fallacies and many falsehoods. In this essay I argue that the presidential debate system is currently not living up to its potential, and I will focus specifically on Republican primary debate that took place at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California. In doing so, I will argue that the main flaws in this cycle’s presidential primary debates were the amount of fallacies used, as structure used as well as provide some counter-arguments to my claims.

Today, it is safe to say that many of United Sates citizens are unsure about the future of our country. In Our Declaration, Danielle Allen claims that the future of our country is secured by citizens who play their part in the system. She writes, “Politics is an activity where people, thanks to their wakefulness, can organize themselves and set up institutions so that they can all collectively protect themselves without having to fight with each other” (Allen 176). She has confidence that citizens can diagnose the current state of our country and the political world through interaction with other each other to build unified intelligence through democratic conversation. Democratic conversation occurs when citizens cooperatively and intelligently discuss and provide their views on certain matters which determine the present and future state of our country. “For the Declaration we are all equal in having the capacity to judge relations among facts, principles, and courses of action” (Allen 91). But is Allen’s claim realistic? Allen is partially justified because our country is more tolerant today than it ever has been when it comes to sexuality and marriage, and gender. However, Allen’s optimism is not entirely realistic because of the common stubborn citizens, and the uneducated citizens not willing to take part in democratic conversations.

The early 1800’s was a time of democratic expansion within the States as they began to eliminate property qualifications necessary to vote. Although the idea of decreasing qualifications needed to vote seemed like a step forward towards democracy, it took two steps back because of its racist and sexist specificity denying women and minorities voting rights. A democracy is a government system intended to be ran by the whole population or by their representatives, not one that discriminates against minorities and women by denying their right to vote and be fairly represented in that government system. Cracks in the foundation of the United States’ democracy is foreseeable in the early 1800’s due to this discrimination of women and minorities, like the Civil War, the

Democracy, as most people think of it today, did not exist during the first few decades of U.S. history.

James Madison warned the young American nation of factions at its conception, describing groups of individuals perpetually discontent with the status quo. Such groups would find compromise impossible, isolating themselves in the vast, untamed wilderness of the young country. Madison’s prognosis, however, offered the slim positive that the nation was large enough to contain the factions without conflict because so long as they remained in the minority, they posed no threat in a democracy. However, Daniel J. Boorstin’s evaluation of the nation’s health leans towards illness, as he correctly argues that while “disagreement is the lifeblood of a democracy, dissension is its cancer.” Democracy functions through disagreeing opinions coalescing to

In Federalist 10, James Madison explains why the framers of the constitution chose a representative democracy, a republic, as opposed to a “pure democracy”. His argument being that a pure democracy consists of a small number of citizens who congregate and conduct and handle the government in person, but since the United States of America was geographically too large, it disqualified the option of administering a pure democracy. In addition, he argued that pure democracies presented more than one difficulty. For one, pure democracies in essence suppress individual rights and weaker parties. Madison also acknowledged that face-to-face interaction could prove to be more

A democracy is when the common people are considered as the primary source of political power. Although democracy and absolutism had advantages and disadvantages, democracy was a more effective type of government for it limited royal power and protected the rights of the people socially, politically, and economically. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, tension arose between the two different types of governments, the democracy and absolute monarchs.

Third, the practice of democracy requires public discussion and exchange of information, views, and analyses; this exchange of information helps a society form its values and priorities (5).

Winston Churchill once remarked that “democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried”. In agreement with his statement, this paper will examine the problems of democratic governments using specific examples, and compare it to the failure of fascist governments in Nazi Germany and Italy and communist governments in the Soviet Union and China.

Finally, democracy is the best form of government thus far because it is susceptible to change. The role of high courts, and equal rights makes change possible. For example, if the majority impedes on a minority groups’ rights, over time, the legislature will adjust, enumerating those who were previously attacked. Overall, democracy makes the necessary refinements needed to keep up with societal developments.