Week 6 power pt. policy position

Democracy is a system of governance where supreme power is vested in the people and exercised through a free electoral system. Democracy development and the economic development have a strong relations. The economic development is reflected through income equality and capital mobility which help in reducing the leading fears of democracy by decreasing the expected redistribution of governments and providing capital holders with an exit option in incidents where taxes become confiscatory. This provides reasonable basics between economic development and democracy. Revenue maximizing rule also prompts the growth and development of democracy. Rulers may opt to maximize personal revenue through taxation but they are controlled by the need to provide private and public goods in order to maintain support of the winning team, in which case the citizens outside the winning team benefit from the public goods provided (Tarverdi, Saha, & Campbell, 2019).

Revenue maximizing rulers is the most important for triggering democratization, this is because the economic crisis temporarily shifts the political power from elites to citizens through posing a radical threat of massive expropriation. Through this the elites lack the coercive power and resources to repress the citizens hence making a credible commitment for reforms by providing more political power to citizens via democratization (Tarverdi, Saha, & Campbell, 2019). This also enables quality delivery by the rulers since they are held accountable of their actions.

 The United States of America is an example of the varied nature of a constitutional republic. It is a true democracy since some decisions in the country often local are made through direct democratic processes. The federal decisions also are made by democratically elected representatives (Lieberman, et al., 2019). The US government is always answerable to its citizens, who may change the representatives through elections. Equality is also part of the law, it applies to all citizens and the government officials too.

References

Lieberman, R. C., Mettler, S., Pepinsky, T. B., Roberts, K. M., & Valelly, R. (2019). The Trump presidency and American democracy: a historical and comparative analysis. Perspectives on Politics, 17(2), 470-479.

Tarverdi, Y., Saha, S., & Campbell, N. (2019). Governance, democracy and development. Economic Analysis and Policy, 63, 220-233.