This document discusses different concepts and events related to democracy including definitions, ideologies, important historical events, models of democracy, and variables that influence democratic systems. It also examines debates around topics like globalization, the role of markets and states, and whether Marx would agree with economists like Friedman and Hayek on issues related to capitalism and socialism.

1. Democracy
Definitions, concepts and
classifications

2. Ideologies
• Democracy or the Free Market?
• Communism: Stalinism, Revisionism,
Eurocommunism or Marxism?
• Islam: Sunni, Shia, Shariat or Secular?
• Anti-colonialism, Neo-colonialism
• Feminism
• Trotskyism, Anarchism and terrorism

3. What is Democracy?
• Regular, contested elections
• Alternation of Governments
• Rule of Law
• freedoms: speech, association press, etc.
• pluralism/polycentrism/civil society
• Privacy
• Separation of powers/checks and
balances

4. Important events
• Death of Socrates: Plato blames democracy
[399BC]
• The Roman Republic [SPQR]
• Anglo-saxon and Viking ideas of warrior
community [Dark Ages]
• Magna Carta 1215
• Glorious Revolution 1688
• American Revolution 1776
• French Revolution 1789

5. “Modern” Events
• Chartists and 6 demands:
• Universal Suffrage [well, male]
• Equal electoral districts
• Payment for MPs
• Abolition of property qual. For MPs
• Vote by ballot
• Annual parliaments

6. Even more modern events
• Struggle for decolonisation
• Russian revolution 1917
• Chinese protracted revolution
• Globalisation
• United Nations
• European Union
• Collapse of Communism and Westphalian
settlement
• Idea of Universal Human rights

7. What sort of democracy?
• Participative
• People’s Democracy
• Representative
• Liberal
• Free market?
• Eurocommunist?
• Totalitarian /Rousseau-style General will
• Fabian one-party

8. Models of Democracy
• British
• American
• French
• Asian
• Islamic

9. Variables
• Electoral system and party system
• monarchy or republic
• uni- or bi-cameral
• fusion of executive and legislature
• separation of powers
• President and prime minister: 4th or 5th
Rep
• ministers in or out of Assembly

10. Choosing a system 1:
legislature and executive
• Presidential or parliamentary?
• British model?
• US model?
• French 4th Republic?
• French 5th Republic?
• Other European?
• Asian?

11. Choosing 2: electoral system
• PR or first past the post?
• Constituency size: whole country, German
model or multi-member?
• Qualification for representation: what
proportion of electorate?
• How do we want to fix the result? CPs
thought single-member constituencies
would benefit them. Turned out differently.

12. Choosing 3: Presidents
• Direct or indirect election?
• How much power?
• Relationship with Prime Minister
• Can Prexy dissolve Assembly?

13. The Tyranny of the Market
W[h]ither the Nation-state?

14. Marx [or was it Engels?]
• “The state will wither
away”
• Was this the state as
“executive committee
of the bourgeoisie”?
• Or as an instrument
of class oppression?
• Or did he really mean
what anarchists
mean?

15. Globalisation
• Are we moving to a
single global market?
• Does that mean
forget national and
regional markets?
• And does that
demand global
governance, rather
than regional or
national?

16. Would Marx agree with
Friedman and Hayek?
• Capitalism is supposed to create the
conditions necessary for socialism
• The revolution is an international one
• So capitalism must presumably create an
international state for the proletariat to
overthrow.
• “Man creates his own history but in
conditions not of his own choosing”
• So F and H may be friends of Karl!

17. Friedrich Hayek
• Austrian, 1899-1992
• Chicago after 1950. Previously at LSE
• Anti-Keynesian/ free market economist
• Law Legislation and Liberty 3 vols 1973-9
Keith Joseph gave a copy to all civil
servants in DTI when he became sec of
state in 1979

18. Milton Friedman
• New Yorker 1912-
• Theoretical Economist
• Monetarist
• founder of “Chicago School”
• Governments should not intervene in the
workings of the market
• Studies in the Quantity Theory of Money

19. The Market
• Hayek
• recognises the
existence of market
failure
• specifically to provide
collective goods
• Friedman
• that the market can
be relied upon
• to generate not only
the best world but the
best of all possible
worlds

20. Fairness and Justice
• Hayek: the market
and therefore
inequality is
justifiable
• individuals do not
deserve their lot
• market can be cruel
and unfair: hard
work and bright
ideas not always
rewarded
• money is not a
• Friedman
• the distribtion of
income found in a
capitalist society is
just
• in that it reflects the
different talents
abilities and efforts
of the people in that
society

21. The State
• Hayek
• state has a role in
licensing
• quality must be
guaranteed
• services must be
contracted out
• Friedman
• State should be kept
to a minimum
• market will guarantee
quality
• services must be
privatised

22. Issues
• Pollution
• Can government prevent deforestation?
• The safety-net
• caveat emptor?
• How do you form an army?
• Or: if the state no longer has a monopoly
of coercive force, is it a state?

23. In conclusion
• Is the nation state withering away?
• Is Marx about to make a come-back?
• Is there an era of regional superstates
around the corner, or a world state?
• Or is the term “state” redundant?
• “The executive committee of the global
corporations” what will it look like and what
power will it have?