Democracy and Participation

Question 1

Explain direct democracy

Answer 1

All citizens express their opinions themselves + not through a representative e.g referendums

Question 2

Explain representative democracy

Answer 2

People select representatives to act on their behalf + exercise their political choice - more modern

Question 3

What are the advantages and disadvantages of direct democracy?

Answer 3

Advantages:
* Increases political participation
* Less chance for comprimise with voting - can choose with each issue
* Decisions tend to be agreed with by the majority of the public

Disadvantages:
* Less impact per vote
* Takes time for political change
* Meida has a large impact - can advertise false information

Question 4

What are the advantages and disadvantages of representative democracy?

Answer 4

Advantages:
* Ease of use - people choose experts to make informed decisions on matters
* More flexible in making ammendments in what politicans promised

Disadvantages:
* Have to make comprimises with what representative to choose as not all with have an individual’s stance on the same issues
* Representatives may not follow through on their promised policies during campaigns
* Decrease in political participation

Question 5

Explain pluralist democracy

Answer 5

Positive version of representative democracy - power is spread throughout different groups - shown by the existance of politial parties + pressure groups

Question 6

Explain the two types representatives

Answer 6

1. Delegate model: representatives is given direct instructions by the people
2. Trustee model: representative is chosen for their ability to make decisions - Burkean model

Question 7

What are the key rules for referendums?

Answer 7

1. Referendums tend to focus on large constitutional changes
2. There’s always two clear sides to the referendum
3. The government must be for the change proposition

Question 8

Reasons For Referendums

Answer 8

1. An exercise in direct democracy; they engage the national public in political debates and decision-making
2. Politicians being aware that the public will have a direct say in the decision made means that they come up with proposals which are politically sustainable
3. Ensure there’s a broad base of political support for a controversial decision + ‘lock in’ a decision and allow for any unpopular consequences to be forced; binds a present or future government to the policy
4. People are more likely to support the use of referendums if they expect a majority to share in their position; referendums can be seen as essential to achieving a desired policy
5. Settle highly controversial issues
6. Objectively decide on issues in a way general elections don’t; in general elections voters make broad political choices of what the parties + their leaders will do on many issues rather than specific issues
7. Referendums raise the issue as an open + public debate allowing voters to become educated on the issue through public meetings, the media etc
8. Referendums are a check on the government + ensure that key changes only occur with public support; the public is much less trusting of the government
9. Increases support for the political system

Question 9

Reasons Aganist Referendums

Answer 9

1. Gives room to both sides to portray one idea as the status quo and the proposed change as a false one + they seduce voters with false promises that aren’t always true
2. Engage voters who have little information about the issue, making them much more susceptible to false information
3. Referendums can be savagely divisive, especially when the possibility of narrow victories can force campaigners to use every argument at their disposal
4. Politicians who have the power to call for referendums tend to only do so if they’re in the majority, may suffer from the ‘false consensus effect’ where they believe they have more support than they do + lose the referendum due to their false projections
5. When referendums are called + supported under wrong assumptions about the majority position, the results often aren’t accepted as legitimate + so don’t resolve political conflicts
6. A referendum cannot replace participatory, informed and deliberative decision-making but is instead a ‘procedural shortcut’ that misses the goal of a democratically legitimate + broadly accepted decision
7. Referendums are too simplistic; people vote once on issues with no responsibility to engage in political debate - in parliament, new laws are voted on multiple times in both houses + there are extensive debates and revisions
8. Referendums undermine Parliamentary democracy + sovereignty ( in which Parliament alone decides the law)
9. Referendums also delay decisions which politicians should be making
10. Referendums often oversimplify complex considerations + campaigns often have simple questions whose wording can also highly impact the outcome of the vote
11. There are often unequal resources between the opposing campaigns in a referendum so that the electorate becomes submerged in one side of the argument; the media also has an impact
12. Referendums are often a display of a majoritarian form of voting + minorities can lose out as a result, if the turnout is low then it’s not reflective of public views; if referendums are done much more frequently, on not just constitutional issues, then turnout often drops as it has been in Switzerland
13. If referendums become much more frequent then there is a threat of paralysis of government
14. The implication of the result isn’t always clear; referendums after a government has just won a large majority display a large vote of confidence in the government + if the government is unpopular they can be used to punish the government

Question 10

Explain the Representation of the People’s Act

Answer 10

• Gave the vote to all working-class men
• Mainly due to the argument that many of the armed forces weren’t property owners + couldn’t then vote in the country they were sacrifing their life for
• Women 30 or over who owned property or husbands owned property were also given the right to vote

Question 11

Who were the suffragists and what did their work involve?

