Unit 3: To what extent are the principles of liberalism viable?
Unit 3 Workbook
Unit 3 Workbook |
Democracy
Liberal democracy stands as a fragile but enduring human experiment to test the hypothesis that ordinary human beings are capable of making wise judgments in matters concerning their own and others’ well-being. According to liberal principles, the ordinary individual citizen (and the aggregated opinions of citizens, referred to as the “will of the people”) is central to the shape and workings of government. Ideally, the governing system, its institutions, actions, and legal structures, are designed with the individual citizen’s participation and inviolability in mind. This is, of course, an ideal, and the actual practice, even within democratic governments, often falls far short of this ideal. This chapter explores how close to the ideal various systems of government come by asking the question: To what extent should governments reflect the will of the people?
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