Ch1 Intro To Political Life

Front 1

Are political processes in Canada democratic?

Back 1

No, by the definition of democracy, elected officials are the only people to determine such matters. In the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms 1981, it was agreed upon that sexual orientation was not among grounds for discrimination (rejected among 10 provinces). In 1983, Supreme Court of Canada decided discrimination based on sexual orientation is the same as discrimination based on race/gender. 20 years later, Ontario court of appeal used it as the basis for reforming federal Marraiges Act definition of marriage. How can the democratic process be democratic if there is evidence of the past that judiciary system has rewritten law (not elected officials)

Front 2

Politics

Back 2

How competing claims are settled by public authority. And the exercise of power by public authority

Front 3

Public realm

Back 3

Topics of which is considered to be political which are located within public authority reaches

Front 4

Marxism

Back 4

Ideology that sees class divisions (rich versus the poor, blue collar versus white collar) as the basis of conflict in society and associates politics with a pervasive cycle of domination by those who own and control the means of creating and distributing wealth over those who do not. Marxists also believe this conflict intensifies to a conflict and an overthrow of the bourgeoisie (ruling class)

Front 5

Old versus New Left

Back 5

Most post modernists (New Left) are more dubious/skeptical about revolutionary visions than the Old Left (those who associate with socialist or left wing politics). The New left do no attribute problem of the state to its relationship to economic power but to general forms of oppression and repression.

Front 6

Why is it necessary to understand politics?

Back 6

To understand boundaries of public and private realm and the existence of such boundaries are necessary in protecting individual freedoms of the private realm

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Ubiquitous

Back 7

Found everywhere

Front 8

State

Back 8

Broad concept that includes that the government has legitimate authority to rule but also includes other public authorities:

judiciary,

armed forces,

police,

legislative assembly,

administration,

public corporations,

schools,

publicly owned media

Front 9

State versus government. I.e., what is government?

Back 9

Government is a term used for those who have been elected to power. Elected individuals that control the state.

Front 10

What is the unique function of the state?

Back 10

To ensure conditions for some degree of social order. Social order is necessary for society to function and carry out all other social activities.

Front 11

Power

Back 11

Ability to influence what happens. E.g. when Microsoft uses its dominant market position in operating systems and compels manufacturers to intergrate Internet Explorer into their comps

Front 12

3 types of power

Back 12

Coercion. Influence. Authority.

Front 13

Coercion

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Threat or use of force

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Influence

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Person A convinces person B that a particular action is reasonable or to convince that action is in Bs best interest

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Authority

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When person (who has the authority to do so and should be obeyed) issues command to compliant party

Front 16

How far is coercion (use of force) and democracy compatible? No answer to this but give an example in which coercion was used in Canadian democracy. Also, what is the compatibility issue really about?

Back 16

In the October Crisis of 1970, PM Trudeaus government enacted the War Measures Act and were able to suspend civil liberties to counter the FLQ crisis (seperatist movement) in Quebec. The police were given the power to report imprisonment to court. Is arresting people suspected of terrorists acts necessary to protect the controlling democratic government? Yes and no. Arresting people to prison is a supression of the right to due process and fair trial before court and free from unlawful detention

Front 17

What are the 3 main characteristics of state

Back 17

1. territorial boundaries

2. institutions that wield authority: police, courts, etc.

3. state's power - enforcement of its order through force and its legitimate claims to wield this force

Front 18

What are the common perceptions of how the state is run?

Back 18

1. pluralism

2. class analysis

3. feminism

4. post-modernism

Front 19

pluralism

Back 19

viewpoint that sees politics as a competition of differing interests.

also, some pluralists believe that the state responds mainly to groups that are BEST ORGANIZED and have SUPERIOR FINANCES and has the POPULAR VOTE

Front 20

What is a state-centred pluralist model? And Most pluralists that believe the state acts on a state-centred pluralist model believe that competition among groups does not take place on an even-level playing field?

