Review Article: Divided Societies and Deliberative Democracy

America has been acknowledged as being one of the world’s leading democracies, but to continue implementing the use of the Electoral College creates some distortion to that title. The out of date system does not accurately portray democracy. Theoretically, a democracy is government system that is ruled by the people. In reality, an individual’s vote may not matter depending on the state they reside in. Robert Dahl, a Democratic Theorist stated, “every member must have an equal and effective opportunity to vote, and all votes must be counted as equal.” Political equality is important to the distribution of power. Even if a person is wealthy and of power their vote should be counted the same as someone in poverty.

While advocacy of federalism as a tool for managing ethnic conflict continues to grow with respect to a diverse set of cases, its proponents and opponents point to different cases of federal success and failure. However, supposed benefits and no-benefits of federalism have been challenged by both those who argue that federalism exacerbates or mitigates ethnic conflict. This debate about the merits and demerits of post-conflict federalism has reached a deadlock, largely as a consequence of

The overall goal of partition is to eliminate conflict and produce long-lasting safety via the separation of the conflicting communities (Kaufmann as cited in Tir 265). Safety is in the form of the removal of threats relating to ethnic murder, expropriation, or expulsion (Kaufmann as cited in Tir 265). As, in situations where ethnic communities do not have a strong and impartial centralized state, ethnic groups in fear of upcoming civil conflict rally together and become defensive (Posen as cited in Kauffman 122). Furthermore, this creates a security dilemma, as ethnic groups cannot provide for their own safety and security without undermining the safety and security of other groups (Posen as cited in Kauffman 122). This dilemma stems from

The struggle to produce and maintain a just, righteous and harmonious representative democracy is documented (the empathy-triggering emotion and cold logistics in tow) for us, the inheritor-audience. The writers call us to perform as a supplemental jury as well, to ensure that justice is indeed measured out fairly in situations where fault is debatable or unclear, and callous violence/vengeance is avoided, for the sake of the polis' peace. The drive to usher forth a new era of peace and domestic/political stability built upon the algorithms of harmony, spirituality, and reason acquired over the ages, free from the blinding effects of raw superstition and violent storms of

In order to maintain peace, pluralism must be a very realistic entity as individuals from diverse minority groups continuously immigrate to states that aren’t true to their ethnic and cultural backgrounds. For pluralistic states, acts of violence such as murder can be agreed upon as morally wrong to humanity whereas opinions regarding religious affairs can be pushed aside. One’s race, ethnicity or desired religion should be seen as equal compared to others in the attempt to keep states at par, although their role isn’t usually concerning the nation’s cultural affairs, but instead territorial matters such as: military services, the nation’s security, and currency allocation. Taking these statements into account, states are everlasting, despite

The real differences around the world today are not between Jews and Arabs; Protestants and Catholics; Muslims, Croats, and Serbs. The real differences are between those who embrace peace and those who would destroy it; between those who look to the future and those who cling to the past; between those who open their arms and those who are determined to clench their fists (William J. Clinton, 2013). Even though people who live in Palestine/Turkey/Syria area between1988 - 2013 have been in a state of war, peace will soon come. The Middle East is at constant war, peace will not come soon enough if rules don’t apply to self-government.

Islam is often spoken of, especially in the backdrop of the current prevalent terrorism of today’s world, as the religion of peace. In saying so, it is implied that Islam, as a religion, is opposed to warfare, extremism and terrorist activities. On the contrary, in the realm of political science, democracy is the system of government that is set up on a high pedestal. Democracy is not only portrayed as inherently virtuous, but is also a system that ensures peace and harmony in any region. Both democracy and Islam thus claim the right to peace, however, the fact that Muslim majority countries often adopt a non-democratic system of government creates a debate that has been fiercely relevant over the past century. While one group believes that Islam is strictly opposed to a government system that favours popular rule, the other stringently tries to establish the strong correlation between Islam and democracy. Bernard Lewis and Irfan Ahmed represent two voices in this dispute.

The marginalization of minority groups in the electoral system impedes a comprehensive representation by further entrenching and aggravating ethnic division. The lack of minority representation in political-decision making has limited the ability of a true representative democracy to come into fruition. The inconsistency of elected assemblies mirroring the population has decreased the representation of ethnic minorities and deepened the racial and ethnic cleavages. Reforming the electoral system to accommodate proportional representation will not only enhance interethnic relations, but also ensure that racial, ethnic, and social diversity is reflected in national leadership. This paper will aim to create to create a strong electoral system

The existence of such trade-off poses serious obstacles for the identification of an optimal voting system in real society elections and has strong consequences in welfare economics and justice theory.

