POL112H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Amal Clooney, Pessimism, Eastern Bloc
8 Feb 2016
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High levels of education, personal income, and a middle east class to sustain democracy. Democracy will only spread to rich and medium (income) countries and then stop. Democracy spread west due to judeo-christian and enlightenment cultural traditions. Non western cultures (asian, islamic, etc) were incompatible with democracy because of emphasis on order over freedom, consensus over competition, community over individual. Substantial voting franchise in order to participate. Rule of law = all citizens are equal before the law, no one is above the law, laws are known in advance, administered by impartial judiciary. Individual freedoms, ie: belief, speech, media, assembly, petition, publication, anyone can run for office. Freedoms from harms (civil rights) ex torture, terror, unjustified detention, exile, or interference in their personal lives. Civilian control of the military and state security apparatus. A state that has elections, but is lacking significantly in these dimensions in a pseudo-democracy.
