CLASS TOPICS #4 and #5 — Questions to Think About

          People who live in countries whose government operates under a system of free elections are commonly claimed to be (much) better off than people who live in countries whose government operates under a system of unfree (or fake) elections (or of no elections at all). This claim raises two clusters of questions.

1.       What are the defining characteristics of free (as opposed to unfree or fake) elections — that is, what attributes must elections have if they are to qualify as “free” (and produce the claimed benefits)? Think about how election systems may treat citizens, groups with society, political candidates, political parties, the mass media, and government officials.

2.       What in fact are the benefits of a system of free elections? Who mostly receives these benefits? The people as a whole? Just certain groups within society? Just politicians? Everybody except politicians? Does a system of free elections entail costs as well as benefits? Do minority groups benefit from elections (presumably embodying some variant of “majority rule”)? Do (or can) elected governments in any meaningful sense represent the “will of the people”?

3.       Almost all political scientists (and most ordinary people) agree on the following empirical claim: that a system of free elections leads (almost) inevitably to the formation of two or more political parties and thus to a party system. Why might this be true? How might we define a political party? Why do some systems of free elections produce two-party systems and others multi-party systems?

4.       Most political scientists also agree on the following more normative claim: that a system of competing political parties provides the best (or only) opportunity for the interests and preferences of ordinary people to be regularly reflected in the actions and policies of the government. (Ironically, many — even most — ordinary people are inclined to disagree with this proposition.) Why might this be true?