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Plan for Today: Democracy as a Universal Value?

Plan for Today: Democracy as a Universal Value?. What’s good about democracy? Evaluate arguments for and against universal suitability of democracy. What’s good about democracy ? (Why struggle?). Instrumental Reasons Why Democracy is Good. Prevent famine ( Sen ). Case of Niger?

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Plan for Today: Democracy as a Universal Value?

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  1. Plan for Today:Democracy as a Universal Value? • What’s good about democracy? • Evaluate arguments for and against universal suitability of democracy.

  2. What’s good about democracy? (Why struggle?)

  3. Instrumental Reasons Why Democracy is Good • Prevent famine (Sen). • Case of Niger? • Democracies do not conduct mass killings of citizens. • (Liberal) democracies do not fight one another. • Institutional reasons: controls on war decisions. • Normative reasons: used to nonviolent dispute resolution. AmartyaSen

  4. Intrinsic Reasons Why Democracy is Good (Sen) • If you believe that human freedom is a good thing, democracy provides it. • Authoritarian regimes do not. • “Liberal autocracy” no longer feasible. • Being prevented from social and political participation is a “major deprivation”.

  5. Is democracy a universal value?

  6. Universal Value (Sen) • Universal value does not mean universal consent. • Instead, a value that people anywhere may have reason to see as valuable. • Wherever democracy has been introduced and then overthrown, massive protests against its demise.

  7. “Asian Values” argument • PRO: Asian cultures value order, responsibility, allegiance to state over individualized freedoms. • Democracy and individual rights would undermine values and disrupt society. • CON: Selective interpretation of Confucian and Western philosophies (Sen). • Eastern and Western texts both include elements of democracy, liberalism, and authoritarianism.

  8. “Cohesive community” argument • PRO: Cultural beliefs crash against the principles of equal individual rights and universal citizenship. • CON: • There are many interpretations of Islam. • What is a “cohesive community”? Is there ever no dissent? • Democracy can have varying approaches to individual rights (Diamond).

  9. Argument that liberal democracy demands “social homogeneity” of rights • PRO: Need different rights that apply to different citizen groups depending on religion or ethnicity of citizens involved. • CON: • Liberal democracy typically includes minority rights to protect various communities. (e.g. Canada) • India exactly this kind of society, but sustains democracy.

  10. “Bread over democracy” argument • PRO: Authoritarian governments can provide economic goods (including food) more efficiently than democratic governments. • CON: • Poor people benefit from ability to voice complaints and protest (Sen). • Very little evidence that poor people reject democracy once instituted (Sen). • Scant evidence that authoritarian regimes provide economic goods better than democracies.

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