What Should Democracy Mean

Question

Instructions

What should democracy mean?

In other words, compare and contrast how these authors discuss the concept of democracy and the various aspects of it that are important for its meaning and practice. What appear to be the central concerns of these two comparativists? In this response, focus your attention in explaining: what is a democracy? what are (or should be) its dimensions according? What specific criteria should a country's political system exhibit in order for it to earn the label: democracy? Please make sure you use the texts to support your answers, and please remember to quote properly.

Summary–of required readings, including key ideas, concepts, and questions to be used as a foundation for the analysis. In your summary, you can demonstrate that you read carefully and thoroughly.A good summary contains Three I’s (Fraser and Davidson 2012): identifyan idea or claim in the reading; illustrate the idea with sufficient evidence from the text; and interpret the idea in light of the evidence. The absence of sufficient textual evidence tends to make summaries too general, vague, or incomplete. So, make sure your summary offers sufficient details from the text to illustrate all the ideas you identify.

Analysis–comparison and contrast of ideas, concepts, and questions within and between the readings. In your analysis, you demonstrate your ability to fully address or answer the questions I posed in the prompt. This is where you can demonstrate your understanding of the material and that you are thinking for yourself. Therefore, no external sources can be accepted for the analysis because it must be based on your close reading of the required texts.

Coherence–this means organized, step-by-step, progression of ideas. In other words, ideas should flow in orderly fashion from sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph. Coherence is very important because it helps you to demonstrate that you read carefully and fully, and that you can impose order on your thoughts –thus making your claims and arguments easy to follow for the reader. Otherwise, good ideas or claims go to waste because they become disconnected or fragmented and the reader gets lost.

Clarity–this refers to grammar, mechanics, and style. Poorly writtensentences make it difficult for your readers to understand your arguments and thus for you toget your point across.Poorly written sentences can be awkward, cumbersome or difficult to read, incomplete, or contain comma splices, for example. They may also include improper quoting, or poor balance between paraphrasing and quoting, as well as include commonly confused words.Requirements–adhering to basic requirements, particularly on-time submission, minimum word count, command of writing conventions such as in-text citations, and academic honesty.