Representative Democracy and Social Equality

Democracy and Equality

Democracy, Equality, and Redistribution

Democratic citizens are not equal but only anonymous, indistinguishable by any traits they may possess. Democracy only places a veil over distinctions that exist in society. Even the one sense in which equality that can be said to characterize democracy –equality before the law –is derivative from anonymity: the law has to treat all citizens equally because they are indistinguishable. This norm...

Gender Equality and Democracy

Although democratic institutions existed long before gender equality, at this point in history, growing emphasis on gender equality is a central component of the process of democratization. Support for gender equality is not just a consequence of democratization. It is part of a broad cultural change that is transforming industrialized societies and bringing growing mass demands for increasingl...

Representative Democracy

In his famous book " Democracy and its Critics " (1989), Robert A. Dahl argues that, historically speaking, there have been two transformations of democracy. These transformations have brought about different models of democratic governance and different interpretations of the concept of democracy. By the fi rst transformation Dahl refers to the the emergence of the classical model of democracy...

Political blogs and representative democracy

Representative democracy faces profound problems. Electoral turnout has declined to such an extent that the legitimacy of the mandate to govern is drawn into question [19,p. 33]. This problem is exacerbated and reinforced by a feeling of disconnection and distrust between the governed and the governors and a perception that voting and other forms of participation do not influence electoral outc...