POL101Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Direct Democracy, Participatory Budgeting, Civil Society
9 Jul 2016
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Document Summary
Liberalism and democracy are not the same thing. And you can have one without the other, i. e. illiberal democracy. It was about limiting the scope of democracy, liberalism has a deeply conservative component to it. Democracy is about extending power to the people. Liberals believe that democracy is a radically egalitarian idea, they fear if the masses get political power, they would use it to gain economic power. Liberalism is about respect for human rights, freedom of the press and the rule of law. Rational choice theory is a school of thought that states that people behave rationally. And thus people would not politically participate as that is not rational (standing outside for hours in the cold, carrying banners, taking time to protest etc. ) People would only participate in political activism if they felt that they personally would get something out of it.
