The Rise Of Democracy Throughout Europe Essay

The feudal system began to decline after the Black Death struck Europe in the late 1340’s. The feudal system joined politics and grouped together the social classes of that period. It began with the “relationship between two freemen (men who are not serfs), a lord and his vassal. Vassal derived from a Celtic word for servant, but in feudal terms vassal meant a free person who put himself under the protection of a lord and for whom he rendered loyal military aid.” This relationship was mutually beneficial at first, but throughout the development of the system, great restrictions were endured.

Serfs grew the food and made the things that everyone required, and without them, the system would collapse. Manorialism was also important to it as a source of order and economy. In this structure, feudalism was the main political land based system of the Middle Ages. And while the practice of it mostly disappeared with the Middle Ages, it is still an imprinted government in

During the medieval times Kings had absolute power and the Catholic Church made sure God help the King retain this power. During this time feudalism was the structure that shaped society. In the feudalism structure the people that work the land the poor got cero power and live at the mercy of the barons. Barons where the owners of the land that people where let to work and make really low amounts of money while the baron sells and exchange the goods produced by the land and makes a fortune. At the end of the day the land belongs to the king and the king taxes the barons and collects money from all the land making him very, very wealthy and powerful.

During the middle ages the lack of protection and a stable government after the Fall of Rome created the need for a new political system. Feudalism was the political system that emerged and shaped the lives of people socially and politically. Manors were small communities that were made up of a castle, church, village, and land for farming. The structured society provided a place and responsibility for everyone. The feudal obligations showed that in exchange for one thing they would be provided with something else. Serfs and peasants would work and produce goods for the rest of the manor and in return had their land and promised protection. The vassals would need to obtain land from the Lord and in return would provide the Lord with military service, loyalty, and ransom if asked for (Doc. 4). To make clear the vassal’s specific allegiance to their lord whom they owed in for exchange for their fief they would take the Homage Oath (Doc. 2). This interdependent system required everyone to do their part and it created social classes that they were born into. Their daily lives were centered on the manor and that was how it stayed until towns began to

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.

Feudalism was a contrasting system dealing with political and military relationships existing among members of the higher social class, Kings, Lords and other owners of large lands in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. The Feudal system started by the granting of fiefs, chiefly in the form of land and labor, in return the lord would receive political and

The governmental system which embodies the European Union is currently both ambiguous and undemocratic. However, in order to explore alternative strategies of improvement, it is firstly crucial to identify the root of the deficit. One is then able to discuss contributing factors which affect the national parliaments lack of importance when creating legislation and strategies of review such as the subsidiary and proportionality tests.

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.

A Democratic Deficit in the EU The question over the legitimacy of the EU has been a nearly continuous debate and many commentators appear to agree that the EU suffers from a severe ‘democratic deficit’. There are many reasons why this perception is so widespread. As a multinational body it lacks the grounding in common history and culture upon which most individual polities can draw.

Does the EU suffer from a democratic deficit? If so, can it be solved by conferring greater powers on the European parliament?

The general understanding of democracy is that it is a state of leadership where citizens of a country participate equally either directly or by representative individuals in the establishment of laws, which run the society. However, like many other forms of leadership, democracy has its cons and may not give the citizens the necessary freedoms that they think they have. Different philosophers have different insights on democracy in terms of concepts such as liberty, which they embraced. This paper will look at Benjamin Barber and Joseph Schumpeter’s idea of democracy contrasting their definition in terms of citizenship, obligation, rights and duties of each individual in the society declaring whose idea of democracy creates a compelling vision (Terchek & Conte, 2001).

Western European people had endured a series of changes during the late medieval period. Changes can be categorized into two aspects: politically and socially. On politics, Popes were not as strong as they were due to conflicts between the state and the church. Socially, people began to live a religion- dominated life, and experienced active sexism towards women. These changes, either positive or negative, have become an undivided part of European History.

When discussing the twentieth century in Europe everyone can agree that this period was a brutal one for the continent. A common opinion, many have is that despite all of the turmoil experienced throughout this period, including two world wars, the success of democracy as a style of government was never truly in doubt. This paper will go against this widely held belief, and argue that democracy’s success in this period was not written in stone.

The European Union has greatly evolved over the decades since it has begun into a well-evolved quasi-state of over 28 countries, and over five hundred million citizens. The European Union has been regarded as a method to bring democratic stability and economic prosperity to less developed democracies in East and Central Europe. Although the European Union has a mandate to bring all of these standards, the European Union lacks these basic standards for their overall institution. This structural problem has given the European Union its own ‘democratic deficit’. The rise of the democratic deficit has arisen from many undemocratic characteristics of EU institutions, and a lack of a demos or a lack of a single socio cultural European identity. In order for a political body to remain legitimate, it must have the trust and support of the citizens it governs, and make changes for the continuation of its future. In other words, if the European Union does not take action to combat its democratic deficit, the future of the European Unions institution will be at risk. Another serious issue is the European Union has seen democratic backsliding of many Eastern European countries. This paper will discuss the major issues that the Democratic Deficit has caused for the European Union, and what possible reforms can be done to help fix the democratic deficit.

Democracy in the European Union (EU) has been described by academics ranging from “a classical case of a gradual de-democratisation through integration”, to “opaque, technocratic, and distant from its citizens”. The EU began as an economic union with 6 initial members for integrating Franco-German production of coal and steel following Robert Schuman’s proposal in the 1950s. It has now become a progressive political union, experiencing many innovations and changes in numerous fields right from the ECSC to the Lisbon treaty. Today, the EU has 28 members representing almost 500 million people. The expansion has resulted in the uprising of new complex problems, democratic deficit being the most pivotal. Christopher Lord defined democratic deficit as ‘insufficiently representative of, or accountable to, the nations and the people of Europe’. The phrase was first used by David Marquand in 1979, referring to the then European Economic Community. Democratic deficit ' in relation to the European Union, refers to a perceived lack of accessibility to the ordinary citizen, or lack of representation of the ordinary citizen, and lack of accountability of European Union institutions. The complex and distant nature of the European institutions have contributed to this argument. This essay discusses the European institutions involved in the legislative process before going on to evaluate the role played by national parliament to combat the deficit, taking into