Violent civil conflict has been attributed to many reasons and there are indeed a web of factors that make violent conflict an issue from economic inequality to employment to deep rooted ethnic rivalry. The literature is indeed very rich. However while there are causes there are also factors that create a conducive environment for violent conflict and one area is the system of government. Systems of government present a classification through which we could assess the occurrence of violent civil conflict. Democracy is believed to have a pacifying power, the electoral processes, the rule of law and freedom from state oppression gives the population enough avenues to express grievances without resorting to full scale civil violence. This is drawn from the work of Kantian view that the representativeness of democracy makes it more difficult for the government to go to war seeing that it risks losing political power among the population who bear the brunt of war.[1] The democratic peace theory beyond mutual democratic pacifism, would thus have an impact on internal civil relations positively but this is not the case. However there have been an increased number of cases of civil and ethnic violence in government systems that we might consider to be in stages of democratization. Evidence would seem to suggest that there are greater levels of violent civil conflict in these sort of regimes as opposed to full blown dictatorships or

Moreover, it is this security dilemma that suggests the need for partition according to Kaufmann, as at a certain point of tension opposing ethnic groups have reached a point where they no longer can live in agreement together under a common administration (Pischedda 104). Regardless of typical ethnic conflict remedies such as power-sharing, federalism, consociationalism, or state building (Tir 270). These security dilemmas will persist as these groups will constantly be in fear of the other(s) and attempt to protect themselves and the interests of the group (Tir 270). Therefore, as each group continues to protect itself, it only furthers the security dilemma and proceeds to create a spiral of suspicion and mutual anxiousness (Tir 270). Thus, if these groups cannot coexist, they must be divided as that is the only measure to ensure the population’s safety (Tir 270). This train of thought is categorized as the “last resort” argument by partitionists, suggesting that partition needs to be implemented to avoid the worst possible outcomes (O’Leary 2).

After votes are counted and the anticipation of who the country’s next leader is over, people around the nation discover that the over all favored candidate lost the election from having fewer electoral votes from the competitor. The underrepresentation of the majority’s choice in the United State’s election fuels the beliefs of supporters to abolish the Electoral College. People who oppose abolishing the Electoral College do so with the belief that it prevents the oppression of majority rule. The position of whether or not the Electoral College should be eliminated divides the United States from numerous sides. Why does the Electoral College continue to be used if it can fail to reflect the will of the people?

Democracy has existed since ancient Greece, serving as an inspiration for others and the foundation of many governments of today. Nevertheless, with time democracy has evolved and numerous forms have been produced. Though these forms are all democratic, they all have their benefits and shortcomings. The differing electoral systems of countries highlight their levels of democracy and the effectiveness of their government. A common subject matter in the debate of electoral systems is whether to create an effective government or represent the views of all. The many differing electoral systems have their own pros and cons, each showing what a country values most in its government.

Conceivably the most significant feature of a democracy is the electoral system, which defines the history and future of a nation. In the scholarly article “Comparing Democracies: New Challenges in the Study of Elections and Voting”, Lawrence Leduc, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Toronto, writes, “the electoral system… defines how votes are cast and seats allocated”. Consequently, the electoral system determines which candidate emerges victorious from an election. However, these electoral systems are not simple. Electoral systems can be qualified as majoritarian, proportional, or mixed; however, the systems of different countries all differ; especially in complexity and degree of representation. A webpage published by Georgetown University created by Charles King states, “There are many different types of electoral systems in use around the world, and even within individual countries, different electoral systems may be found in different regions and at different levels of government”. The astounding amount of different electoral systems within singular nations displays how challenging it is to choose the system best suited for a particular nation and its people. Differing electoral systems can even potentially modify the outcome of elections. Leduc states, “Applying two different formulas to the same distribution of votes will produce quite different outcomes in terms of members elected for each party”. The fact that an electoral system can

The Theory of Democratic Peace has been a topic of much debate over the years. Why is this? There are many opinions on this theory and many questions are raised when speaking about it. The argument that I pose is, is there such a thing as democratic peace? In order to address my argument and in order to critically analyse Democratic Peace Theory, this piece of academic writing will look at a variety of causes that some theorists’ state are behind the Democratic Peace Theory and will look at the different branches of the theory. Firstly it will look at what ideology the theory can be drawn from and how the two can link together to prove that democratic peace can exist. Secondly it will look at if the theory has helped the spreading of