Democracy and the foreigner Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Democracy and the foreigner - Essay precedentThe Social Contract Or Principles of political Right (1762) is one of the most influential works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in which the philosopher brilliantly theorised about social contracts and political order. Similarly to John Locke, Rousseau believed that a government could be accepted only in case if it had been sanctioned by the people acting as the sovereign. The general will supposition and other novel ideas expressed by Rousseau in the Social Contract probably played a important role in setting the stage for deep political reforms and revolutions which occurred in France and other European countries in the subsequent decades. The concept of general will introduced by Rousseau in this work immediately generated intensive debate in Europe. The scientist suggested that without personalized input from the people in determining general will there can be no legitimate government. This concept involved criticism of the traditiona l notion that the King was appointed by God to legislate. Instead, Rousseau proposed his own flock of the legislative process and the legislator.Democracy is commonly considered as the best form of government these days. Contemporary scholars such as Robert Dahl, Anthony Arblaster, Benjamin Barber, Andrew Heywood and many others express various views on the nature of modern body politic. Consequently, there be several models of democracy described in works of these authors. According to prof Robert Dahl, one of the most salient(ip) political theorists of nowadays, modern democracy has four historical sources the direct democracy in ancient Greece, the republicanism of roman print and Italian city-states in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the theory and practice of representative government, and the idea of political equality (Dahl 1989). Political ideals and aims of the classical Athenian democracy were expressed by the outstanding Greek philosopher Aristotle in The Politics amidst 335 and 323 BC. Aristotle identifies liberty as one of the founding principles of the classical democratic constitution. The philosopher argues that liberty has two major aspects, to wit 1. Ruling and being ruled in turn2. Living as one chooses (Aristotle 1984) According to Professor David Held (1996), the Athenian democracy had the following institutional features. Firstly, assembly of citizens had sovereign power, that is, supreme authority, to engage in legislative and judicial functions. The citizenry as a whole formed the Assembly, which consists of each and every citizen of Athens. The Assembly met more than 40 times a year, and it had a quorum of 6,000 citizens. The Athenian concept of citizenship entailed taking a share in legislative and judicial functions, participating directly in the affairs of the state. That is why the classical Greek democracy is called direct democracy (DeTorre 1997). Modern democracy differs significantly from the initial forms of this poli tical order. Experience accumulated over centuries of political account do many understand that democracy must be constantly watched and defended. Since the growth of population made it impossible to apply the same set of