Answer 11

• Suffragists = they wanted to achieve rights for women through the constitution - help public meetings + petitioned their MPs
• They formed the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) - a collection of regional women right groups with no political party allegiances
• Led by Milicent Fawcett

Question 12

Who were the suffragettes and what did their work involve?

Answer 12

• Suffragettes = they wanted to achieve women’s rights and votes through protests and violence
• They formed the WPSU, and membership was only granted to women, they felt that peaceful tactics seemed to be exhausted + a more radical apporach was needed
• Led by Emmeline Pankurst

Question 13

Were the suffragettes terrorists?

Answer 13

• Argubly the suffragettes were terrorists as they unlawfully used violence aganist citizens to get women the vote
• However, the social order at the time was very different + all major social chance requries some militancy + the women also had no other real way to advocate
• The suffragettes wouldn’t be viewed as modern-day terrorists, as there is a distinction between modern-day terrorism + lawlessness

Question 14

How did the government react to the suffragettes?

Answer 14

• The government generally disregarded the suffragettes pleas + ensured that they took a hard line on the violence by arresting them + placing them in horrifc conditions whilst in prison
• 1913 ‘Cat and Mouse Act’ -
• many women would go on hunger strike in prison, and the government decided they would be force fed so that the didn’t become martyrs
• The act meant that women who became ill due to their hunger stikes would be temporarily released, until they began to eat + got better, before being re-arrested and sent to prison
• The suffragettes stopped their work during the war in exhnage for the government releasing all WPSU prisoners who had been arrested for protesting
• WW1 led to a change in the perception of gender roles and eventually helped to led to the Representation of the People’s Act - giving some women the vote

Question 15

What arguments are the arguments for a reduced voting age?

Answer 15

• Earlier acess to voting increases voter particpation throughout people’s lives
• 16-year-olds already have personal autonomy - they can consent to sexual relationships, join the military etc
• Some 16-year-olds may also pay taxes which leads to the problem of ‘taxation without representation’
• If 16-year-olds had the vote there would be an increase in political education
• Politicans would be forced to focus on youth issues; such as bullying and mental health issues
• 15 year-olds can be Party members such as the Conservative Party; so they can help pick the Prime Minister but not vote
• There is no maximum voting age; by having a minimum voting age democracy has become structuraly unbalanced

Question 16

What argumens are there aganist a reduced voting age?

Answer 16

• Adulthood is reached at 18
• Young people may be overly influenced or manipulated by other; parents or social media
• People don’t support lowering it; YouGov poll of 3017 51% opposed and 26% supported it
• Lack of life experience + maturity to make informed and responisbiresponsible voting decisions
• Inconsistend Age thresholds; to drink, smoke, gamble, be on a jury you need to be 18
• In the long-term the same trend of low voter participation may just be extended to 16+17 year-olds

Question 17

What is a pressure group?

Answer 17

• Groups that try to influence public policy to achieve a particular cause or goal

Question 18

What are the types of pressure groups?

Answer 18

1. Sectional groups (interest) - protect + promote the interests of their groups - BMA, NEU
2. Cause groups (promotional) - a policy area that they seek to change - RSPCA, Greenpeace
3. Social movements - loosely organised groups focused on one cause - MeToo, BLM, Pride
4. Insider groups - work closely with government + have access - National Farmer’s Union, Ash
5. Outsider groups - have no access to government + work outside it - NEU, Just Stop Oil, CND

Groups can change with what party is in power + for different issues

Question 19

What methods may pressure groups make?

Answer 19

1. Protests
2. Petitions
3. Lobbying
4. Boycotts
5. Investigative reports
6. Strikes
7. Open letters
8. Attend committees
9. Media campaings
10. Judicial review

Question 20

What factors affect a pressure groups success?

