Participation is the essence of democracy Discuss

Authors Avatar by bkbaidan (student)

Government & Politics Essay: Participation is the essence of democracy

Teacher: Ms S Lightbowne                               Student: Kamahl Brown 12FXL

________________

“Participation is the essence of democracy”

Discuss

For many years and even centuries one of the main discussions that have been very dominant is the ‘right to vote.’ The right to vote is a phrase that has been in headlines for many centuries to give countries more of a democracy. The United States, Women across the world and many minorities had to fight and millions died in the process to fight for their right to vote. However, is voting the essence of democracy or is voting an overrated task? Is participation of the people needed to make a democracy? Democracy means the right to vote, it doesn’t mean that you have to vote, if no one votes then it’s a democracy because it shows that no one are interest on how the country is ran so the previous government that was voted by the people, will carry on making the decision.

In the United Kingdom, if you are over the age of 18 and you do not have a criminal record, you are allowed to vote. If you are ill and you want someone else to vote on your behalf, that vote will be rejected.

The term democracy does not have a specific definition but there are elements that create a democracy. A simple way to phrase democracy is a rule of the people or power to the people. “Government of the people, by the people, for the people” this is a famous quote that former President of the United States Abraham Lincoln defined democracy. There are four main types of democracies: Direct, Liberal, Representative and Pluralist.

Direct Democracy is when policies are directly decided on by the vote of the people. The term direct democracy originated in Athens of the 40,000 free slaves in the 5th Century. The women and current slaves were excluded. Switzerland has adopted Participatory democracy which is a type of direct democracy. The citizens have more participation in referendums and are able to be more involved in politics. However, there are certain referendums and policies that are quite complex and many people will just vote without research or consideration on how it might affect them. Also, it is not a representative of the whole country if only a few people vote just because they understand the policy and the other high percentage don’t. This will discourage people to go and put in their vote. Representative Democracy- for this type of democracy to take place, people who are eligible to vote will vote for someone who is running to become a member of parliament (E.g. Member of Parliament) to represent their views in government. The United Kingdom is an example of a representative democracy because we have to vote on who we want to represent us in Parliament. Liberal Democracy incorporates free, fair and competitive elections with the importance of specific key rights and key responsibilities. In liberal democracies they extend the right to vote amongst citizens. This also means that the freedom of free speech is granted. Many Liberal democracies are incorporated with other democracies such as the UK is seen to be as a liberal democracy and a representative democracy. Pluralist Democracy promotes participation that allows free and fair competition in interest. In pluralist democracies there will be a very high range of competing interest such as economy and environment.

Join now!

Political participation is a process where citizens of a country get involved in political activities. Milbrath and Goel(1977) discovered that there are three types of political participants; the gladiators who are the small percentage of keen participants, the spectators who vote and may be interested in specific issues but may limit their participation and the ampathetic are those who do not particularly care and do not participate at all. They also claimed that most people voted sporadically. There are many types of participations such as; becoming a member of a political party, protests, petitions, boycotting, being an MP, debates and ...

This is a preview of the whole essay