CRITICALLY ASSESSING SOUTH AFRICA’S TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY By By Zaahir Samodien Date: 20 April 2004 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. BACKGROUND Page 1 2. ASSETS SINCE TRANSITION Page 1 1. Deepening of democracy Page 1 2. Governance Page 1 3. Building of the Economy Page 2 4. International / African Partnerships Page 3 5. Social Improvements Page 4 6. Tourism Page
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LIBERAL DEMOCRACY Liberal democracy is the form of governance that is mostly related with the modern nation state. However‚ it cannot be said that all nation states have liberal democracy‚ like Fascist Italy which was an authoritarian regime. Democratization is the transformation of political‚ economic and social structures from authoritarian or totalitarian rule to liberal democracy. After the transition stage of democratization is completed‚ consolidation stage begins. The consolidation stage
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‘A fear of democracy runs throughout liberalism’ Discuss. 45 Marks (Jan 2011) Some political thinkers have argued that Liberalism can be defined by its fear of democracy. Democracy is ‘rule by the people’‚ this term suggests that there is popular participation and also public interest within government. While liberals fear democracy they know and see it as the best possible way. As there is a clear fear of it lying underneath the liberal ideology‚ there are obvious arguments for and against this
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Dahl’s “On Democracy” Early in Dahl’s book he answers the question “what is democracy?” by enumerating a list of five criteria that must be met in order for a government to be recognized as fully democratic. These criteria involve all citizens having equal and satisfactory opportunities to participate in the steering of policy. To realize all of these criteria would mean that it has achieved ‘ideal’ democracy‚ but Dahl concedes that it is not practical to expect a perfect democracy given the realities
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Post-colonial Theory What it is: • the study of interactions between European nations and the societies they colonized; • an examination of the impact of the European conquest‚ colonisation and domination of non-European lands‚ peoples‚ and cultures; • an analysis of the inherent ideas of European superiority over non-European peoples and cultures; • an analysis of the role of representation in installing and perpetuating such notions. From the point of view of colonised
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Deliberative democracy is a relatively new concept‚ having been first introduced by Bessette in 1980. This makes it somewhat more relevant in today’s society than some of the other models of democracy. As stated before‚ a deliberative model is one which can be described as a ‘discursive democracy’. To be discursive is to “proceed to a conclusion through reason rather than intuition’‚ therefore here‚ the publics opinions and views is an integral part of the law making process. As with deliberative
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LESSON 2 COLONIAL ERA 1.0 Introduction In the name of Allah‚ Most Gracious‚ Most Merciful Do you know that Malaysia was once a colonized land? For Malaysian students‚ do you remember how long this country was colonized? Could you please tell your foreign colleagues? For your information‚ this country was colonized approximately 446 years (from 1511 until 1957). Then‚ before this country secures it independence‚ it had experienced the era of emergency after the Japenese left the country. Thus‚ in
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Democracy is a political form of government in which governing power is derived from the people‚ by consensus (consensus democracy)‚ by direct referendum (direct democracy)‚ or by means of elected representatives of the people (representative democracy). The term comes from the Greek word (dēmokratía) "rule of the people"‚ which was coined from (dêmos) "people" and (Kratos) "power". There is no universal definition of the term democracy‚ people like the late USA president ABRAHAM LINCOLN define
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Comparing democracies There are four major factors that contributed to the new interest in comparing democracies that is the comparison of regimes‚ the ‘third wave’ of democratization‚ institutional engineering‚ and the last one is Neo-institutionalism. The first factor comes from the study of Powell (1982) and Lijphart (1984) that has characterize and compare democratic regimes as a whole. Lijphart has elaborated the distinction of the majoritarian and the consensus models of democracy to prove
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Democracy or Dictatorship It is very unfortunate that after 63 years of creation of Pakistan added to the 200 years of struggle against foreign intruders‚ we are still debating over Democracy and Dictatorship is Pakistan. We were able to get an independent state but failed to give freedom‚ equality‚ tolerance‚ social justice and democracy to its people. Iqbal’s Pakistan was never achieved; we got Jinnah’s Pakistan but lost part of it in 1971. It’s up to us whether we blame it on failed democracy
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