Essays on Democracies

Multiculturalism is a defining characteristic of the Canadian people, where persons of diverse backgrounds and origins live in harmony. However, discord persists over the impact of various legislation and practices in the integration of immigrants as well as identifiable religious minorities. Multiculturalism, for instance, finds opposition on the premises that it promotes balkanization and isolation of ethnic groups. Proponents argue that such policy encourages herding of ethnic groups, where differences between groups are amplified as opposed to their common identity as Canadians (Kymlicka Par1). It is imperative for a multiethnic nation like Canada to institute mechanisms that facilitate feelings ...

The worst years of human history are well and truly behind us. Democracy, as a political system, reigns supreme with the fall of the Berlin Wall. More countries today have established democracies than ever in human history and which has led to both the social and economic development of mankind. Still, for all its shortcomings, there are a number of benefits to this system that a monarchy, oligarchy or even authoritarian or totalitarian regimes cannot offer. Even if we are in the New Millennium, most of these changes took place during the times known as the Third Wave Democratization ...

Introduction

There are numerous debates about the death penalty in the United States. America continues to allow states to decide whether to apply the death penalty or not. There are 32 states in America that have the death penalty as opposed to 18 states that have abolished the practice. The United States of America continues to act as the leader of the free world. American exceptionalism is premised on the fact that America is a uniquely free nation based on democratic ideals and personal liberties. America has led the process of exporting liberal democracies around the world and many nations ...

Significant increases in the national debt, with no relief or plans to deal with the problem, and its effect on the economy An increase in national budget, with no relief or plans to deal with the problem, will result in a deficit, or more spending with less national input. Repercussions for a budget deficit can mean more borrowings for the national government from the private sector, such as the selling of bonds or gilts to the private sector. The debate over the budget deficit has two opposing views. The first one is that the deficit is destructive to the ...

Winston Churchill’s Iron of Curtain speech has been seen in retrospect as one of the first signs of the oncoming Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. In this speech Churchill lays out why he believes that in the wake of the Second World War, Soviet expansionism in Eastern Europe was causing a deep divide in the continent and ultimately something much more significant a clash of two global powers for preeminence in the second half of the twentieth century. This speech was one of the most important moments of the twentieth century and it ...

Reflection Paper

Introduction The documentary, “Sick around the World” by Jon Palfreman centers on the health care systems of five capitalist democracies and compares them with the U.S health care system. In particular, the film analyses the way the United Kingdom, German, Switzerland, Japan, and Taiwan provide health care and draws a comparison with the way the United States provides the same. There are remarkable differences in the health care systems of all the six countries. The present paper reflects on the differences between these countries with regard to the insurance, services, technology, and consumer satisfaction and comments on whether the ...

The world has experienced many wars in the past with the most memorable being world war I and World War II. Superpowers are currently fighting to protect the world from plunging into world war III with concepts such as nuclear weapons becoming more common across the globe. A country's military power and its ability to exploit this power is used to rank a country among the superpowers. Dominant superpowers and rising superpowers are currently forming allies meant to protect their individual interests which also result in a state of conflict while declining powers are faced with a greater threat ...

Democracies do not go to War with One Another

The correlation between democracy and war has been a major concern for various political commentators globally. The statement that democratic states rarely go to war is correct and is supported by many scholars. According to Rummel (1999, p. 10), democracy abhors any conceivable form of politically instigated violence. The statement that democratic states do not go to war is, therefore, justified and this behavior can be attributed to the makeup of a normal democratic country. Aspects such as respect for human rights, compliance with the rule of law and the presence of a competitive political setup have arguably contributed ...

For this comparative research, we selected Spain and Germany, two countries of the European Union with similar political parliamentarian systems. Personification is a distinctive feature of presidentialism and it seems reasonable to examine to what extent this trend occurs in European parliamentary systems today.

The position of political leaders in parliamentary systems is different from the position occupied by them in the presidential republics. Lijphart identifies three characteristics that distinguish essentially presidentialism and parliamentarianism (Lijphart, 2000). Firstly, in a presidential system the executive chief is elected directly by the electors by popular vote and therefore without legislative intervention, so ...

