{"id":607,"date":"2017-10-30T11:59:02","date_gmt":"2017-10-30T15:59:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/?p=607"},"modified":"2017-10-30T11:59:02","modified_gmt":"2017-10-30T15:59:02","slug":"democracys-prospects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/fourth-blog-democracys-prospects\/democracys-prospects\/","title":{"rendered":"Democracy’s Prospects"},"content":{"rendered":"

American democracy is imperiled because of party polarization. No longer are people voting for a \u201cpopular passion\u201d because the two political parties have become so polarized\u2014the system is red or blue. Zakaria elaborates on the historical significance of political parties being able to channel interests into policy. Currently, the middle is so eroded that a stalemate has taken form. The democratic process loses efficacy in this state of polarization. Another peril is the rigidity of one\u2019s association with a political party. Zakaria notes Tocqueville\u2019s observation of America being held together by civic bonds or \u201cintermediary associations\u201d\u2014concepts that are lost in today\u2019s hyper-individualized atmosphere. Tocqueville notes the significance of groups and clubs in America that are catalysts of political change, formation, and even reflection. Zakaria contrasts this beneficial system with that of today, calling us all \u201centrepreneurs.\u201d The middleman is out, and we pull all our identity from our respective political party, a party which is now unreachable and unchangeable to the average citizen. As we have alluded to in class, we do our work in the coffee shop to be alone together. We are seeing less association at the grassroots level to any popular passion. The system is ineffective to the ordinary citizen. As Foa and Mounk\u2019s article points out, there is in fact a disillusionment with democracy. It is becoming less popular, less trusted. The system isn\u2019t working for the ordinary citizen; it\u2019s only working at the top level for the rich and powerful. The article cites a study that found that the most influential people in determining policy of the past 30 years have been economic elites and narrow interest groups. These promoters of illiberal democracy destroy the means to getting to liberal democracy. The middle is falling out both literally and symbolically. How can the ordinary citizen affect change? I think it is both a structural and cultural problem. Democracy\u2019s survival must stem from an ideological change in the people; the system needs to find power from the bottom up rather than trust the power from the top down. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

American democracy is imperiled because of party polarization. No longer are people voting for a \u201cpopular passion\u201d because the two political parties have become so polarized\u2014the system is red or blue. Zakaria elaborates on the historical significance of political parties … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1746,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fourth-blog-democracys-prospects"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1746"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":608,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607\/revisions\/608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}