Answer 20

• Membership
• Media savvy
• Aims
• Government alignment
• Funding
• Public support
• Good organisation

Question 21

Explain the three problems with pressure groups

Answer 21

1. Particiaptory failure
   * doesn’t actively engage citizens, runs without active members, has supporters instead
   * only really allows for short-term involvment over long-term engagement
2. Reinforcement of social bias
   * favours membership of privilege people and involvemnt in pressure groups despite socially execluded groups becoming the focus of government policy
   * more collectivistic forms of participation decline in favour of more individualist forms
3. Underming effective governments
   * outsider groups are more likely to force government to take a populist side
   * they undermine the public’s support in government + more difficult for them to implement policy
   * parties are failing to to deliver the political functions of cohering interests
   * they obtain benefits for the people + transfer the costs to the rest of the society

Question 22

Explain three ways presure groups promote democracy

Answer 22

1. Supplementing electoral democracy:
   * allows for minority voices to be heard and thought of in policy
   * makes policy minimise harm + maximise legitmacy
   * offers alternative viewpoints
2. Widening participation:
   * allows new + previously execluded groups a voice - making it no longer so crucial to not be an insider in Westminister
3. Flexibility:
   * its flexibility allows for increased participation as new causes emerge + reaches people who were previously politically disengaged
4. Widening power:
   * there’s no ‘power elite’ as one group becomes powerful, other groups challenge it

Question 23

Explain three ways pressure groups don’t promote democracy

Answer 23

1. Holding unaccountable power:
   * pressure participants exert their influence ‘behind closed doors’
   * groups aren’t held to political account so their influene isn’t democractically legitmate
   * leaders of the groups are rarely elected
   * some methods, strikes + violence essentially ‘holds the country to ransom’
2. Concentrating power:
   * strengthen political inequlaity by strengthing the wealthy (have financial, educational + organisational resources) = success of the group
   * wealthy can gain power through the revolving door e.g donations, lobbying
   * sectional groups interests don’t usually reflect the wider publics interests
   * politicans often only listen to groups which they support + impose costs on those which oppose them
3. Narrowing participation:
   * empowers the already powerful rather than dispersing it among ordinary citizens
   * pluralism argues political inequality is mostly demoratic - largest groups = have most members but mostly have more money + links to the government
   * groups are execluded because they cannot be organised so have to rely on others who may not accurately understand such experiences e.g children + asylum seekers
   * members have superfical political engagement

Question 24

What are human rights?

Answer 24

• Human rights are universal as they belong to all humans everywhere regardless of nationality, ethnic or racial origin + social background
• Fundemental in that they’re inalienable; a human being’s entitlement to them cannot be removed
• Absolute as they’re the basic grounds for living a genuinely human life; they must be fully upheald in all circumstances

Question 25

What are civil liberties?

Answer 25

• May include many human rights, they’rethe rights + freeedoms that are recognised in a particular state
• Clearly set out the boundaries to the power of the state are guaranteed

Question 26

What is the link between rights and democracy?

Answer 26

• Link between rights and democracy is founded on the belief that political participation is meaningful when carried out by free individuals

Question 27

What are the ways in which rights are protected in the UK?

Answer 27

1. Universal Decleration of Human Rights (1948) + European Convention on Human Rights (1950)
   * UK lacked any equivelant legislation domestically; in the 1970s the ECHR began to show up in the UK’s civil liberties
2. Human Rights Act
   * Key symbol + protection of civil liberties in the UK

Question 28

What are the three aims of the Human Rights Act?

Answer 28

1. Bringing Rights Back Home
   * made rights more readily available by ensuring British citizens could bring cases to British courts
   * still possible to challenge an Act of Parliament + the courts can issue a declaration of incompatibility with rights in the convention
2. Creating a Culture of Respect for Human Rights
   * placed a legal duty on organisations to protect rights in the act (e.g NHS, schools, police)
   * Mersey Care NHS Trust worked with Barnado’s + the British Institue of Human Rights to develop a ‘rights-based’ approach to develop their services
   * They developed safe spaces for relatives to visit children in secure mental health settings that complies with Article 8 (right to respect for private + family life)
3. Increasing Public Awareness of Human Rights
   * by placing civil liberties in one document it make people more aware of their rights + they can challenge when their rights are violated