1. While this statement by Kydd and Walter (80) may be true to some extent, it does not hold for all democracies across the globe. For example, the United States has a long standing and unwavering policy that “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” hence whatever the costs of terrorism and the war against terror, some democracies will risk everything to win the fight. However, at the same time, this statement represents the current reality that is gaining ground or momentum in most democracies including the US, to the effect that winning the fight against terrorism requires more than ...

Question 1; why was Europe such a dominant influence on the world in the 19th century?

Within the nineteenth century, Europe was considered a global powerhouse especially in the economic perspective. The production prowess and efficiency of the continent was above all the rest. There are different reasons attributed to the European dominance within the 19th century. One of the reasons was its powerful connection between market incentives and technology, which enabled it uncover the prospect of coal energy. Secondly, there emerged different developments in physics, medicine and even science, which offered immeasurable contributions to the population growth within Europe. The growth in population directly and indirectly improved the economic developments therefore reinforcing the continent’ ...

1. Citing class discussion and course readings, please critique the following passage: Our analysis suggests that democracies are more likely to be sensitive to the costs of terrorist attacks, to grant concessions to terrorists so as to limit future attacks, to be constrained in the ability to pursue a lengthy attritional campaign against an organization, but also to be under a greater pressure to do something Terrorism as we know it is a tactic, a tactic used by marginalized and disenfranchised groups to attempt to claw back some of the rights that they have lost or to try and ...

Introduction

The post-colonial era paved the way for democracy to flourish in former colony states. However, the same notion of democracy left the former colonies ravaged with internal conflict, violence, sub-state wars, and even genocide. This encompasses the immense fragility of the democratic process in which the idea of freedom succumbs the post-colonial countries to engage in internal conflicts. The discussion highlights how post-colonial democracies becomes a failed state. On the other hand, strategies for prevention will be provided offering a new perspective towards democracy. Lastly, the discussion will determine whether the problem lies with the global system that the ...

The term representation is used to refer to the construction of meaning through various symbols and images (Sisler, 2008). Cultures, races, and religions are represented in different forms of media around the world, but in most scenarios these representations are filled with stereotypes making western cultural ideologies and beliefs as better or ideal compared to other forms of cultural ideologies. The portrayal of Arab- Muslim Americans or Muslims in general, within the media of the United States focuses on the idea of agenda setting and the dominant ideology which frames the perceptions of mainstream America (Gerhauser, 2014). The United ...

Introduction

This paper is to deal with one of main issue of post-WW2 world, namely the phenomenon of civil war. The analysis of this paper is devoted to such questions as the reasons for certain civil wars as well as concrete instances of such internal conflicts. Also, the paper is to discuss the major theoretical contributions and controversies related to the civil war research program: firstly, civil wars are defined conceptually, and then, operationally. Second, major theories relating to the issue of causes of civil wars and their results will be discussed, along with future directions and policy implications. The ...

After the Second World War, America played a fundamental role in the promotion and broadening of democratic aspects in Western Europe. As a result, it enhanced the European integration for the stabilization of the West European democracies. Worth noting is that this concept of the United States was replicated in other parts of the world too. The primary purpose of the US encouraging democratic practices is embedded in its domestic political culture which by origin, as well as, character has been described as moralistic. This essentially makes the promotion of values remain stuck in the foreign policies of the ...

Currently, there are very harsh discussions about the role of Gorbachev in the history of the Soviet Union in the last years of its existence. Often he is regarded as a person who undermined the whole structure of this country. Very often, he is considered as a traitor in Russia. On the contrary, in the West, he is believed as a person who ended the Cold War. But nevertheless, the fact that harsh discussions about his person and role are going on is the best evidence that Gorbachev is an outstanding person with great contribution to the world history ...

A political party is a grouping of individuals who come together to compete in elections and hold authority in the government. Often, political parties agree on specific policies and programs that are intended to enhancing the collective common good of their supporters. Despite the fact that there are many international commonalities in the organization of political parties, there are a lot of differences concerning the ideological cores. In modern democracies, the political parties are elected by the citizens to form a government. Many nations in the world have various party systems. For instance, China has a one-party system while ...

