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Democracy and participation - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Ancient Athens
      - Referendums
    - - Pros
        
        Everyone has an equal say.
        
        Encrouges participation.
        
        Removes the need for representatives.
        
        Creates a sense of community and fosters genuine debate.
      - Cons
        
        Impractical in large, highly populated areas (at least on a frequent basis).
        
        People won't want to partake (Brexit referendum had a turnout of only 72%)
        
        Open to manipulation by charismatic leaders.
        
        May lead to the 'tryany of the majority'.
  - - - Modern democracy
    - - Pros
        
        This is the only practical system in modern countries,
        
        Enables pluralist democracy.
        
        Reduces the chances of the 'tryany of the majority'
        
        Elections enable representatives to be held to account.
        
        Politicans should be better informed about the issues.
      - Cons
        
        May lead to reduced participation as people hand the job over to politicans.
        
        Can lead to elitism (look at Eton and Oxbridge's presence in major offices of state).
        
        Deos not guarntee minority represention (those some countries deal with this through a system of reserved seats).
        
        Politicans are skillful in avoiding accountability.
        
        Politicans may lie, be corrupt or be incomptent.
- - - - Average voterturnout between 1945 and 1997 was 76%, in 2019 turnout was 67.3%. Although increasing in the last few years this is very low.
      - Voter turnout is worse in 'second order' elections such as local council elections with average turnout below 35%.
      - Byelection turnout is also poor, with turnout always substainlly less then turnout in the GE.
    - - Only 1.6% of the electorate are part of a political party, this is down from 3.8% in the 80s. Changes differ for each party:
        
        The Conservatives have seen membership drop from 400,000 (in the mid 1990s) to 170,000.
        
        Labour membership increased in the run up to the 1997 electionb before dropping back to 190,000, the election of Jeremy Corbyn saw memebership increase to over 500,000. This has dropped back again to 432,000.
        
        In the 2000 Lib Dem party membership reched 70,000, before dropping to 49,000 in the wake of the coalition. It has since recovered and is now 74,000.
        
        Small parties have bucked the trend with the SNP seeing membership rise fro 25,000 (in 2013) to 104,000 (although this is less then in 2016), the Greens have seen an increase from 13,000 to 54,000 (down from 55,000) and UKIP has seen a smaller growth from 32,000 to 39,000.
    - - Membership of pressure groups has increased in recent years.
      - There have been multiple large protests in recent history such as the Stop The War protest against Iraq and climate protests.
    - - Social media has become more common and has become a key part of activism for young people, enabling them to voice their opinions.
      - E-petitions have enbled people to have a greater say over issues.
    - - Apathy is the growing disintrest in politics or a growth in helplness and people believing no matter what they do nothing will change.
      - Hapathy is the idea that people are happy with politics and see no need for change, this can be seen in the 2001 election when people when the economy was booming and people were happy.
  - - - This is comming more common in Europe, however it is opposed by some in the UK as it is seen as open to exploitation.
    - - Should be complosury
        
        Voting is a social duty as well as a right.
        
        It should produce a parliament that is more representative.
        
        Government and candidates would have to take interest of all the views of the nation.
        
        People can still spoil their ballot, if they don't support any of the candidates.
      - Should not be compulsory
        
        Can lead to donkey voting where people vote for the candidate at the top.
        
        It is undemocractic to force people take part in something that they don't want to.
        
        With FPTP it would not stop candidates focusing on marginal seats.
        
        Doesn't address the reasons for voter apathy.
    - - For
        
        Politics and citizenship is taught in schools, this teaches young people about politics.
        
        16 year olds can get jobs, join the armed forces and seek medical treatment.
        
        Young people don't engage in politics because they can't vote and 3/4 of 16 and 17 year olds voted in the Scotish Inderpendence referendum.
        
        There are issues that impact young people a lot such as university fees and giving young people the vote would force parties to listen to them.
      - Against
        
        Many young people lack the life knolledge to vote and their poltical views are hevily infleuncd by their parrents.
        
        Many rights that 16 yearolds have are limited as they can't see active combat, need parental consent to get married and must stay in education until their 18.
        
        Must young people don't vote and the scotish indy ref was an anomly for all age groups. If 18 yearolds don't vote why would 16 year olds vote?
        
        Most countries don't let 16-17 year olds to vote and some countries limit which elections young people vote in.
- - - - Trade unions and especially the BMA do this as they will try to negoaite with the government, but will happily protest/strike if needed.
  - - - This is a body of experts that is brought together to offer solutions to economic, social and political issues; they are normally ideologically aligend (either left or right).
      - These act as an alternative source of political ideas to the civil service.
      - Many ideas dreamt up by think tanks are ignored as they are to idealistic.
    - - These are members of professional organistions who are paid by clients seeking access to government and MPs, they aim to increase their clients infleunce.
      - However it is quite unpopular as it is seen as people effectivly buying infleunce.
      - Until 2014 lobbying was an unregulated industry, after 2014 it was decided that all lobbyists have to be registered on a public list.
      - Around 4,000 people are employed in the lobbying industry and around £2 billion is spent each year.
      - It is not clear how much infleunce these groups have.
    - - There have been growing concerns about the closeness of government and business with many top politicans moving from politics to business and many business people gaining seats in cabinet through the HoL.
- - - - European convention on human rights
        
        Human rights act
        
        Equality act
        
        This brought together earleir laws designed to prevent discrimination. It idenified 9 protected charaticerisitcs and made it illegal to discrimate based on these factors.
        
        Passed in 1998 by the New Labour government this incorporated the ECHR into UK law. These issues are ruled on by the UK's Supreme Court.
        
        ECHR was drawn up in 1950 with the UK as one of the signitories through its membership of the Council of Europe, this set up a court in Strasbourg to oversea disputes and is very similar to the UDHR.
      - Drawn up in 1215 this was an agreement that would limit the power of the king to prevent tryanny (most importantly it set up incocent till proven guilty (habeas corpus)).
  - - - Since the passing of the HRA all laws must abide by it and judges can declare a decleration of incompatability (however this is not binding).
      - The number of judical review cases has risen from 4240 in 2000 to 15,600 cases in 2013
      - Arguments around judical review
        
        Opposition
        
        Oppents argue that it places too much power in the hands of unelected judges.
        
        Many on the right of the political spectrum argue that UK courts should be supreme to European courts.
        
        Support
        
        Supporters of judical review argue that it ensure checks and balances on parliament and the executive that will prevent them trampling their rights.
  - - - The UK government imposed restrictions on a multitude of peoples rights, such as limitting freedom of movement within the UK.
      - The restriction of rights in this case was done for the public health reasons and in general most people supported the limits to their rights (one poll found support for Covid measures was as high as 80%).
      - However people weren't willing to give up all their rights for public health with polling finding that people were less happy to surrender their rights that were connceted to democracy.
    - - Governments have increasingly given police more powers to combat terorism through laws such as the Terrorism Act 2000.
      - Increasing powers of the police does run in contrast with the idea of civil liberties, but these actions have always been done in the interest of 'national security'.