Question 29

Explain the Freedom of Information Act

Answer 29

• Allows the public to access information held ny public authorities about them
• Aimed to create more open goverenment where decisions taken by public authorities are impacting people’s lives + decisions that affect spending taxpayers money
• Between 2005 and 2015 there were over 40,000 requests under the act + the gov rejected 90,000 requests that weren’t in public interest
• e.g in 2019 Liberty published a report Policing By Machine which claimed that at least 14 police forces in the UK had used or intended to use discriminatory computer programs to model where + by what groups crime would be committed by

Question 30

Explain the Equality Act

Answer 30

• Brought together 116 sepearte legislation on discrimination together to both make the law clearer + easier to understand + strengthen protection in certain areas
• Nine protected characteristics - age, disability, marriage + civil partnership, race, sex, sexual orientation, religion or belief, gender reassignment, pregnancy + maternity
• Lays out what an individual can do if they’re unlawfully discriminated aganist in the workplace + makes oublic bodies elimnate discrimination + advance equality

Question 31

How can human rights limit power?

Answer 31

• UK Parliament has the power to ‘derogate’ from certain articles in the ECHR when passing laws during state of emergency or at a time of war
• In the Labour Goverenment of Blair derograted from Article 5 (the right to liberty + security) in passing of the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001
• gave them the power to detain suspected international terrorists
• Expections to this rule - the UK Parliament cannot derogate from articles 2,3,4+7
• right to life, prohibition of torture, prohibition of slavery + forced labour, no punishment without trial
• e.g Coronovirus Act 2020 massively increased state power + emergency regregulations that allowed the police to prevent people from leaving their homes in order to protect public health - violation of article5 (right to liberty + security

Question 32

What Clash of Rights often occur?

Answer 32

• There is often a clash between individual rights and the collective rights of the state; which often pits the goverenment, backed by the will of those who eledcted aganist individual rights leaving these matters to be resolved by the courts
• This often leaves the courts into direct conflict with the goverenment + can put the safety of the country at risk + undermine the trust of the public in the legal system

Question 33

Explain how sentencing laws leads to a clash of rights

Answer 33

1. Sentencing laws; in Vinter and Others v the UK a case involving convicted matters the ECHR ruled that a life sentence (compatible with A3) had the possibility of release
   * Former Justice Secretary Grayling said this case led him to propose a new British Bill of Rights to allow UK courts + parliament to have the final say on such matters

Question 34

Explain how the treatment of prisoners leads to a clash of rights

Answer 34

• In Hirst v UK (2005) the ECtHR ruled that a balnket ban on prisoner voting violated A3 in a case David Cameron described as making him feel physically ill

Question 35

Explain how terrorism often leads to a clash of rights

Answer 35

• Has become much more controversial due to the increased terrorist threat since 9/11
• A and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department (2004) (aka Belmarsh case) saw the Law Lords rule that Labour policy of indefinate detention of foreign terror suspects without charge broke the Human Rights Act
• The court ruled that laws like this were a ‘real threat to the life of the nation’
• Charles Clarke the Home Sec didn’t release the suspects until the next uear, once he had passed legislation that allowed him to place the suspects under control orders
• Control orders allowed him to impose strict restricitions on suspects such as electronic tags + limits on who they can meet

Question 36

Explain how the right to privacy + family life v the need to protect others leads to a clash of rights

Answer 36

• In S and Marper v United Kingdom (2008), the ECtHR ruled that the blanket retention of DNA profiles taken from innocent people posed a disproportionate interference with the right to private life violating A8 of the ECtHR
• Home Sec Jacqui Smith (Labour) was disappoited in the ruiling arguing the keeping the DNA was vital to fighting crime

Question 37

What are Articles 2-14 in the ECtHR?

Answer 37

• Article 2: right to life
• Article 3: prohibition of torture
• Article 4: prohibition of slavery + forced labour
• Article 5: right to liberty + security
• Article 6: right to a fair trial
• Article 7: no punishment without law
• Article 8: right to respect for private + family life
• Article 9: freedom of thought, conscience + religion
• Article 10: freedom of expression
• Article 11: freedom of assembly + association
• Article 12: right to marry
• Article 14: prohibition of discrimination