Is Democracy the Least Bad Political System?

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel A. Bell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political System ◽  
The United States ◽  
System P ◽  
Electoral Democracy ◽  
Political Meritocracy ◽  
Democratic Elections ◽  
Tyranny Of The Majority

This chapter examines whether democratic elections lead to good consequences, and more specifically whether democracy is the least bad political system. It considers four key flaws of electoral democracy: the tyranny of the majority, the tyranny of the minority, the tyranny of the voting community, and the tyranny of competitive individualists. Using examples primarily from the United States, the chapter challenges the idea that one person, one vote is the least bad way of choosing leaders to enact good policies, rather than provide a comprehensive defense of political meritocracy as an alternative to electoral democracy. It suggests that there may be morally desirable and political feasible alternatives to electoral democracy that help to remedy its major disadvantages. It also discusses examples of actually existing political meritocratic arrangements in China and/or Singapore that may minimize the flaws of electoral democracies.

Introduction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel A. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Political Reform ◽  
China Model ◽  
Pros And Cons ◽  
Political Meritocracy ◽  
Democratic Elections ◽  
Mao Era ◽  
Tyranny Of The Majority

This book argues in favor of political meritocracy using China's one-party political system as example. It considers four key flaws of democracy, along with theoretical and real meritocratic alternatives for each: “the tyranny of the majority,” “the tyranny of the minority,” “the tyranny of the voting community,” and “the tyranny of competitive individualists.” The book also discusses three key problems associated with any attempt to implement political meritocracy and asks whether it is possible to address these problems without democratic elections: the problem of corruption, the problem of ossification, and the problem of legitimacy. Finally, it explores the pros and cons of different models of “democratic meritocracy” as well as three basic planks of the China model and how political reform in the post-Mao era has been guided by the principles of “democracy at the bottom, experimentation in the middle, and meritocracy at the top”.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 180-186
Author(s):  
John M. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
Political Skill ◽  
The United States ◽  
System P ◽  
The Us

The conclusion considers the argument that, due in large part to the nature of the US political system, TR’s foreign policy was unsuccessful. It acknowledges the numerous challenges Roosevelt faced. However it maintains that, rather than failing, he achieved most of his objectives and, in doing so, served as an example of how to conduct an effective foreign policy. The chapter highlights TR’s vision for the United States, his political skill, faith in the US system and its people, and the emphasis he placed on political leadership. The conclusion contends that a good way of encapsulating Roosevelt’s success is that he understood and took advantage of the ways in which the international and domestic aspects of foreign policy overlap in the US system.

Bipartisanship as Possible Alternative of Russian Political System Evolution

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 256-265
Author(s):  
Konstantin V. Simonov ◽  
Stanislav P. Mitrakhovich
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
The United States ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Complex Structures ◽  
Practical Advice ◽  
Simultaneous Separation

The article examines the possibility of transfer to bipartisan system in Russia. The authors assess the benefits of the two-party system that include first of all the ensuring of actual political competition and authority alternativeness with simultaneous separation of minute non-system forces that may contribute to the country destabilization. The authors analyze the accompanying risks and show that the concept of the two-party system as the catalyst of elite schism is mostly exaggerated. The authors pay separate attention to the experience of bipartisan system implementation in other countries, including the United States. They offer detailed analysis of the generated concept of the bipartisanship crisis and show that this point of view doesn’t quite agree with the current political practice. The authors also examine the foreign experience of the single-party system. They show that the success of the said system is mostly insubstantial, besides many of such systems have altered into more complex structures, while commentators very often use not the actual information but the established myths about this or that country. The authors also offer practical advice regarding the potential technologies of transition to the bipartisan system in Russia.

scholarly journals The Impact of the End of the Cold War on Canadian and American TV News Coverage of Cuba: Image Consistency or Image Change?

1998 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter C. Soderlund ◽  
Ronald H. Wagenberg ◽  
Stuart H. Surlin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Political System ◽  
Television News ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Television ◽  
Tv News ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

Abstract: The profound changes experienced by the international political system from 1988 to 1992, subsumed under the rubric ``the fall of Communism,'' suggest an opportunity for changes in the way North American television news would report on events in Cuba. This article examines major network news coverage of Cuba in Canada (CBC and CTV) and in the United States (ABC, CBS, and NBC) from 1988 through 1992. Given the different histories of Canadian-Cuban and U.S.-Cuban relations since the revolution, the extent of similar negative coverage of the island in both countries' reporting is somewhat surprising. Also, it is apparent that the end of the Cold War did not change, in any fundamental way, the frames employed by television news in its coverage of Cuba. Résumé: Les changements profonds dans le système politique international qui ont eu lieu de 1988 à 1992, et qu'on décrit généralement comme marquant la "chute du communisme", indiqueraient la possibilité d'un changement dans la façon que les chaînes nord-américaines auraient de rapporter les événements dans leurs programmes d'information sur le Cuba. Cet article examinera les programmes d'information des chaînes canadiennes les plus importantes (CBC et CTV) et de celles des États-Unis (ABC, CBS et NBC) de 1988 jusqu'à 1992. Étant donné l'évolution différente dans les relations Canada / Cuba et États-Unis / Cuba depuis la révolution cubaine de 1959, nous avons été frappés par le degré de ressemblance entre les reportages négatifs sur le Cuba faits par les chaînes des deux pays nord-américains. En plus, il est évident que la fin de la guerre froide n'a pas changé de manière fondamentale le point de vue des reportages télévisés sur les événements cubains.

