The Values Of Democracy In Zakaria's The Future Of Freedom

Colonial America’s democracy was a work in progress with democratic and undemocratic features. With features like Individual and Human Rights, Equality, and Limited Government, colonial America was continuously finding new ways to govern a new society. While, some of their strategies were undemocratic and cruel, they realized and fixed it with democratic solutions. Their efforts were enormous, and created the free land of colonial America.

Most Americans view the Constitution as a sacred document that created the world’s greatest democracy but, in actuality, the American Constitution has many highly undemocratic aspects that prove this judgement to be mistaken. This is brought to light in Dahl’s analysis of the American Constitution.

"How Democratic is the American Constitution ?", by political scientist Robert A. Dahl is a short book that questions the ethical and political issues in America 's Constitution and the structure of the United States government. The book consists of a series of abstract lectures composed by Dahl that reflects on how the American Constitution affects modern society. While this short book brings out plentiful knowledge on the American system , it does not go any deeper into those general ideas for it is only about 200 pages. However, it is still a knowledgeable book to introduce the fundamentals of American government and political science and why American citizens should uphold the Constitution. Dahl introduces the book of how the Founding

Democracy has many shortcomings that restrict and prevent choice in individuals. Democracy is easily manipulated by governmental agencies, and democracy is no different from previous systems regarding popular repression. Patrick Henry and Dalton Trumbo successfully juxtapose the ideal image of democracy against its actual image through illustrative symbols. Both recognize that forces outside of the general public have shifted the democratic process to only support a plutocratic agenda. Unlike mainstream sources, Henry and Trumbo do not whitewash Western Democracy, instead, both focus on it’s negative aspects, and propose solutions for our ignorant, decadent society.

Within all democracies, a government’s power and sovereignty lie with its citizens. Undoubtedly, there lies an importance with the virtue and character of the citizenry, as they are inherently responsible for dictating the direction of a government’s policy and laws. Over the course of American history, many politicians and scholars have come to similar conclusions regarding the importance of moral citizens. However, statesmen have shared varying levels of concern for government’s role in developing such citizens. Some of the first groups to debate this were the Antifederalists and Federalists.

Introduction In the chapter 8 named In Tocqueville’s Footsteps of The Good Citizen, Russell Dalton (2008) strengthens his argument about changing citizenship norms in the United States by comparing with other advanced democratic nations. Dalton (2008, 139) emphasizes how crucial cross-national comparisons are in a national political analysis by quoting the well-known saying of Seymour Martin Lipset, an expert in contemporary chronicler of American society and politics, as “those who know only one country, know no country”. By comparing nineteen advanced industrial democracies with the America, Dalton (2008, 142) determines that there are many similarities as well as differences of norms changes in the United States and in those democratic

Problems in America only grew worse when democracy was being added to the mixture of already complicated politics. In Woody Holton’s book, Unruly American and the Origins of the Constitution, he stated that, “many Americans. . . were growing ‘tired of an excess of democracy,’ a ‘prevailing rage of excessive democracy. . .’ [or] ‘democratical tyranny.’” Democracy was an attempt at home rule among the colonies, but not everyone was happy with this extreme excess of colonial citizens contribution to the government.

In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville provides an analysis and critique of American civic life. During his travels across the country, he discovered how different America was from Europe, particularly France. While the majority of Europe consisted of aristocratic countries with hundreds of years of history, America was a young democratic country. Most notably, he observed that America was growing in equality. The growing equality becomes a presupposition of individualism and isolation, but despite this inevitable growth of equality, individualism and isolation can be minimized.

“Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.” To answer his question democracy is not the last improvement possible as we have witnessed over the years, also we do need to realize why those who are in a power/ higher authority that us get the final decision and we also need to realize that we give them this power to oppress and undermine us so that they are the all

citizens to remodel the laws and correct the issues neglected by the U.S. government. This theme can act as a lesson for U.S. citizens in that action is needed from them, for a controversial change to occur. However, considering more recent events, it might have become clear that citizens of the U.S. have not quite learned from the embarrassments of their country’s past; as it seems that there are some improvements that within the U.S. government. The improvements needed for a better U.S. democracy include a way to individualize and localize the voting system, as well as clean up political campaigns and try to destroy corruption within the U.S. government

Democracy is a form of government offering a workable solution to the fundamental political problem of reaching collective decisions by peaceful means. Democracy can also be about political equality and giving everyone an equal voice in saying how a state should be governed The procedures required to deliver democratic political equality are , free and fair elections, universal suffrage, freedom of expression and information and freedom of association . There are many types of democracies but in my essay I will explain only two types of democracies which are direct democracy and liberal democracy Direct democracy is a form of democracy where citizens are given an extraordinary amount of participation in the legislation process and granting them a maximum political self determination. It can also be called “pure democracy”.

In the United States, people always talk about freedom and equality. Especially they want elections could be more democratic. In American Democracy in Peril, Hudson’s main argument regarding chapter five “Election Without the People’s Voice,” is if elections want to be democratic, they must meet three essential criteria, which are to provide equal representation of all citizens, to be mechanisms for deliberation about public policy issues, and to control what government does. Unfortunately, those points that Hudson mentions are what American elections do not have. American elections do not provide equal representation to everyone in the country.

“Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy,” said Benito Mussolini. By the time one enters the third grade they become aware of concept of democracy. Specifically in America, one is taught that they live in a democratic society. When asking what is democracy, the answer is never truly defiente. The answers given may be; a society where everyone votes, or by dictionary definition “a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of the state; typically through elected representation.”

Democracy has been in a dominant position in the world since its rise during the turn of the 20th century (Fukuyama, 2006). Its expansion through coercion, which is military intervention in this case, has meant that democracy continues to expand across the globe. With the decline of communism, the West was able to expand democracy into several areas, openly and secretly, to encourage favorable governments. This expansion has been criticized with regards to its legitimacy and feasibility in developing strong, sustainable governance and benefits to citizens of “intervened states.” Germany and Japan post World War II are cited as successes on the impact of military intervention in promoting democracy in terms of economic benefits, freedoms and

First of all, it is important to know the definition of democracy and its aspects. According to Peter Joyce (2005), the democratic government was initiated in the Greek city state of Athens in the fifth century B.C., so as a consequence, the word ‘democracy’ derived from two Greek words, demos (meaning ‘people’) and kratos (meaning ‘power’) , which means ‘government by the people’. Secondly, Giovanni Sartori (1997), a Political Science Researcher states that ‘democracy’ is an abbreviation that means Liberal Democracy. He distinguishes three aspects: democracy as a principle of legitimacy (power not derives