How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Route 1 democracy ≠ counting votes → foundation is citizens reasoning together → legitimacy from free + fair deliberation among equals
Route 2 political equality + equal moral worth → diversity of opinion as strength needing tolerance → deliberation, not aggregation, grounds legitimacy
deliberation vs voting → Bessette revives term as deliberation declines, vs Bentham’s aggregate democracy (majoritarianism, individual pleasure) → produces informed opinions, citizens revise preferences → voice over choice, debate over voting → “free”: expression, association, dissent → Mill (silencing = assuming infallibility) → reasons surface, not the loudest voice → “fair”: equal standing, non-coercive → Habermas ideal speech (force of better argument, not power) → Rawls reasons others can accept → fair framework → Cohen pluralism as source of legitimacy
ideal hard to realise → power inequalities distort, dominant styles exclude weaker groups → Fraser (single public sphere silences subaltern voices)
Route 1 free = openness, fair = equality → reasoned self-rule, not a headcount
Route 2 Sen: “government by discussion” → deliberation turns power into legitimate collective judgement
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
Also asked on this head
Democracy — 11 questions in the Vault.
- The foundational base of western democracy has been
- Explain briefly the elite theory of democracy.
- Deliberative democracy seeks to promote democratic decision making about public issues among the citizens. Discuss
How this is taught
The same flow snapshot, built for every head of the syllabus, with the answer written in class.
The first session of Foundation 2027 is published in full.
Six programmes across three levels.