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Democracy is Broken

New episode on An Interesting Podcast

You can find the latest episode of An Interesting Podcast in all good podcast places: iTunes, Libsyn, Google Play Music - plus Spotify and Soundcloud (still have to find the links!).

Democracy is broken... discuss!

  • ‘will of the people’
  • voting in dictatorships
  • coalition governments
  • young people not voting

What do we mean by democracy?

  • representative democracy
  • how reps are elected - first past the post or PR
    • end up with odd things - Germany in 2018 with Bundestag - 709 

Your vote only counts if:

  • you vote for the winning party - or in the coalition
  • and your person needs to be in govt
  • then senior enough position
  • but have to do what the party wants and not your constituents (of which only a small % actually voted for you….)

But who is allowed to vote?

  • age limits
  • resident v citizen
  • non resident citizens
  • criminal record

Big issue

  • young people do not vote

What are people voting for?

  • party?
  • rep for the area?
  • penalties for lying - none - either do not get in power...

Representing an area - constituency problem

  • may only be voted in by a tiny majority, and not 51% - do you represent everyone or just the ones who voted for you

Coalition

  • no one voted for the coalition - or its policies - what on earth did people vote for

King for the period - even if the context changes, have the right to rule

  • can kill the king…. on the election cycle

Temptation to stay in office

  • big benefits if run things
  • if tempted to cheat, then even more tempted to stay in power
  • those who come in next would have big incentive to investigate and show your past wrong-doing,.. and then do the same with the same incentive