User:Pntxpntx/sandbox

Pntxpntx is a fourth-year Mexican college student studying political science and human rights in the United States. She is interested in thinking beyond representative government.

All potential edits
Overall, I want to: redo the "overview" part of the page, and add two or three paragraphs to the rest of the page's body that reflect those changes. For the lead section, I will define democracy, distinguish between "political" and "philosophical" criticisms in paragraph form (rather than the current listed form), and add important political thinkers who are currently missing.

I am thinking of changing the current contents breakdown/outline of the page. I don't think it makes much sense to break the criticism of democracy into the categories of "economic, political, philosophical, administrative, psychological and intellectual" criticism. In fact, criticism of democracy seems grounded in criticism of democracy's 1) purpose, 2) form/process, and 3) outcomes. All of the existing information and criticism can neatly fit into these categories. Should I change the sub-headings to these three things: purpose, form/process, and outcomes? I would also add a new lead section that reflects these changes.

The writing part of my contribution to the "Criticism of democracy" page is ready for peer reviewing. This original writing will be listed under the headings "Paragraph #X." I would also love help in figuring out where in the page to put my original writing. Thank you!

All published edits
I changed the outline of the Criticism of democracy page as proposed, into the new and less cluttered categories of purpose, process (per people's feedback), and outcome. I then changed the introductory section so that it reflects this new outline and re-arranged, tweaked, and removed existing page content under the appropriate (new) category. I also added all of my original paragraphs under their appropriate new section.

I added or improved some citations to paragraphs that were lacking them.

Lead section (as of March 8, 2018 10:55 AM) [no edits]
Democracy may be criticized as: economically inefficient, politically unrealistic, dysfunctional, morally corrupt or sociopolitically suboptimal.

Important figures associated with anti-democratic thought include Martin Heidegger, Hubert Lagardelle, Charles Maurras, Friedrich Nietzsche, Plato, Aristotle, Carl Schmitt, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Oswald Spengler, Nicolás Gómez Dávila, and Elazar Menachem Shach. A variety of ideologies and political systems have opposed democracy, including absolute monarchy, aristocracy, Nazism, fascism, theocracy, neo-feudalism and anarcho-capitalism.

Democracy is also subject to criticism from pro-democratic thought that tends to acknowledge its flaws but stresses a lack of appealing alternatives. An example is Winston Churchill who remarked, "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Lead section [potential edits]
Paragraph 1:

Criticism of Democracy is grounded in democracy's contested definition, i.e. its purpose, form/process, and outcomes. Since Classical antiquity and through the modern era, democracy has been most broadly associated with "rule of the people," "rule of the majority," and free selection or election either through direct participation or elected representation respectively, but has not been linked to a particular outcome. Critics of democracy have challenged unique interpretations of democracy by bringing attention to the rift and incompatibility between a particular definition of democracy's purpose, various form, and unpredictable outcomes. These political thinkers do not necessarily oppose democracy—"rule of the people"—but, rather, seek to distinguish between democratic principles that are effectively implemented through undemocratic procedures; undemocratic principles that are implemented through democratic procedures; and other variations of the same kind.

Paragraph 2:

Political thinkers approach their critique of democracy from different perspectives. Many critics of democracy would agree with Winston Churchill's famous remark, "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." While others, may be more prepared to describe existing democratic regimes as anything but "rule of the people."

Paragraph 3:

Critics of democracy have tried to highlight democracy's inconsistencies, paradoxes, and limits by contrasting it with other forms of governments. They have characterized most modern democracies as democratic polyarchies and democratic aristocracies ; they have identified fascist moments in modern democracies; they have termed the societies produced by modern democracies as neo-feudal; while, yet others, have contrasted democracy with Nazism, anarcho-capitalism, theocracy, and absolute monarchy. The most widely known critics of democracy include Plato and the authors of the Federalist Papers, who were interested in establishing a republic in America instead of a democracy. Additional important figures associated with the critique of democracy thought include Aristotle, Montesquieu, James Harrington, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Martin Heidegger, Hubert Lagardelle, Charles Maurras, Friedrich Nietzsche, Carl Schmitt, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Oswald Spengler, Nicolás Gómez Dávila, and Elazar Menachem Shach. Leading contemporary thinkers in critical democratic theory include Jürgen Habermas, Robert A. Dahl, Robert E. Goodin, Bernard Manin, Joseph Schumpeter, James S. Fishkin, Ian Shapiro, Jason Brennan, and Hélène Landemore.