Back 20

state-centred pluralist model is one model in which the public officials act on their own preferences according to their own interests rather than combined opinions of differing interest groups.

public officials are "bought-out" by business interests groups

Front 21

society-centred pluralist model

Back 21

pluralism that emphasizes interest groups over the state

Front 22

class analysis

Back 22

viewpoint of that society is stratified into dynamic classes. It implies that there is no universal or uniform social outlook, rather that there are fundamental conflicts that exist inherent to how society is currently organized.Most known examples are the theory of Karl Marx and Max Weber's three-component theory of stratification

Front 23

Max Weber's three-component theory of stratification

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Class, status and power have not only a great deal of effect within their individual areas but also a great deal of influence over the other areas.

Wealth: includes property such as buildings, lands, farms, houses, factories and as well as other assets - Economic Situation

Prestige: the respect with which a person or status position is regarded by others - Status Situation

Power: the ability of people or groups to achieve their goals despite opposition from others - Parties

According to Weber, there are two basic dimensions of power: the possession of power and the exercising of power.

Front 24

Marx' false consciousness

Back 24

that the state is vulnerable to the dominant class which has control over mass media and pop culture.

And that the lack of consciousness among even the least privileged groups in society to accept capitalist and individualist values as normal without healthy questioning

Front 25

feminism

Back 25

that the state is inherently patriarchal. state structures serve to institutionalize male dominance.

Front 26

post-modernism

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views the state as essentially oppressive and even repressive.

Oppression is targeted at groups based on race, gender, ethnicity, and sexual preference. Post-modernists or the "New Left" believe that they repress expression of marginalized populations while legitimizing and nurturing others

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repress

Back 27

restraining freedom from a person or groups

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oppress

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harsh and cruelly restrict

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suppress

Back 29

forcibly prevent the development of

Front 30

civil liberties

Back 30

personal guarantees that the government cannot abridge, either by law or by judicial interpretation, without due process.

Example: the right to equal treatment under the law and due process (arresting suspected peoples of terrorist act violates this right)

Front 31

legitimacy of state's authority

Back 31

acceptance by most people that the rules and institutions comprising the state are fair and should be obeyed.

Same thing as consent in democracies

Front 32

Government may be upheld by...

Back 32

consent or force

usually it's upheld by both. e.g. anti-abortion protesters defy court warnings against demonstration near an abortion clinic and are arrested for civil disobedience

Front 33

Types of civil disobedience

Back 33

Violence or

Passive disobedience / non-violent civil disobedience (Gandhi or Martin Luther King Junior)

Front 34

Totalitarianism

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system of government that suppresses dissent in the name of some supreme goal

Front 35

Cultural hegemony

Back 35

that the dominant class gets its values and beliefs accepted as the conventional wisdom in society at large.

Despite the fact that these beliefs may be contrary to the interests of the subordinate classes

e.g.Mass media deliver biased news stories.

e.g. Many religious institutes that do not support the sciences, advocate a non-evolutionary origin of life on earth and promote belief in the sudden miraculous emergence of intelligent life

Front 36

What are 3 types of democracies?

Back 36

liberal democracy, developmental and communist

Front 37

How is liberal democracy different from the other two?

Back 37

It is believed that there is competition among the political parties but competition does not exist in the other two

Front 38

developmental democracy

Back 38

a democracy in which the citizen has the power to elect a representative or express one's opinion, and choose how actively participate in polite cs. compared to other democratic systems, citizens here have the most power. commonly occurs in cultures of poverty/despair transitioning to places of agency/variety

Front 39

Some political scientists claim laws inspired by religions is not necessarily antithetical to democracy, but all agree that ___ is central to democracy

Back 39

equality

Front 40

4 Questions to ponder...when democracy is about social and economic equality.

Back 40

1. Is democracy a system of government or is it a type of society? both

2. Was Canada "democratic" government before the female vote?

3. Is our society democratic if there is a persistence of poverty?

4. Are only secular societies truly democratic?

How about the freedom of religion if Turkish and Indonesian democracies rest on abstract, carefully thought-out theological and ideological accommodation between Islam and democracy

Front 41

What are the 4 elements necessary for a society to qualify as democratic?

Back 41

(1) majority rule

(2) government by popular consent

(3) one-person-one-vote (fair vote)

(4) competitive elections (fair elections)

Front 42

tyranny of the majority

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tyranny of the majority may lead to cultural hegemony. danger that a majority democracy oppresses the rights of minorities

Front 43

How to best safeguard against tyranny of the majority

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existence of multiple groups (religion, ethnic, and regional). large number of minorities don't make up a majority.

