3d. Perspectives on Democracy
by
31st July 2018
Perspectives on Democracy
YOUR TASK:
Read the perspectives below, and decide which ideology holds this view about the concept of democracy.
| Ideology | Perspective on democracy… | |
| Liberals | …endorse liberal-democratic rule but with qualifications about the need to protect property and traditional institutions from the untutored will of ‘the many’. The new right, however, has linked electoral democracy to the problems of over-government and economic stagnation. | |
| Conservatives | …have often supported radical or participatory democracy. ‘Dark’ greens have developed a particular critique of electoral democracy that portrays it as a means of imposing the interests of the present generation of humans on (unenfranchised) later generations, other species and nature as a whole. | |
| Anarchists | …traditionally endorsed a form of radical democracy based on popular participation and the desire to bring economic life under public control, dismissing liberal democracy as simply capitalist democracy. Nevertheless modern social democrats are now firmly committed to liberal-democratic structures. | |
| Fascists | …embrace the ideas of totalitarian democracy, holding that a genuine democracy is an
absolute dictatorship as the leader monopolises ideological wisdom and is alone able to articulate the true interests of the people. Party and electoral competition are thus corrupt and degenerate. |
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| Ecologists | …understand democracy in individualist terms as consent expressed through the ballot box, democracy being equated with regular and competitive elections. Whilst democracy constrains abuses of power, it must always be conducted within a constitutional framework in order to prevent majoritarian tyranny. | |
| Socialists | …endorse direct democracy and call for continuous popular participation and radical decentralization. Electoral or representative democracy is merely a facade that attempts to conceal elite domination and reconcile the masses to their oppression. |
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