Tutorial notes- Wednesday 24th November 2010

19:00 Welcome- So far in this room you’ve discussed the relationship between leaders and led and the notion of representation. This seminar will cover Week 3: A Crisis of Representation? Having considered the idea that democracy is now in crisis because people no longer vote, it covers three main topics: the role of citizens in a democracy; the rise of populism; and the rise of the Information and Network Society. We will spend half an hour on each and then you will be given the final half hour to discuss TMA 02 between yourselves and ask me any questions you have about TMAs.

19:05 What role for citizens in democracy. (Readings found in 2nd section of week 3)

What is the key feature of democratic and legitimate decision making for Barber and Manin?

In the extracts from Barber and Manin, the two writers anticipate criticism of their own positions. What are those criticisms and how do they refute them?

Why does Schumpeter feel that citizens can’t make legitimate decisions about national and international matters? Do you agree?

Why does Walzer think that these citizens can, nevertheless play an important part in political decision making?

Do you think citizens should be more involved in politics?

19:30 The Rise of Populism

What is your favourite example of a politician trying to look ‘down with the kids’?

What other groups of people have politicians tried to appeal to in a populist way and how have they done it?

Do you think these attempts helped them become more popular politically?

What sort of person does a politician wish to be seen as?

Why might someone worry that populism makes a tyranny of the majority more likely?

Do you think a ruler can ever really be ‘of the people’?

19:55-20:05 Break

20:05 The Information and Network Society

How might ‘knowledge’ be an important component of traditional theories of democracy?

Do you think that globalisation undermines traditional theories of democracy? How?/Why not?

Who do you think count as part of the knowledge elite?

Could they be held democratically accountable? How?/ Why not?

20:30 How do theories of democracy help us to understand the role of modern political leaders? Discuss.

Tutorial 1, Room 1 -Karem

We started the tutorial by discussing how we felt about the first TMA. We noted that in this course you are given a lot of information and a big challenge is to decide how to use that information to support your own answer to the TMA question, without getting caught in the trap of simply summarizing and repeating all that you have read in the essay - as this will leave very little space for your own thoughts and ideas. The course resources that you do use must be linked back to the TMA question.

After discussing the first TMA we moved on to talk about the first two weeks of Room 1 by discussing a series of questions and bringing up authors introduced in the Room as appropriate to answer these questions.

Here is a brief overview of the questions we discussed during our tutorial (in parenthesis, some of the authors brought up by students).
1. What is democracy? (Pericles, Burke, Dahl)
a. Does it exist? (Mosca, Michels, Pareto)
b. Do we want it to exist? (Madison)
2. What are the main dangers of democracy as discussed in the readings? (Madison, Burke)
3. What is the role of leaders in a democracy?
a. Should representatives be representative of the people or stand above the people?
b. How should leaders rise to power (Mosca, Pareto, Michels)
4. What is a Machiavellian leader?
5. Do we agree with the statement: 'people receive the leaders they deserve'?


Hope everyone is enjoying working through Room 1,
karem

University Protests - Violence and Politics

You might have noticed how much of the coverage of the student demonstration that took place in London yesterday is focusing on how a few bad people caused (illegitimate) violence which in some way "ruined" the event for the tens of thousands of (legitimate?) peaceful protest.
It's worth following this debate and seeing where it goes. Behind it are important questions about the proper role of violence in politics - does violence mark the break-down of legitimate political action, or is, as we'll see Franz Fanon arguing later in the course, violence an integral part of politics and of political struggles? What counts as violence? Is smashing a window politically legitimate in a way that attacking people is not?
These are all questions you might wish to ponder after the last 24hrs. We'll be talking about these questions in Room 5, so you might also want to save any interesting articles or news clippings. If you find anything you think is particularly good, I'd be very grateful to hear about it.
Happy pondering!
Tom