POL 110

The Rise and Fall of Democracy

• Democracy: recent phenomenon in history

• History if United States: has been the struggle for democracy

• U.S. territories

• Jan 6th not an isolated incident in U.S. History

• 1898: Wilmington North Carolina

• Always have been efforts to suppress votes

• Often can take benign forms

• Preventing voter fraud

Democratic backsliding

Anti-Immigration Sentiment (holecost)

• History never repeats, but it sometimes ryhymes

• Anti-Immigration sentiment: has always been prevalent in American history

• History of other countries

• Best enemies: are those who are powerless to fight back

• Makes them so tempting of targets

• Stigmatized groups: can develop a sense of self hatred

• Limits of empathy

Exam Question

• Many of the Founding Fathers, including Madison, were skeptical of majority rule. With that said, why did many of the Founders fear majority rule? In addition, describe some of the key features of the American political system that limit majority rule?

Exam answer

• Minorities could be ganged up on by majorities

• They feared minority suppression and an in balance of powers: Mob Rule (oppression, tyranny of the minority)

• Some implications are -

  • Separation of powers: makes it extremely difficult for any single political party to rule every branch of government

  • Equal state representation: every state no matter the population gets two senators to represent them in congress

  • The U.S. Federalist system: significant governmental powers are divided between central and small units - States hold significant power - laws can vary by state

• Supreme Court: gets appointed till death, then president chooses new - exempted from democratic rule - can veto majority wants to protect minority - can strike down a law they see as threatening

• Bill of Rights: first 10 amendments of U.S. Constitution: protection of basic civil liberties - freedoms protected from government interference -

1. Freedom of speech

2. Freedom of religion

3. Freedom of press

4. Right to a fair trial

• Only protected from federal government

• Later applied to the states

U.S. Constitution: Equality and Representation

• House of Representatives: based on population

• Each House district is supposed to have roughly same number of people

• Senate: each state gets two senators

• Population of California: greater than bottom 20 states combined

• Bottom 20 states: 40 Senators, California 2

• U.S. Senate: equality for states=inequality for people

• Robert Dhal: a small percentage if population can overturn the wants of most Americans

• Inaction is action: tyranny of the minority

Separation of Powers

• Lower branch: House of Representatives

• Upper branch: the Senate

• Bill must pass through both chambers

• Signed by president

• Divided government: when on political party controls one branch while another controls another branch of government

• Most democracies don’t have separation of powers

• Instead: have parliamentary systems

The Difficulty of Change

• American system of government: designed to make change incredibly difficult

• Policy change occurs very slowly

• Littered with veto points:

• Veto points: a point in the political process where legislation can be derailed

• The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)

Federalism

• Unitary system of government: all or most power rests in central government

• Examples: France, United kingdom, Ireland, Japan

• Laws are uniform across territory

• U.S. has federalist system of government

• Federalism: system in which significant governmental powers are divided between a central government and small units

• States have a lot of power

• Laws vary greatly by state