PDF Democracy and Global Social Issues: A Must Read Book for All Voters

Free download. Book file PDF easily for everyone and every device. You can download and read online Democracy and Global Social Issues: A Must Read Book for All Voters file PDF Book only if you are registered here. And also you can download or read online all Book PDF file that related with Democracy and Global Social Issues: A Must Read Book for All Voters book. Happy reading Democracy and Global Social Issues: A Must Read Book for All Voters Bookeveryone. Download file Free Book PDF Democracy and Global Social Issues: A Must Read Book for All Voters at Complete PDF Library. This Book have some digital formats such us :paperbook, ebook, kindle, epub, fb2 and another formats. Here is The CompletePDF Book Library. It's free to register here to get Book file PDF Democracy and Global Social Issues: A Must Read Book for All Voters Pocket Guide.
One of the biggest problems with modern democracy is that most of the public Best Books of , featuring our favorite reads in more than a dozen categories. But as Ilya Somin demonstrates in this mind-opening book, voter ignorance has .. But Somin argues that, rational or not, all of this pervasive ignorance about.
Table of contents

Historically, at least, the left benefits most when class identities are strong and dissatisfaction with market outcomes is high. So when political competition centers on social issues, it becomes harder for social-democratic parties to build and maintain broad, cohesive electoral coalitions. Voters from less privileged socioeconomic backgrounds, such as workers and those with low levels of education, have always been conservative on social and cultural issues; they also, however, have left-wing economic preferences.

Not Everyone Can Vote in Indian Elections

As long as right-wing populists advocated conservative economic policies and flirted openly with fascism, which was universally rejected by European voters , voters with left-wing economic preferences would face tradeoffs voting for them. But once right-wing populists shifted course, voters with conservative social views and left-wing economic preferences no longer had to choose between them when deciding how to vote. When it comes to economic views, however, right-wing populist voters are divided—for example, between workers and small-business owners—and so it is in the interest of populist parties to keep social rather than economic issues at the top of the political agenda.

To gain legitimacy, many East European leftist parties modeled themselves after their West European counterparts—and by the late twentieth century, this meant adopting neoliberal policies and portraying themselves as parties of technocrats and pragmatists. As in the West, the acceptance of neoliberal policies by much of the left in Eastern Europe initially made sense. It enabled these parties to distance themselves from the communist past and to signal that they embraced the Western economic consensus and were committed to joining the EU. Over the longer term, however, this strategy contained the seeds of its own destruction.

The transition out of communism in Eastern Europe created winners and losers. These trends have been particularly evident in Hungary and Poland. After the former Hungarian communist party rapidly rebranded itself as a social-democratic party the MSzP , adopting a pro-European stance and accepting the neoliberal policies advocated by the IMF and the EU.

Discontent with the fallout from these policies cost the MSzP much of its popularity, and in elections it lost its status as the largest parliamentary party. Out of government, the MSzP reoriented itself once more, promising that if it returned to power it would increase social spending. When a governing coalition with the MSzP as its major partner was formed following the next elections in , the party began borrowing to fund the promised expenditures.

It made an even stronger showing in , this time with promises to keep social expenditures high, but by this point the debt incurred as a result of this spending had brought Hungary into conflict with EU stability criteria. The MSzP-led government was thus forced to backtrack and implement austerity measures, including hikes in gas and electricity prices and in taxes.

A new austerity package was announced in June , and support for the party dropped by 12 points between May and August of that year. Meanwhile, support for Fidesz a right-populist party and later for the extreme-right Jobbik party was increasing. The Polish left followed a similar trajectory. After a poor showing in the legislative elections, the party shifted course, promising to increase support for those suffering as a result of economic change.

But with Poland on the threshold of joining the EU, the need to meet the accession criteria forced the new government to enact further neo-liberal reforms, including large tax increases and cuts in social benefits the total planned spending in the state budget was nearly 20 percent lower than in the previous year. These moves caused a rapid drop in support for the new government. Soon after, as in Hungary, corruption scandals erupted, heightening popular disgust with the government.

When additional austerity measures were introduced at the end of , the left was pummeled, and the SLD received only Over the following years, many former SLD supporters turned to the populist right-wing Law and Justice party. In some Central European countries, leftist parties stuck with more protectionist economic policies, regained the support of blue-collar voters, and thereby left less of an opening for the populist right.

Experimental work by Maria Snegovaya further demonstrates that the ability of right-wing populists to present themselves as champions of the welfare state has contributed to their success in Eastern Europe. Without such promises, anti-immigrant appeals were not enough to cause these voters to shift support to the populist right. The decline of the center-left is one of the most consequential trends of recent decades. This social-democratic view was also, of course, the basis of the postwar order upon which successful democracy was finally built in Western Europe after And so once the negative economic and social consequences of neoliberal policies became clear, many voters decided that there was little reason to vote for the left at all.

