POL101Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Justin Trudeau, Elections Canada, Direct Democracy
18 Sep 2018
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First assignment will be based on this class, movie and readings. We use the words liberal democracy as if they belong together. There is such thing as an illiberal democracy, where elections are held, but they are not liberal in any other way (military backed political parties, large number of people can"t vote, no respect for human rights, etc). These can be called a one-party democracy or a semi-authoritarian state. Contrary to popular belief, liberalism actually involved limiting the scope of the democracy, for example who can vote, while democracy is the idea that rests the sovereignty and rights on the people. Democracy is about extending power to the people it is a radical idea. Liberalism is about setting limits on that power it is a conservative idea (jung, lecture 2) Liberalism became popular with democracy as the drive to limit the landless majority from taking the power from the male land owners, a minority.
