week 4:

Here is the usual democratic results of elections where a party and politician gain the majority…but they really don’t. In Israel, Netanyahu’s Likud claims victory in general elections Israel narrowly gains victory, however has lost a quarter of his seats in house. Why is this the case for a lot of democratic elections? Is party politics too weak to succeed mass majority? Likud stated: “I intend on leading these changes, and to this end we must form as wide a coalition as possible and I have already begun talks to that end this evening.” Howcome, if we for example win the majority, and win the majority of seats, a coalition still needs to take place in order for change to be seen in society, if in a democracy, citizens vote, they deserve to have their leader be able to have majority of house in order to pass bills? What is wrong with parliamentary elections? Voter turnout is low, (38%, 2009) Party plurality is vast and uneven, and once elected the house is so divided, there might as well not have been a democratic election in the first place.

http://www.europeanforum.net/news/1600/netanyahu_rsquo_s_likud_claims_victory_in_general_elections_israel

Week 5:

McClain’s magazine in 2009 called Canadian Democracy broken….

http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/09/18/canadian-democracy-is-broken/

Whos fault is this? And how can we fix it? -we havent come up with the how yet, we are too concerned with the why.

the article writes, “Elections about nothing, parties that have been reduced to leadership cults, a permanently deadlocked Parliament, record-low voter turnout, and overlaying everything an atmosphere of coarseness, cynicism and mindless partisanship. And that’s the good news! The impotence of ordinary MPs, the irrelevance of Parliament, the near dictatorial powers of the Prime Minister: if we were writing about a Third World country with a system like ours, we would be careful to refer to the “largely ceremonial” Parliament and “sham” elections.”

I have one theory brought on by a class I took last professor with Professor Owen, Public Policy Issues in Canadian politics. Arguably, democracy worked relatively well back when politics were a hereditary norm, where engaging in politics was seen as a duty and expression of freedom and rights. Arguably, the movement has changed with our generation where our political engagement mainly happens here, (online, blogs, think tanks) if at all. Its no longer seen as duty to engage, protest and vote in politics- especially in canada there is rarely a spike in political hot topics…if we measured it, looked at a graph politics have been relatively balanced since the fall of the soviet union (with the exception of 9/11) in Canada

So how do we fix it? One arguement of the articles states we should work from the middle to the outside. Start with the “flawed” house of commons and go from there.