Content for Democracy and Participation

Systems of Democracy 🏦

Functional Characteristics of Representative Democracy 📜

• People seek representatives to make decisions.
• These people are usually experts in a given field.
• These people get paid to make decisions.

Representative Democracy Encourages Well-Informed Decision Making 🧑‍🤝‍🧑
Proponents:

• Encourages political stability and political participation; the decisions politicians make is based on their own expertise and education, rather than volatile (misinformed) public opinion.
• Governments are elected on manifestos based on immense policy research, and subsequently, they implement their policies.
• This means they don't necessarily do things that are popular, but things that match their logical thinking.
  • E.G. Despite all major polls denouncing the abolition of the two child benefit cap, including a recent YouGov poll (showcasing 56% of people were in favour of the cap) - the Labour government decided to abolish it so they could meet their pledge to 'reduce child poverty' (this also coincided with their child poverty policy unit - which made advise on how to achieve this goal... one of the main things it recommended was abolishing the two child benefit cap).
• Supports the Trustee model of governance.

Opponents:

• This is false. MPs and governments, most of the times, do things that maintain their popularity. This is because the ultimate source of power lies within Parliament itself. In simple terms, this means Parliament is sovereign. As such, those in power do things to maintain their power.
  For example, to appease many Eurosceptic voters (and to stop the ascendancy of the UKIP party), David Cameron promised to hold a referendum on our membership in the EU - despite himself being a 'remainer' .
  This also proves that politicians do things that go against their own logic, but maintain their popularity. Being an ardent remainer - David Cameron was fundamentally against us leaving the EU - even going so far as to compare leaving the EU to "nuclear war". But, by doing this, the hope was that not as many votes would be lost to UKIP.
  He even said that families would lose over £2,000 a year if we left the EU, and after the vote, he resigned because he didn't want to get a deal through (this is how far Brexit went against his own logic).

Representative Democracy Encourages Corruption 👮
Proponents:

• Politicians may be prone to corruption and lobbying.
  • 2009-10 Expenses Scandal
    • 4 MPs arrested.
    • 'Duck house scandal': Sir Peter Viggers' expenses included the cost of a floating duck house.
    • This creates a rather pejorative portrayal of our 'political/established classes', showcasing that, with representative democracy, comes illegitimacy and corruption.
• Politicians are also prone to 'lobbying'
  • IEA - a right-wing think tank - spent £2m on the Brexit campaign - and also influenced the Liz Truss budget.
    • Politicians don't make decisions based on the opinion of the many, but the few.

Opponents:

• Lobbying groups do not harm democracy, but instead, showcase pluralist democracy at work.
  • BMA uses 'informal' methods of lobbying to achieve its goals.
    • Got members to email, send letters to, and message MPs, to ban smoking in cars with children.
      • Led to the Children and Families Act of 2015.
  • Significant as the BMA is a large organisation (rather than an elitist one) that represents state-employees.
  • Thus, governments using their 'doctors manifesto' isn't a way of internalising a corrupt political atmosphere, but instead, its a way of creating a flexible approach to government.

Representative Democracy Prevents a 'Tyranny Of The Majority' 🌍
Proponents:

• Other, more direct forms of democracy (such as referendums), can create a 'tyranny of the majority', which harms pluralist democracy as more importance is placed over the majority's views than the views of minority groups.
  • Brexit Referendum: 52/48 result, despite a tiny majority, we left the EU; this negatively impacted those who came here on student visas, as they had restrictions applied on their studies, and the length of time they could stay (also damaged EU national's ability to live in the UK).
    - We didn't even stay in the Single Market or Custom's Union -> there was no balance; the Brexit Deal appeased only the Leave side -> tyranny of the majority.
    - Harms pluralist democracy.
    • This result was majorly influenced by the misinformation the Leave campaign spread: e.g., they said that we gave the EU £350,000,000 a week, and that, by leaving the EU, that money could "go to the NHS instead".
      • This only occurred because the electorate was ill-informed (the electorate is... dumb)
      • With such a small majority, is it the case that, without this campaign, the remain side would've won?

