POT 3302 Fall 2024

Week 2 Module

Democracy and Ideology

DEADLINES:

Quiz and Part A questions:        Tuesday 9/3 in Webcourses at 11:30pm.

Part B questions:                          Wednesday 9/4 in Yellowdig at 11:30pm.

 WEEK 2 ASSIGNED READINGS:

Ball et al., chapter 2: The Democratic Ideal

WEEK 2 LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After completing these lessons, students should be able to:

L-1: Recognize the differences among democracy as an ideal, “the democratic ideal,”

and the different conceptions of democracy held by competing ideologies

L-2: Describe what democracy originally meant

L-3: Recognize the main features of the republican tradition as it evolved from Aristotle

and Polybius to the American founding

L-4: Outline the rise, decline, and revival of the democratic ideal from ancient Greece to

the present

L-5: Describe the ways in which the meaning of democracy has changed over the

course of Western history

L-6: Identify the reasons for which non-Western, nonliberal regimes—such as the

“people’s democracies” of China and the Soviet Union—have claimed to be democratic.

L-7: Know what is meant by the claim that democracy is an “essentially contested concept."

PART A TASKS in WEBCOURSES

Q-0:  Is there an idea or a claim expressed in the readings that you find difficult or confusing or unclear? If so, tell us which idea this is. Cite the document title and page where you encountered this idea. We cannot help you if the description of what is unclear is overly broad. You do not need to answer this question. If everything is clear, there is not point in answering.

Q-1: What, in general terms, is an "essentially contested concept" and why do Ball et al. consider democracy as one such concept?

200 words minimum. Strictly enforced. State your word count. Avoid using Artificial Intelligence for this and all other submissions in this course.

 NOTE: Your Part A answer is graded 50% for accurate rendition of the textbook's content and 50% for good writing.

 PART B TASKS IN YELLOWDIG

PART B TASKS in Yellowdig by Wednesday 9/4

See Guide in Files Tips for Posting Part A and Part B.

The Yellowdig window for this Weeks 1-2 module opens on Thursday 8/29 and closes on Wednesday 9/4.

Part B Task-1: Answer the Instructor Question (pinned at the top of the page).

This Week 2 the instructor's question is:

Do you approve or not of the following claim:

Politics is complicated. Most voters in a liberal democracy have only superficial knowledge of the topic and make voting decisions based on emotions and media-fabricated images. The results are not always happy. To correct this problem we should move a little towards epistocracy, i.e., the rule of those who know about politics. For that purpose, the Constitution should be amended to give 2 votes to all citizens having a bachelor’s degree in political science, 4 votes for all having a MA degree and 6 votes for all having a Ph.D. in the same discipline. In this manner the knowledgeable will have a little more influence on the outcome of elections.

Justify your answer with arguments.

Part B Task-2: Post other comments you may have about the assigned readings. There is much more to discuss in these readings than the instructor’s single question can raise.

Part B Task-3: Comment on classmates' answers to the instructor's question OR on their comments on other topics.

To make a post in Yellowdig, you must first click on the button CREATE and then select the related topic. Only the instructor can create topics.