Front 44

democratic despotism

Back 44

when constituiontal limits on power of the state is already set or when the political status of particular social groups are entrenched in the procedures of politics.

e.g. co-equal official status of French and English imposed at the national level.

despotism = exercise of absolute power, especially in a cruel and oppressive way

Front 45

Almond and Verka make the argument that democratic government is sutstained by ___. Why

Back 45

cultural attitudes. How democratic a society is based on politically relevant attitudes and beliefs of the population. Example: Designated Country of Origin refugee policy

Front 46

Some may argue that the effectiveness of a democracy depends on a high level of....?

Back 46

social capital

Front 47

social capital

Back 47

concept that refers to norms of

(1) interpersonal trust,

(2) sense of civic duty and

(3) belief that ones political participation matters

Front 48

Chicken and egg question of successful democracies:

Does a high level of social capital contribute to successful democratic politics or is it the experience of successful democratic governments that encourage and reinforce high levels of social trust and cohesion

Back 48

Answer is both.

Front 49

Socialists argue that a society where a large number of people are preoccupied with feeding and housing themselves cannot be described as democratic.

Preoccupation excludes poor from full participation in political life, and this way socio-economic inequality translates to ...

Back 49

political inequality.

Front 50

Extreme critics even go as far to dismiss democratic claims to a capitalist society. They argue that inequality results from the simple fact that...

Back 50

a small proportion of the population - capitalist class - controls the vast majority of the means of economic production and distribution.

Front 51

What is the most common reason for rejecting direct democracy (American Idol style of making decisions) via the Internet and for being skeptical about the value of opinion polls?

Back 51

That many citizens are poorly informed about public issues much of the time.
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are the democracy's only safe depositories.

Front 52

Neil Postman blames modern education and the media for creating people who are unable to explain the most basic elements of issues that have received saturation coverage in the media. What he explains is that disinformation is created in the news. What is disinformation?

Back 52

Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information - misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information - information that creates the illusion of knowing something but which in fact leads one away from knowing. When news is packaged as entertainment, that is the inevitable result.

Front 53

All modern democracies are representative democracies. What is a representative democracy

Back 53

form of democracy in which citizens delegate law making to elected officials, holding them responsible for their actions through periodic elections.

Front 54

judiciary

Back 54

system of courses that interprets and applies the law in the name of the state

Front 55

rule of the law

Back 55

that every one is subject to the law, that no-one, no matter how important or powerful is above the law.

means that no public official has legitimate right to exercise any powers other than those assigned to his or her office by the law

up to the courts to check that abuse of power (democratic societies have independent judiciary)

Front 56

How can one measure how "democratic" a society is? 5 points

Back 56

1 political rights

2 civil liberties

3 press freedom

4 public corruption

5 rule of law

Front 57

Good question to ponder about public agenda: When should the will of the majority be decisive and....

Back 57

and in what circumstance should the rights of minorities be protected and trump majority opinion?

In other words, who gets heard and why?

Front 58

public agenda

Back 58

issues current in a societies politics at any point in time

Front 59

What are some indications of a political group's influence in politics as portrayed in media?

Back 59

the capacity to get an issue framed in certain way may be an indication of a political group's influence

or when issue is prevented from being formulated is also a sign of group influence

Front 60

Socio-economic and ideological backgrounds have important effects on how the political system operates therefore democracies cannot be reduced to

Back 60

a simple constitutional formula to some particular vision of social equality

Front 61

democracy

Back 61

a political system founded on the formal political equality of all citizens. With the realistic possibility that voters can replace the government and in which basic rights are protected

Front 62

plebiscites and referendums, what are they

Back 62

events where direct votes of citizens on important public questions are held. These can include choosing judges or administrative officials, formal procedures for removing an elected official before the end of his or her term. This is to allow for widespread citizen participation in public affairs.

Front 63

Why is it that in countries like US or Switzerland, where referendums are a normal part of the political process, voter turnout is very low?

Back 63

Partly because vested interests are quick to spend money on advertising and mobilizing their supporters, critics say referendum produce outcomes that are far from democratic, that "referendums are too easily used as tools of conservative political interests"