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What is Democracy?
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How Democratic is the UK?
In this course, Professor Andrew Blick (KCL) asks how truly democratic the UK is in practice. In the first lecture, we explore the origins of democracy and its importance to the modern UK, orienting our discussion around two aspects of democracy: popular control and equality. In the second lecture, we explore the all-important question of participation in a representative democracy. In the third lecture, we consider the role of civil and political rights in a democracy and the extent to which these rights are met in the UK. The fourth lecture is structured around an interrogation of the theory and practice of parliamentary sovereignty, involving structural and institutional considerations such as devolution, referendums, and the First Past the Post electoral system. In the fifth lecture, we explore the extent to which the uncodified or “unwritten” UK Constitution has an impact on how democratic the UK is in practice and consider the case for reform. Then, in the sixth and final lecture, we turn to the hotly debated subject of media and communications and the impact of this on democracy.
What is Democracy?
In this module we explore the origins of democracy and its importance to the modern UK, focusing in particular on: (i) popular control: the notion that government actions are rendered legitimate by the consent – tacit or explicit – of the people; (ii) equality: the notion that all citizens should hold the same political rights and enjoy equal opportunities to participate in the democratic community. This formulation for understanding democracy will structure our discussion over the coming lectures and give us a foundation from where we might assess how democratic the UK really is in practice.
Hello. My name is Andrew Blick.
00:00:05I'm redoing politics in contemporary history,
00:00:07King's College London And this lecture is about
00:00:10how democratic is the United Kingdom in practise
00:00:13To start this subject, it's useful to introduce the concept of democracy itself.
00:00:18It's a term we hear a lot most people will speak to.
00:00:26Most politicians publicly will say they support democracy.
00:00:31They agree with democracy. They agree with having democracy in the UK.
00:00:35They agree with having democracy around the world.
00:00:39And many,
00:00:42many other countries around the world would say
00:00:43their leaders would say they are democratic.
00:00:45They respect democracy, so on and so forth,
00:00:48even in countries that some people
00:00:51might say aren't actually particularly democratic.
00:00:53So it's a universally accepted term.
00:00:57But what it means in practise what it actually means isn't quite as clear.
00:01:01And how democratic, the UK and other countries around the world,
00:01:07which would say their democratic really are, is also open to discussion.
00:01:12So to have that discussion and apply in particular to the UK,
00:01:17it's useful to start by asking what democracy is.
00:01:22The term itself comes from ancient Greece, often
00:01:26ancient Greece and Athens, with ancient Greece,
00:01:31is said to be the place where democracy began.
00:01:33Actually, that claim is now being disputed a bit more,
00:01:36and it said that you can find examples
00:01:39of democracy elsewhere in the world even earlier.
00:01:41Nevertheless,
00:01:44the term comes from there and it means broadly speaking rule of the people.
00:01:45So the concept there is that it's the people in some way,
00:01:50everybody who's in charge now.
00:01:54Actually, in Athens,
00:01:56the people was quite a narrowly defined term and certainly didn't include,
00:01:57for instance, women or slaves.
00:02:01So it's quite a small group who are defined as the people,
00:02:03the concept that somehow it's a group, a wider body,
00:02:06the population rather than a very, very small single autocrat or very,
00:02:10very small group governing.
00:02:15That's the principle that comes through with this
00:02:17term democracy and in in contemporary terms.
00:02:20I think it's useful to think about democracy with two concepts in mind.
00:02:24The first one is popular control that the power of government,
00:02:28the authority of government,
00:02:34that the way in which decisions are made on behalf of all of us
00:02:35in some way rests in the people.
00:02:38It's been authorised by the people it's subject in some way to consent by the people.
00:02:42That's one part of the concept, the other part of the concept of democracy
00:02:47I think it's useful to think about
00:02:51is the idea of equality that in some sense, uh,
00:02:54everybody's got an equal set of political
00:02:59rights and equal ability to participate in
00:03:02the political community to participate in that
00:03:06democracy without those two things together;
00:03:09Popular control and political equality.
00:03:12You haven't really got democracy as we understand it,
00:03:15because it's not simply enough for
00:03:18a majority to be able to run everything and
00:03:22perhaps to actually take away rights from a minority.
00:03:25There has to be a set of protections for the rights of everybody,
00:03:28even those who are in a minority and maybe in
00:03:32somewhere not popular with the majority of the community.
00:03:36So it's
00:03:39those two concepts together, make up democracy.
00:03:39And when we're thinking about how democratic the UK is in practise,
00:03:43it's useful to think about those two concepts.
00:03:47How they're actually realised in practise is another matter,
00:03:49and that's what we're going to get into later on in this lecture.
00:03:54But those are the two concepts to bear in
00:03:58mind when we're discussing in this lecture how democratic,
00:04:00the UK is, that means we're measuring.
00:04:04We're not saying
00:04:06that a country, the U. K. Or anyone where else either is or is not Democratic.
00:04:08It's not a binary. Yes, no answer. It's a question of degree
00:04:13and of different ways of looking at it.
00:04:18And that's what we'll get into in this lecturers that actually you're measuring,
00:04:20You're saying, Well, it's performing quite well in this aspect,
00:04:23may be less well in another aspect,
00:04:27and these are all the different factors that will
00:04:29be considering during the course of this lecture.
00:04:30
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Blick, A. (2022, January 18). How Democratic is the UK? - What is Democracy? [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/how-democratic-is-the-uk
MLA style
Blick, A. "How Democratic is the UK? – What is Democracy?." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 18 Jan 2022, https://massolit.io/courses/how-democratic-is-the-uk