Lead section [published edits]
Criticism of democracy is grounded in democracy's contested definition—its purpose, process, and outcomes. Since Classical antiquity and through the modern era, democracy has been associated with "rule of the people," "rule of the majority," and free selection or election either through direct participation or elected representation respectively, but has not been linked to a particular outcome.

Political thinkers approach their critique of democracy from different perspectives. Many do not necessarily oppose democracy—"rule of the people"—but, rather, seek to expand or question its popular definition. In their work, they distinguish between democratic principles that are effectively implemented through undemocratic procedures; undemocratic principles that are implemented through democratic procedures; and variations of the same kind.

For instance, some critics of democracy would agree with Winston Churchill's famous remark, "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." While others, may be more prepared to describe existing democratic regimes as anything but "rule of the people."

Critics of democracy have tried to highlight democracy's inconsistencies, paradoxes, and limits by contrasting it with other forms of governments. They have characterized most modern democracies as democratic polyarchies and democratic aristocracies ; they have identified fascist moments in modern democracies; they have termed the societies produced by modern democracies as neo-feudal; while, yet others, have contrasted democracy with Nazism, anarcho-capitalism, theocracy, and absolute monarchy.

The most widely known critics of democracy include Plato and the authors of the Federalist Papers, who were interested in establishing a republic in America instead of a democracy.

Additional historical figures associated with the critique of democracy thought include Aristotle, Montesquieu, James Harrington, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Martin Heidegger, Hubert Lagardelle, Charles Maurras, Friedrich Nietzsche, Carl Schmitt, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Oswald Spengler, Nicolás Gómez Dávila, and Elazar Menachem Shach.

Leading contemporary thinkers in critical democratic theory include Jürgen Habermas, Robert A. Dahl, Robert E. Goodin, Bernard Manin, Joseph Schumpeter, James S. Fishkin, Ian Shapiro, Jason Brennan, and Hélène Landemore.

Dahl & the spectrum of partially responsive, representative democracies
Paragraph 4:

Robert A. Dahl defines democracies as systems of government that respond nearly fully to each and every one of their citizens. He then poses that no such, fully responsive system exists today. However, this does not mean that partially democratic regimes do not exist—they do. Thus, Dahl rejects a democracy dichotomy in favor of a democratization spectrum. To Dahl, the question is not whether a country is a democracy or not. The question is to what extent a country is experiencing democratization at a national level. Dahl measures this democratization in terms of the country's endorsement and reception of public contestation. And polyarchy, or "rule of the many people," is the only existing form of democratizeable government; that is, it is within polyarchies that democratization can flourish. Countries do not immediately transform from hegemonies and competitive oligarchies into democracies. Instead, a country that adopts democracy as its form of government can only claim to have switched to polyarchy, which is conducive to, but does not guarantee, democratization. Dahl's polyarchy spectrum ends at the point in which a country becomes a full polyarchy at the national level and begins to democratize at the subnational level, among its social and private affairs. Dahl is not deeply concerned about the limits of his polyarchy spectrum because he believes that most countries today still have a long way before they reach full polyarchy status. Whatever lies beyond full polyarchy is only possible, and thus only a concern, for advanced countries like the Western Europe.