In Western Europe, established parties on the far right with conservative or libertarian economic profiles transformed themselves into defenders of interventionist states and social safety nets, thereby taking advantage of the backlash against globalization and austerity to expand their appeal. With less to distinguish mainstream parties from one another economically, party leaders as well as voters had greater incentives to focus on other differences. But shifting the main axis of debate to social and cultural issues helps the right rather than the mainstream left.

The growing prominence of social and cultural issues is also key to many of the broader problems now facing democracies in Europe and beyond.

You're reading

These issues touch on questions of morality and identity. By contrast, questions about the distribution of economic resources—the main axis of party competition for much of the postwar era—are more amenable to the compromise and bargaining that lie at the heart of democracy. When such parties began abandoning this role, the resulting vacuum caused problems for liberal democracy. One of the most important roles that parties play in democracy is providing citizens with an institutionalized voice.

What does the future hold for the left and democracy? This explains why the Greens have been able to ally at the state level with the center-right Christian Democratic Union and the liberal Free Democratic Party. As noted above, voters who favor left-wing economic policies are divided on social issues; as long as political competition focuses on such issues, these voters will be split among the old left, the populist right, and in Western Europe the new or Green left.

Why Socrates Hated Democracy

On the other hand, populist-right voters are united in their views on social issues, but divided in their economic views the same is true to a large degree of Green voters. If competition focuses on social issues, these parties remain united, but if it focuses on economic issues, they will face difficult choices.


  1. Related Stories.
  2. The Chroma: A New Age Western.
  3. Pepper and Dragon;
  4. WIND ECHOES : Seagulls are Teardrops with Wings.
  5. Teachers In The River!

To move forward, in short, the traditional left must diminish the salience of social issues and identities and increase the salience of economic issues and class identities in political competition. One place where this seems at least partially to have occurred is Portugal. After the election a Socialist government came to power in Portugal, supported by the Communists and two other small left-wing parties.

Although these parties differed in important ways and had previously been unable to form a coalition, they agreed on one priority: ending the punishing austerity program implemented by the previous center-right government. Over the preceding years the Portuguese economy had shrunk, unemployment and poverty had risen, and young people had been leaving the country in droves. The Socialist government immediately reversed many of the policies that had hit the working and middle classes particularly hard, including cutbacks in wages, pensions, and social-security payments.

If leftist parties are to undergo a political revitalization, they will need once again to offer voters a clear picture of what they stand for. In Portugal, because the Socialists came to power with the help of other leftist parties rather than as part of a grand coalition, they were able to highlight the differences between the left and right on economic issues.

Populism and the Decline of Social Democracy

This reminded voters that democracy offers clear choices and helped maintain economic issues as the main axis of political competition. Success both for the left and for democracy will also require injecting optimism back into politics. If the left can once again offer distinctive and convincing economic policies that promote greater opportunities for all, the appeal of divisive social and cultural messages will diminish.

This will decrease support for populist parties or provide an incentive for such parties to moderate their positions , and politics will become less polarized and less of a zero-sum game. These are the necessary conditions for democracy once again to thrive. Stephanie L.

Dalston Ward et al. Also Nils D. Steiner and Christian W. Manchester: Manchester University Press, A vote must be held on any amendment to the constitution resulting in a mandatory referendum. Citizens can launch a popular initiative to demand a change to the constitution. Any Swiss citizen who is eligible to vote can sign a popular initiative and a group of at least seven citizens the initiative committee can launch their own popular initiative.

Before a vote is held on a popular initiative, the initiative committee must collect , valid signatures in favour of the proposal within a period of 18 months. The Federal Council and Parliament will recommend whether the proposal should be accepted or rejected. For the proposal to be accepted a double majority is needed. If it is accepted, new legislation or an amendment to existing legislation is normally required to implement the new constitutional provision.

Popular initiatives were introduced at federal level in Two hundred popular initiatives have been voted on since then, but only 22 have been accepted. In , a popular initiative to give everyone in the country a basic income made it to the referendum stage, but was rejected by A popular initiative proposing six weeks of holiday a year for workers was also rejected at the polls. Less than While parliament passes new legislation and amendments to existing legislation, citizens can call for a referendum on new laws and against certain international treaties.

This right to request an optional referendum is an important element in Swiss direct democracy.

Struggle for the franchise

For such a referendum to be held, either eight cantons must request it this is a cantonal referendum or 50, signatures from eligible voters must be collected within days. The new law comes into force if a majority of those voting say yes a simple majority. If the majority vote no, the current law continues to apply. This type of referendum was introduced in Since then, optional referendums have been held, 78 of which have been unsuccessful.

But how do Swiss citizens feel about this democratic system, which relies on greater involvement from the electorate? Nevertheless, according to Idea International, Swiss voter turnout in amounted to just Direct democracy has a curious effect on voter turnout — it seems the more of a voice people have, the less often they turn out to vote.

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with our Terms of Use. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum. I accept. Read the 'Davos Manifesto'. Read more. Most Popular. Australia bushfires: 5 things to know about the crisis Rosamond Hutt 08 Jan More on the agenda. Explore context.