Introduction to democracy and its broad variations

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Introduction to democracy and its broad variations발음듣기

[Instructor] What we're going to do in this video is dig a little bit deeper into the notion of democracy.발음듣기

And the reason why this is going to be valuable is it's going to inform the decisions that the Founding Fathers had to make when they thought about whether to ratify the Constitution.발음듣기

It'll also inform our thoughts on government as it is today in the United States.발음듣기

What flavor of democracy does it take on especially at different layers of government?발음듣기

So just as a review, and this is something that we have talked about in other videos democracy comes from Greek from rule by the people.발음듣기

Demo from demos, which is referring to people and curacy coming from Katia, which is referring to rule.발음듣기

So, rule by the people.발음듣기

Now broadly speaking, we can think of three general flavors of democracy, the first we can consider to be participatory. Participatory democracy.발음듣기

The second we can call pluralist democracy and I'll define these in a second.발음듣기

And then the third, let's call that elite democracy. Elite democracy.발음듣기

Now, what do you think participatory democracy means based on the word participatory?발음듣기

Yes, as you might have guessed it implies broad participation of the population. Broad participation.발음듣기

What are examples of a participatory democracy?발음듣기

Well, imagine a small town that has maybe a few hundred or a few thousand people.발음듣기

And if there's an issue of whether to build a stop light at an intersection or a change in some of the zoning laws you can imagine a large chunk of the down showing up to weigh in on that decision.발음듣기

Now, what are some of the benefits of a participatory democracy and what are some of the negatives?발음듣기

Well, the benefits are, and I'll do those as pluses a benefit is, well, it kind of seems closest to the original spirit of a democracy.발음듣기

It's coming out of ancient Greece, ancient Athens the birthplace of democracy where you did have residents go together and debate the major issues.발음듣기

Although even in ancient Athens you have to take participation with a grain of salt because it wasn't everyone who was participating.발음듣기

It was, for the most part, wealthy men who had the time to actually sit and debate these issues.발음듣기

But, if we want to give a participatory democracy its credit say in a small town, is that you really are representing the views of the people.발음듣기

Representing the people well.발음듣기

The people are directly involved.발음듣기

Now, what are maybe some of the negatives?발음듣기

Well, it can get logistically difficult.발음듣기

We talked about a small town but what if the town gets a little bit bigger?발음듣기

Or what we're dealing with a state?발음듣기

Or we're dealing with a country where we're talking about tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions or tens of millions of people?발음듣기

How do you get all of those people to weigh in on an issue, even logistically?발음듣기

How do they get informed about it and are they even prepared to weigh in on those issues?발음듣기

Sure, if you're in a town you can think about whether an intersection should be there or whether they should put a stop light there.발음듣기

But if we're talking about matters of national or international importance influencing hundreds of millions of people can you depend on people to be informed about the intricacies of the banking system or the military or foreign policy?발음듣기

And so this is really a question of, does this scale?발음듣기

And there really aren't any good examples in history of direct democracy scaling in significant ways beyond fairly small groups of people.발음듣기

In the United States the biggest scale where you might see this are in things like ballot measures at the city or the state level where people are directly voting on certain measures or certain laws.발음듣기

But even there, it's a limited scope for what the people will actually weigh in on.발음듣기

Now, the next category that we talk about is a pluralist democracy.발음듣기

Pluralism is referring to the idea of many different parties.발음듣기

Same root as the word plural, you have many things.발음듣기

So you have many different parties and many different competing interests that are going to have a vigorous debate with each other on deciding what are the best ideas.발음듣기

And what are examples of pluralist democracies?발음듣기

If you think about the United States there are many different interest groups.발음듣기

You can think about all of the different lobbyists all of the different groups that represent different types of people trying to convince members of Congress, either at the national level or even at the state level that their interest is right.발음듣기

Even within Congress, even though you have two major parties you can have different factions that are really trying to argue it out.발음듣기

Now, what are the benefits of a pluralist democracy?발음듣기

Well, you can imagine that because there is this vigorous debate, maybe the good ideas surface.발음듣기

Good ideas surface.발음듣기

You don't have domination by just one party.발음듣기

No one group or a small group of people domination.발음듣기

But then, on the other side of it maybe they're some negatives, what might those be?발음듣기

Well, maybe all of this debate and argument is very inefficient, maybe it's slow decision making.발음듣기

Slow decisions, or at an extreme, no decisions.발음듣기

Some things like gridlock because people can't agree to things that in order for anything to get done you have to make too many people happy and they all have their interests.발음듣기

Maybe the opposite of good ideas surface.발음듣기

Maybe good ideas die because it's very hard to make everyone happy.발음듣기

Now, the last category that we're gonna talk about is the idea of an elite democracy and this is where you have more limited participation.발음듣기

So in some ways it's almost the opposite of a participatory democracy.발음듣기

So this is limited, limited participation.발음듣기

And even though I gave ancient Athens as an example of a participatory democracy it really was more of an elite democracy where the people had the time.발음듣기

And the influence and the money those were the ones who were really weighing in on the issues of ancient Athens.발음듣기

And if you were to go to the Roman republic the Roman senators, these were, once again, elite men.발음듣기

So what would you think are benefits of an elite democracy?발음듣기

Well, one might be that these elites, so to speak maybe they are more educated than the general public.발음듣기

And so that allows them to make more informed decisions especially on things that are quite complex that would be hard for everyone to weigh in on.발음듣기

If you're going to change a new accounting standard or think about how do you relegate the telecommunications industry.발음듣기

Or some very sophisticated trade negotiation or foreign policy negotiation, that education might help.발음듣기

And maybe it's also more decisive than either one of the pluralist or the participatory.발음듣기

The participatory they might be able to appeal to maybe baser instincts, just, you know, people's passions while the pluralists.발음듣기

Since you have all of these groups competing even if something makes sense they might not be able to make that decision.발음듣기

But if you have a smaller, more limited group limited participation, maybe they can make these decisions a little bit clearer, but what are the negatives here?발음듣기

Well, the clearest negative is, well maybe this goes against the whole idea of a democracy.발음듣기

If it's all about the elites, maybe they do a good job at truly representing the interests of the people but maybe they are good at representing the interests of the elite.발음듣기

So do they really represent the people?발음듣기

Is this a democracy where the people are sovereign where the people rule, or is this an oligarchy where only a few people rule and they rule in their own interests?발음듣기

And so after watching this video look at the world around you.발음듣기

Think about, in the United States or whatever country you're watching from what elements of a participatory democracy do you see?발음듣기

What elements of a pluralist democracy and what elements of an elite democracy do you see?발음듣기

And as we'll see in other videos these dimensions of democracy were vigorously debated by the Founding Fathers when they thought about whether to ratify the Constitution.발음듣기

We'll see this debate when we look at the Anti-Federalist Papers, especially we'll look closely at Brutus number one.발음듣기

We'll see this debate when we look at the Federalist Papers especially Federalist number 10, written by James Madison.발음듣기

And I'll let you decide, when we look at that who was right and what flavors of democracy are most dominant in the United States at different levels.발음듣기

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