Manin & ancient direct democracies versus modern representative republics
Paragraphs 5:"The real difference between ancient democracies and modern republics lies, according to Madison, in 'the total exclusion of the people in their collective capacity from any share in the latter, and not in the total exclusion of the representatives of the people from the administration of the former.""— Manin, p. 2 (See: Madison, 'Federalist 63,' in The Federalist Papers, p. 387; Madison's emphasis.)"Bernard Manin is interested in distinguishing modern representative republics, such as the United States, from ancient direct democracies, such as Athens. Manin believes that both aspire to "rule of the people," but that the nature of modern representative republics lends them to "rule of the aristocratic." Manin explains that in ancient democracies, virtually every citizen had the chance to be selected to populate the government but in modern republics, only elites have the chance of being elected. He does not defend this phenomenon but rather seeks to describe it.

Paragraph 6:

Manin draws from James Harrington, Montesquieu, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau to show that the dominant form of government, representative as opposed to direct, is effectively aristocratic. He proposes that modern representative governments exercise political power through aristocratic elections which, in turn, brings into question democracy's "rule of the people" principle. As far as Montesquieu is concerned, elections favor the "best" citizens who Manin notes tend to be wealthy and upper-class. As far as Rousseau is concerned, elections favor the incumbent government officials or the citizens with the strongest personalities, which results in hereditary aristocracy. Manin further evinces the aristocratic nature of representative governments by contrasting them with the ancient style of selection by lot. Manin notes that Montesquieu believed that lotteries prevent jealousy and distribute offices equally (among citizens from different ranks), while Rousseau believed that lotteries choose indifferently, preventing self-interest and partiality from polluting the citizen's choice (and thus prevent hereditary aristocracy).

Paragraphs 7:

However, Bernard Manin also provides criticism of direct democracy, i.e. selection by lot. Manin reflects on Montesquieu's interrogation of the extent to which Athenian direct democracy was truly direct. Montesquieu finds that citizens who had reason to believe they would be accused as "unworthy of selection" commonly withheld their names from the lottery, thereby making selection by lot vulnerable to self-selection bias and, thus, aristocratic in nature. Manin does not dwell on direct democracy's potentially aristocratic elements, perhaps because he share's Montesquieu's belief that there is nothing alarming about the exclusion of citizens who may be incompetent; this exclusion may be inevitable in any method of selection.

Paragraphs 8:

Additionally, Bernard Manin is interested in explaining the discrepancy between 18th century American and French revolutionaries' declaration of the "equality of all citizens" and their enactment of (aristocratic) elections in their respective democratic experiments. Manin suggests that the discrepancy is explained by the revolutionaries' contemporary preoccupation with one form of equality over another. The revolutionaries prioritized gaining the equal right to consent to their choice of government (even a potentially aristocratic democracy), at the expense of seeking the equal right to be face of that democracy. And it is elections, not lots, that provide citizens with more opportunities to consent. In elections, citizens consent both to the procedure of elections and to the product of the elections (even if they produce the election of elites). In lotteries, citizens consent only to the procedure of lots, but not to the product of the lots (even if they produce election of the average person). That is, if the revolutionaries prioritized consent to be governed over equal opportunity to serve as the government, then their choice of elections over lotteries makes sense.

- Goodin—some undemocratic process establishes the rule of the people (a democracy) but does not define who the people are

' But under what category(ies) do I place my original content? Under "Form" as shown below? '

Form
- Dahl

- Manin

- Goodin

(((((Here is where I become unsure as to whether or not to change this Wiki page's subcategories from what they are now (economic, political, etc.) to something like "purpose, form, or outcomes")))

Rule of the aristocratic
"The real difference between ancient democracies and modern republics lies, according to Madison, in 'the total exclusion of the people in their collective capacity from any share in the latter, and not in the total exclusion of the representatives of the people from the administration of the former.""— Bernard Manin, p. 2 (See: Madison, 'Federalist 63,' in The Federalist Papers, p. 387; Madison's emphasis.)"Bernard Manin is interested in distinguishing modern representative republics, such as the United States, from ancient direct democracies, such as Athens. Manin believes that both aspire to "rule of the people," but that the nature of modern representative republics lends them to "rule of the aristocratic." Manin explains that in ancient democracies, virtually every citizen had the chance to be selected to populate the government but in modern republics, only elites have the chance of being elected. He does not defend this phenomenon but rather seeks to describe it.

