A blog for POLS 209, Dictatorships and Revolutions, at Victoria University of Wellington. A place for students to talk and think about political pathologies all over the world. This is our other blog - see also here
The response to this article by Heidi raises an interesting point about how important choices are for a democracy to function. While at first the charts in class that ranked New Zealand above the US when comparing how democratic they are, were surprising to me, it makes sense that based on the NZ voting system a higher level of democracy may be obtainable. Many US citizens feel as if they are not represented at all by our current government, because we lack any real feasible choice besides democrats or republicans, therefore voting for anyone else feels like a wasted vote. This can often turn people away from investing time and energy in politics, even as simple as voting. If people don't have real choices and are not voting, it is hard to think that the democratic system is working at all. Moving to a proportional representation voting system, as NZ did, may inspire US citizens to participate in politics again.
I didn't really receive the message of how democratic democracies are, instead I saw it as an interesting take on voting motives and the authors general frustration with people crying dictatorship when they aren't winning.
"Is Utah a one-party Republican dictatorship? Democrats try to argue that it is. But it's not true. Voters get what they want"
An interesting read however. I particularly enjoyed the post by Heidi Toth. I think it more so relates to our assigned reading by Jennifer Gandhi on competitive elections. I myself am a believer that competition drives success and is essential for "good government", or at least better than a one party dictatorship and I feel that this is probably the general consensus, as we look down on dictatorships, as being a governing system which doesn't offer us as much as a democracy does.
Important to remember that this applies to all at some point or another though.. "They assume their worldview, which is mirrored in everyone and everything around them, is the only correct worldview, and all other worldviews are wrong."
The response to this article by Heidi raises an interesting point about how important choices are for a democracy to function. While at first the charts in class that ranked New Zealand above the US when comparing how democratic they are, were surprising to me, it makes sense that based on the NZ voting system a higher level of democracy may be obtainable. Many US citizens feel as if they are not represented at all by our current government, because we lack any real feasible choice besides democrats or republicans, therefore voting for anyone else feels like a wasted vote. This can often turn people away from investing time and energy in politics, even as simple as voting. If people don't have real choices and are not voting, it is hard to think that the democratic system is working at all. Moving to a proportional representation voting system, as NZ did, may inspire US citizens to participate in politics again.
ReplyDeleteI didn't really receive the message of how democratic democracies are, instead I saw it as an interesting take on voting motives and the authors general frustration with people crying dictatorship when they aren't winning.
ReplyDelete"Is Utah a one-party Republican dictatorship? Democrats try to argue that it is. But it's not true. Voters get what they want"
An interesting read however. I particularly enjoyed the post by Heidi Toth. I think it more so relates to our assigned reading by Jennifer Gandhi on competitive elections. I myself am a believer that competition drives success and is essential for "good government", or at least better than a one party dictatorship and I feel that this is probably the general consensus, as we look down on dictatorships, as being a governing system which doesn't offer us as much as a democracy does.
Important to remember that this applies to all at some point or another though.. "They assume their worldview, which is mirrored in everyone and everything around them, is the only correct worldview, and all other worldviews are wrong."