The Paradox of Partisanship in the United States

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Campbell ◽  
Ove K. Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political System ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Private Funding ◽  
Research Organizations ◽  
Political Divide

This chapter discusses how the United States experienced a crisis of partisanship that was marked by a continuing escalation in ideological rancor, polarization, and divisiveness in Washington. This entailed the proliferation of a more competitive and often contentious set of private policy research organizations thanks to numerous sources of tax deductible private funding from corporations and wealthy individuals, and a fragmented and porous political system. Paradoxically, as the crisis of partisanship reached an unprecedented level in the late 1990s and early 2000s, cooperation among some of these organizations broke out across the political divide due to the efforts of those who sensed the disastrous consequences of such mean-spirited partisanship for the country and for the credibility of their research organizations.

The Impeccable System

Money ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kenneth Galbraith ◽  
James K. Galbraith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Reserve ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central Banks ◽  
Bank Failures ◽  
Federal Reserve System ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
System P ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Reserve System

This chapter examines the impact of the Federal Reserve System on money and banking in the United States. The Federal Reserve System was created in 1913 by virtue of the Federal Reserve Act passed by Congress and signed by President Woodrow Wilson. The Federal Reserve Act (1913) provided not for one but for as many as twelve central banks. It was conceived as an answer to the great panics, but in this respect the System was notably defective. Nor was the System better as an antidote for an alarming epidemic of bank failures. Furthermore, the most severe inflation ever in peacetime occurred under its watch. The chapter considers the successes and failures of the Federal Reserve System and looks at another body established to study the management of money in the United States: the National Monetary Commission.

Franco Spain at the Origins of the European Agricultural Community

2021 ◽  
pp. 52-100
Author(s):  
Fernando Guirao
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Food Consumption ◽  
Political System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Agricultural Trade ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Franco Regime ◽  
Agricultural Community ◽  
Trade Bloc ◽  
West European

Chapter 2 shows that Madrid faced serious risks when integration threatened agriculture. A West-European agricultural trade bloc threatened Spain’s economy and political system. Fortunately for Franco Spain, the governments promoting agricultural integration soon deserted supranational features and moved into trade talks to offer other west European countries the surpluses they had generated after 1947. Spain concluded a purchasing contract for wheat with France. This and the prospects of wheat from the International Wheat Agreement and the United States, allowed Madrid to avoid bread rationing after the spring of 1952. By the end of the Green Pool episode, Spain had been granted de facto OEEC treatment in agricultural trade. Thus, the proposed European Agricultural Community provided the Franco regime with the opportunity to improve food consumption and overcome a critical threat to its survival.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 330-334
Author(s):  
Rush Doshi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Competitive Position ◽  
The Us

This concluding chapter discusses China strategy amid present debates over whether America is in decline. It argues that decline is not a product of immutable historical forces, but a choice, and that fatalism about the US competitive position relative to China is premature. It explains that the United States has faced four waves of “declinism” in the last century and has rallied after each of them, with “declinists” playing a role in preventing that which they predicted. This time, the downward path runs through the country’s polarized political system, and the path away from decline may run through a rare area susceptible to bipartisan consensus: the need for the United States to rise to the China challenge. The chapter argues that the arrival of an external competitor has often pushed the United States to become its best self and that, handled judiciously, it can once again.

Choosing among Implausible Leaders

2021 ◽  
pp. 24-54
Author(s):  
Peter Drahos
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
The United States ◽  
Driving Mechanism ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
System P ◽  
Energy Union ◽  
Fossil Fuel Industry ◽  
Fuel Industry

China is an implausible leader for the globalization of a bio-digital energy paradigm, but the United States and European Union are even less plausible candidates. The chapter shows how the fracking revolution has turned the United States into an energy-secure fossil fuel superpower. No US president can close down the fossil fuel industry. The New Green Deal is unlikely to have much impact on US politics and is only of modest interest to Wall Street. The European Union’s Energy Union initiative is important. But the European Union’s leadership of the bio-digital energy paradigm is hampered by the different energy and industrial interests of its members. Despite China’s corruption problems, it is the least implausible leader of an energy revolution. China’s improved standard-setting capacities are outlined. The chapter concludes by discussing China’s pressure-driving mechanism, a distinctive tool of governance that allows China to overcome problems of fragmentation in its system.

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