Opponents:

• Democracy is supposed to listen to the people. Brexit was a result of a popular vote. Unlike in usual elections, which have lower turnout as a result of increased apathy.
  • This is because, in our representative democracy elections, we use FPTP.
    • Encourages tactical voting in minority seats where smaller parties have no chance of winning (supports the idea that people choose the 'least worse option'.
      • Encourages apathy.
      • This is why we've had a 'participation crisis'.
      • In 2024, turnout was 59.7%. The Brexit referendum had a turnout of 72%
      • General Elections are illegitimate, and create a substantially larger democratic deficit than referendums do.
  • Instead, referendums for example (a form of direct democracy) involve the electorate being given a binary choice on how to vote.
    • Relies on majority support, not minority support (as only FPTP relies on a plurality of votes).

Widening of the Franchise ❎

1918 Representation of the People Act
Gave the vote to married women under 30, and men under 21.

1928 Representation of the People Act
Universal suffrage! The vote was given to men and women, both at the age of 21.

1969 Representation of the People Act
Reduced the voting age to 18.

Votes at 16
A Labour campaign pledge for many years now. They finally introduced an Elections Bill last year that promises to lower the age of the vote to 16 by the next general election.

In the Scottish Independence Referendum, those 16 and above could already vote. Turnout amongst this group was 75%.

Moreover, of those that were asked if they were ever going to vote again, 97% replied yes.

Nigel Farage, and ReformUK, has opposed this - over fears Labour are trying to 'rig elections'.

This is perhaps because adolescent voters have always been seen as more sympathetic towards progressive movements (e.g. at the end of 2024, a YouGov poll found out that amongst those that were 18-25, the Greens were no.1 in terms of voting intentions)

• This is also supported by prior progressive movements, such as Jeremy Corbyn's leadership campaign in 2015, and the erupting of a 'youthquake' (i.e. those of young age becoming Labour members in their masses to vote in Corbyn as the Labour leader).

Pressure Groups 🔥

Pressure groups apply pressure on those in power, in the hope that the government can adopt their cause/ agenda.

Insider Pressure Groups:

• They have direct 'access points' to those in government, and, usually, are more likely to get their agenda through government.

• E.G. BMA, they won a high court battle against the UK government, overturning the Secretary of State for Health's powers to withhold pensions from doctors who were being investigated for a crime, but who were notconvicted yet.

  • The BMA also achieved a 22% pay rise for Junior Doctors in 2024.

However, some argue that they are only listened to when the said pressure groups is electorally advantageous to the government:

• BMA never got pay rises that high during the Conservative government (mainly because doctors... don't vote for the Tories).
  • Health Secretaries during this government regularly avoided the BMA's meetings.
  • Trade Union Act (2016) and Minimum Service Levels Act (2023) limited their power even more.
• CBI campaigned against the minimum wage, but it was introduced anyway.

Outsider Pressure Groups:

• These groups do not have 'access points' to those in government, but they use methods of civil disobedience/ direct action to get their cause through to government.

• E.G. Just Stop Oil regularly threw paint at monuments - like the Magna Carta - to stop the licensing of 'new oil and gas licenses'.

  • Labour committed to this in their 2024 manifesto.

• E.G. Child Poverty Action Group campaigned against the two child benefit cap, and it was removed in the 2024 autumn budget.

• E.G. NEU (a more outsider type pressure group during the Conservative government), with the help of celebrity Marcus Rashford, got the government to give free school meals to children during lockdown.

• Stonewall has campaigned for LGBTQ+ rights since Thatcher introduced Section 28 (e.g. helped get the Marriage Act through Parliament).

However, some have failed:

• CAGE UK campaigns for Muslims and against anti-terror laws, but because it only represents ~4% of the UK population, governments are less likely to listen to them.
• Liberty failed to stop Secret Courts being used.
• Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion: despite getting a lot of media coverage, the government have not adopted their policies.