“In what senses can the UK be described as a democracy?” In general, a democracy is a variety of different political systems that are organised on the basis that government should serve the interests of the people. In liberal democracies it is also expected that citizens should influence decisions or make decisions themselves. It is also expected that government should be accountable, in various ways to the people. In this essay, I plan to demonstrate in what senses the UK can be described as a democracy. Firstly on of the fundamental features of democracy is that it establishes and protects freedom.
Direct democracy allows the electorate to have more opportunities to take part in the political process, as forms of direct democracy such as referendums, canvassing, protesting, joining pressure groups and boycotting products; allow for the electorate to choose a form of participation rather than only being able to vote after governmental terms are served by parties, therefore direct democracy would moot Jean Jacques Rousseau's opinion that “The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during election of members of parliament”4. As it allows the citizens to be able to participate in many forms and at any time. In support to this, statistics show that forms of direct democracy and non electoral participation are rising among the public. The percentage of citizens that took part in boycotting products for ethical reasons rose to 31% in 2011 from 4% in 1984. The number of people who contacted the media for a
As your freedom of speech can be heavily hampered if you do not operate within the law; or you are voicing racist or offensive opinions, or your speech is threatening to “breach the peace” this is too say, what you are saying could be grossly offensive to some groups or individuals. The United Kingdom is definitely a democracy though (referring back to the definition) as in the UK we have free and fair (and regular) elections, and there are always 2 or more (3 main) parties to vote for. This prevents the UK from moving from a democracy into a dictatorship, as there are always other options to give your vote. The democracy also calls for competitive elections in which every adult is allowed to vote. There are further features of a Liberal Democracy which need to be held by the UK for it too fall into the category; Elected representatives and the government should be held to account by the people, something which is true within the UK as members of parliament are held accountable to the people, if they don’t do what they promise the people will not re-elect them, they are also held to account by legislature.
Along with the rising number of back-bench rebellions and MPs defeating government’s proposals such as the Syria war in 2011, it can be seen that Parliament is performing well in making laws. However, although it has enormous power, Parliament is oftenly not expected to demonstrate that since by convention, government with the majority dominates and Parliament should support it. The whips system-a weekly outline sent to MPs with items underlined by 1,2 or 3 lines depending on how important the MPs attendance is- maintains party discipline and makes sure that rebellions are exceptional. Usually, MPs obey this system, therefore, Parliament in reality has not fulfilled this function. Parliament is believed to
One way these rights could be defined is through a bill of rights that specifies the rights and freedoms of the individual and also defines the legal extent the civil liberty. However, codified constitutions are sometimes to rigid as higher law is harder to change than statute law. It is easier and quicker to introduce an Act of Parliament then to amend a constitution as the Constitution is so entrenched. Therefore, it is difficult to keep a constitution up-to-date, this is very bad, especially in our modern ‘ever-changing environment. Furthermore, if we adopt a codified constitution then one of the key principles in the UK’s representative democracy would be completely undermined, Parliamentary Sovereignty would effectively be abolished as a codified constitution would mean the establishment of an authority higher than
Outline Although the founding of the Constitution was a revolutionary, positive turning-point in American history, the US Constitution has a few unconstitutional and democratic shortcomings. Introduction In order to understand the shortcomings of democracy of the US Constitution, is it is important to know the background of its’ founding and how each article serves our country. Federalist No. 10, written by James Madison, asserts the importance of having the image of a democracy without its real substance. There seems to have been a very strong opposition towards democracy at the Constitutional Convention, although the framers were in the midst of creating democratic principles to appeal to the majority of the country.
This is why some argue that the current Westminster electoral system is in desperate need of reform. There are many arguments in favour of reforming the current First Past the Post electoral system to a more proportional system, such as the Single Transferable Vote, the Closed Party List System, and the Additional Member System. This is also known as electoral fairness. Supporters of Proportional Representation argue that a party’s strength should reflect the support it has in the country- which is essential to a democracy. The current First Past the Post system leads to an unfair system of representation.
Firstly, back bench MPs are effective because they are a good way of increasing legitimacy and representation in terms of their constituency as they have been voted in by their electorate and therefore should represent the views of those in their constituency. They also hold ‘surgery’s’ where people from their constituency ask the MP questions. This gives the MP an idea of what the people in his constituency are concerned about, meaning they can try and bring up these issues in Parliament, making them effective. However, not all MPs are effective because they do not necessarily represent the views of the people in their constituency who didn’t vote for them. They also are ineffective at representing their constitution because out of 650 MPs, only 147 of them are female, and even fewer are ethnic minorities which means they are not effectively representing the population.
This system tends to favour and give more opportunities to smaller parties such as the Liberal Democrats, who currently feel that the first past the post system is unfair towards them and numerous other parties. The system also tends to result in a coalition government being formed, which in some respects can be seen as a good thing, as proportional amounts of power are spread evenly between parties according to the amount of votes received. Northern Ireland, Germany, Australia and France all use different proportional systems at this current time however it is also a key issue in the UK at the moment, as we can see from the recent AV referendum which was held this year. Subsequently it was the decision of the Liberal Democrats to hold the election. Proportional systems are already currently being used in some parts of the UK, and is quite successful where it is in place.
They also have a number of hereditary peers (although there will no longer be any hereditary peers appointed. There have been many calls to make the House of Lords into an elected chamber as people say that the fact that it is unelected reduces the democracy of the United Kingdom and that it is unfair to have an unelected as the peers may not actually represent the views of the people. However, there are also many arguments as to why the House of Lords should remain unelected. The first and possibly most convincing argument is the fact that an elected second chamber would actually be completely pointless as it would be exactly the same and the House of Commons. This means that instead of making the House of Lords elected, it would probably be more practical just to get rid of it all together and just have the House of Commons.