Introduction

It is a cliché to say that the relationship between China and the world has become complex, multidimensional and interdependent. But that does not mean that we fully understand the complexity of the Chinese attitude towards globalization nor its interdependence with the world in general and the Western industrial democracies in particular, with the implications thereof. The thesis that we develop in this article argues that economic interdependence greatly strengthens Chinese authoritarianism in its ability to politically influence the attitude of States and civil liberties in Western democracies, rather than the reverse. It contradicts the usual thesis that Western ...

Introduction

When people live in a society, they are imparted with specific values and norms which shape their understanding of different things. One of the unique understanding that people develop is their notion of how they expect the government to work. They also develop unique belief on what they expect the political system to do for them (Roskin, et al. 106). These beliefs towards the government or the political system that individuals of a given society develop are what are referred to as the political culture of a nation. The political culture varies from one nation to another. There are ...

A fundamental problem facing new democracies is the hijacking of the political process by elites. Economic performance is affected by elite politics leading to underdevelopment and sometimes morphing into political violence. The transition from colonial regimes to democracy has been subverted by the harm that was done by the colonial subversion of traditional institutions in favor of artificial Western ones. This provided an opening for the rise of elites and the rule of ‘the big men’ (Owusu, 1992). What role do elites play in transition to democracy or its opposite? This paper seeks to provide an analysis on how ...

Introduction

The citizens of all the democratic countries are entitled to vote. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, all the people have the right to participate in the governments of their nations either directly or through their elected representatives. Voting provides the citizens with a medium of expression. It gives the voters the chance to express their opinions about the governments, take part in the vital issues affecting their countries, and hold the elected representatives accountable. It is worth noting that high voter turnout is desirable in every democratic country. As a matter of fact, a high voter ...

INTRODUCTION

There are various means that the population of any country can take to become active participants in society. In the realm of democratic government, citizens’ participation at the polls is typically considered the cornerstone of democracy. Explain what democracy entails The United States is widely known to be lagging in the rate at which its citizens participate at the polls. In comparison to most other developed countries, only 53.6% of the voting-age population in the United States participated in the 2012 elections. Indicate the examples of the developed countries. This number is skewed from representing the number of registered, ...

The research problem will be to investigate whether the patrimonial political systems of Singapore and South Korea are democracies that surpass their liberal Western analogues in terms of national growth and even democratization in some ways. It appears that, contrary to the popular misperception, democracy is not necessarily a lack of restraint and complete discretion or at least a range of freedom like the right to media. Sometimes, states like Singapore being low on resources and facing external threats decide on less liberal norms and behaviors bordering on authoritarianism in specific aspects. Regulated merit-based selection practices and disciplining norms ...

Brown’s work is a clarion call to democratic action. Advanced democracies today have always tried to think rationally about the neoliberal government. The article seeks to explore the nature of transformation for both an individual and state in neoliberalism into self-standing entrepreneurial units which may be compelled to contend for investment in other such units. Therefore, this is defined as the eclipse of homo politicus by the all-encompassing political figure of homo economicus. The primary aim of the book as the title indicates is to explain that neoliberalism has continued to render the democratic and independent political agency ...

Book Review

For the purposes of the analysis, the author of the paper dwells on the consideration of the book prepared by Martin Wattenberg. The main thesis of the boom concerns the issue that contemporary society create be environment where the youth have no intention to participate in the election process as the voters. In the beginning of the book, the author - Martin Wattenberg (herein after referred as Wattenberg) lists the factors that served the important role in the formation of the low voting involvement in the election campaigns of the youth within several last decades. In addition, the analysis ...

The Resource Curse, which is also called the paradox of plenty, refers to the observation that countries that are rich in natural resources, usually non-renewable natural resources like metals, minerals, oil etc. tend to see lower rates of economic growth, problematic experience with authoritarian governments, and generally poor development indicators when compared with countries that have lesser or none of the natural resource (Venables, 2016). This resource curse is not a rule or law, but rather a struggle to explain why resource rich countries (the most common under analysis being oil-rich ones) that possess all the financial and economic ...