Stephen Medvic 's Defense Of Politicians Essay

The political parties today have undisputed role in the democratic process. Gaining importance throughout the 20th century, they proved to be an instrumental mobilizing device, aiming to involve the majority of the population in the political process for the first time in history. Moisei Ostrogorski was a pioneer in the field with his works comparing the political parties in the US and Britain. In his works he argued that parties are becoming inseparable part of the democratic process within the state “whenever this life of parties is developed, it focuses the political feelings and the active will of its citizens” (Ostrogorski in Hauge and Harrop:2010). Ostrogorski`s stance on the increasing importance of parties in a democratic state politics proved to be justified – in the countries of Western Europe, where the democratic tradition is strong, mass political parties competed for the votes of ever-increasing electorate. Parties proved to be important even in non-democratic societies – in fascist and socialist states single parties dominated the state, even in certain cases coalesced with it. The 20th century proved to be very important in the party development process. They discarded the image of engagement mainly in capturing the leavers of power and even ruling against the public will and interest. Since then parties have been accepted as a necessary instrument that shapes the collective interest, whose role is explicitly noted in the state constitutions. The topic of

The authors’ hypothesis in Democratic Practice and Democratic Theory states that requirements for voters exist to be followed but are difficult to follow, so only little of the electorate meet the requirements. The authors state that every voter should seek to have the requirements of great voters, including having great interest in politics, participating in discussions, and knowing much about politics. The authors declare that politicians have to accept the behavior of the voters. Also, even though the requirements are not met, the authors add that a positive side as the distribution of participation helps create

When looking into the ideas of political theorists it is important to the use of political concepts that may play an important role in what the theorists are suggesting and also how they may affect the relationship between to state and the individuals living within a state. The concepts that will be looked at within this essay are: power, authority and also accountability.

Rich in instructive ideas and fresh and productive insights, the “Affairs of Honor” makes relative contribution to the field of history by appraising on the historical events and concepts that were utilized in streamlining the political culture. In an explicit approach, a new elucidation on the existence of well-structured political parties has been established with the argument that their acceptance has been gradual as they are considered as the most secure and more civilized way of approaching elections. Believed to be a platform that is governed by the rule of law and imperative structures for efficiency in a contemporary political environment, such structured parties have turned out to be platform of satisfying personal interest (Freeman, 2002).

Stephen Medvic, In Defense of Politicians, discusses why Americans feel that politicians are dishonest. In 2007, a Gallup poll about honesty and ethical standards for occupations, showed that only 12 and 9 percent of people felt that Congressmen and State office holders held high standards, (Medvic p. 2). In addition, Americans tend to like their representatives more than the members of Congress because they view them as actual people. Americans view Congress as a group of politicians who are greedy and not representing their interests, (Medvic p. 4).

The Oxford Dictionary defines politics as the activities associated with the governance of a country or area, especially the debate between parties having power. Comparative politics is the interdisciplinary study of how power is organized across time and space. It connects the operation of power across multiple time and spatial scales and identifies the similarities and differences of how power operates across space and time.

Unfortunately, no matter how good the intent of those running for positions of leadership, whether in their community or in the national government, politics have a way of corrupting or inconveniencing even the most upstanding of citizens. For instance, when Congress is presented with a bill to vote upon, each senator and representative must not only vote based upon their personal ideology in regards to the bill, but must also consider other factors such as support from their constituents and even support of the president. It slowly gravitates from a decision based upon what they believe, to a decision based upon how badly they want to risk their position of power in the government. This is the very essence of a flawed democracy! This is the very reason why rhetoric and deceit and empty promises enter politics. Members of the government lose their ideological convictions and give into the mindset of megalomaniacs. Elected officials get so caught up in the “politics”, that they ignore any idea of compromise and solution, and stubbornly hold to their party’s stance on issues, doing anything to keep their seat. The willingness to compromise – something critical to the success of democratic government - has collapsed; the most likely explanation being the growing confidence, arrogance even, of the defenders of inequality and oligarchy. They believe they are winning and see no need for compromise. And that view, which may be tactically accurate, destabilizes the unending cooperation between conservatives and liberals that democracy

The language of the article is politically based, and there are vocabulary words that are not common knowledge. The article is broken down by headings, which makes the document easily navigated. The graphics within the article give the readers a visual break, but they also show the text in picture form, which is sometimes easier to understand. The graphs that the author uses are prevalent in the field of political science, however they are not always helpful to non-intellectuals’ because they are data driven. A benefit of this article is that it is relatively concise and does not have many unnecessary phrases. A downside of this article is that it is formatted with text in columns, which decreases comprehensiveness and

In this year of 2016 many people of the middle class in the United States are going through a social crisis. Four years have already passed by in the blink of an eye and it is about time to elect a new president. Since president Barack Obama has served the maximum of two terms as president, he no longer holds anymore years of eligibility to serve as the United States of America’s president. In the first few pages of chapter ten social institutions: politics, education, and education it focuses on democracy and what voting in America is like. According to the chapter from a sociologist perspective, democracy is a government that confers power to the people through the election process. The people decide who they think should lead. But many citizens of America votes may differ due to many factors, one of them being every individual’s financial class.

Martin Gilens provides a comprehensive assessment of the economic inequality and political power in America. He explores on how the affluence of politicians influences the political setting of the country. According to the author, political equality is considered as the philosophy of democracy. Due to the inequalities that exist among the citizens regarding information, social and political affairs, it would be impractical to anticipate equal influence over policy making. Nature and the degree of representative inequalities depict the extent of democracy in a particular society. The author points out that when the inequalities in the political influence intensify, democracy shifts into oligarchy, whereby the wealthy few rule the society.

Politics will try and dominate some places where there is a vast majority of supporters both to the government and to the opposition. Spade has highlighted the need to avoid these resistances that is likely to create hatred among different communities thereby resulting into exploitations of different communities. It is, therefore, important to analyze the norms so as to help eliminate the resist against some individual who may be proposing or opposing the developments. The book has generated individualistic rights that can be achieved as a result of the norms. “dispersion of power among people will help realize the generation of a mutual relationship between different people from different communities.” Spade has used the description given by Mitchell Dean to show different kinds of analysis that are experienced through the use of bureaucracy. The identification of different regimes within the government set up will, therefore, create a platform for generating multiplicity through heterogeneous and unlimited

One of the most controversial topics in the world is politics. George Orwell expresses this thought by saying, “In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.” All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.” Politics are very prevalent in every human’s life. Many times politicians can formulate and manufacture lies in order to make them seem true. Even the slightest issues in everyday life can be connected back to politics. In many cases, people’s thoughts, opinions, and actions are influenced by the political scene. I believe that Orwell’s claim is supported through examples and ideas conveyed by many authors in their writings.

In the case that politicians do not live up to the ideals and criteria they were chosen for, a merit of democracy is that it allows the citizenry to punish these officials – not necessarily through extreme forms like impeachment, but perhaps by simply electing someone else in the forthcoming election. While, as previously addressed, not all participants in the election process vote based on truthful information, some citizens do. It must be remembered that not only those in authority

The American Political System The American political system is a federal system, which consists of

In his analysis, the author draws mostly upon the official parliamentary publication, with some references to the press and to memoirs by leading politicians. He meticulously scrutinizes the composition of the six parliaments from 1923 to 1946 and presents valuable empirical data on the deputies, like age, geographical origin, education, profession, or seniority in parliament. Demirel processes the empirical data by analyzing the transition between two parliaments, and highlighting the