Manin draws from James Harrington, Montesquieu, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau to suggest that the dominant form of government, representative as opposed to direct, is effectively aristocratic. He proposes that modern representative governments exercise political power through aristocratic elections which, in turn, brings into question democracy's "rule of the people" principle. As far as Montesquieu is concerned, elections favor the "best" citizens who Manin notes tend to be wealthy and upper-class. As far as Rousseau is concerned, elections favor the incumbent government officials or the citizens with the strongest personalities, which results in hereditary aristocracy. Manin further evinces the aristocratic nature of representative governments by contrasting them with the ancient style of selection by lot. Manin notes that Montesquieu believed that lotteries prevent jealousy and distribute offices equally (among citizens from different ranks), while Rousseau believed that lotteries choose indifferently, preventing self-interest and partiality from polluting the citizen's choice (and thus prevent hereditary aristocracy).

However, Manin also provides criticism of direct democracy, or selection by lot. Manin reflects on Montesquieu's interrogation of the extent to which Athenian direct democracy was truly direct. Montesquieu finds that citizens who had reason to believe they would be accused as "unworthy of selection" commonly withheld their names from the lottery, thereby making selection by lot vulnerable to self-selection bias and, thus, aristocratic in nature. Manin does not dwell on direct democracy's potentially aristocratic elements, perhaps because he share's Montesquieu's belief that there is nothing alarming about the exclusion of citizens who may be incompetent; this exclusion may be inevitable in any method of selection.

Additionally, Manin is interested in explaining the discrepancy between 18th century American and French revolutionaries' declaration of the "equality of all citizens" and their enactment of (aristocratic) elections in their respective democratic experiments. Manin suggests that the discrepancy is explained by the revolutionaries' contemporary preoccupation with one form of equality over another. The revolutionaries prioritized gaining the equal right to consent to their choice of government (even a potentially aristocratic democracy), at the expense of seeking the equal right to be face of that democracy. And it is elections, not lots, that provide citizens with more opportunities to consent. In elections, citizens consent both to the procedure of elections and to the product of the elections (even if they produce the election of elites). In lotteries, citizens consent only to the procedure of lots, but not to the product of the lots (even if they produce election of the average person). That is, if the revolutionaries prioritized consent to be governed over equal opportunity to serve as the government, then their choice of elections over lotteries makes sense.

Partial Responsiveness and Representation
Robert A. Dahl defines democracies as systems of government that respond nearly fully to each and every one of their citizens. He then poses that no such, fully responsive system exists today. However, this does not mean that partially democratic regimes do not exist—they do. Thus, Dahl rejects a democracy dichotomy in favor of a democratization spectrum. To Dahl, the question is not whether a country is a democracy or not. The question is to what extent a country is experiencing democratization at a national level. Dahl measures this democratization in terms of the country's endorsement and reception of public contestation. And polyarchy, or "rule of the many people," is the only existing form of democratizeable government; that is, it is within polyarchies that democratization can flourish. Countries do not immediately transform from hegemonies and competitive oligarchies into democracies. Instead, a country that adopts democracy as its form of government can only claim to have switched to polyarchy, which is conducive to, but does not guarantee, democratization. Dahl's polyarchy spectrum ends at the point in which a country becomes a full polyarchy at the national level and begins to democratize at the subnational level, among its social and private affairs. Dahl is not deeply concerned about the limits of his polyarchy spectrum because he believes that most countries today still have a long way before they reach full polyarchy status. For Dahl, whatever lies beyond full polyarchy is only possible, and thus only a concern, for advanced countries like the Western Europe.

April 22, 2018
I finally finished editing Criticism of democracy! And I think it looks so much better than it did when I first started working on it. It is cleaner, better organized, and more coherent (I edited or removed sections that were scattered in different places throughout the page but that were saying the same thing). I feel good about someone using the page to get an intro to the topic.

April 9, 2018
I moved my draft to the live article yesterday. I trust my changes, but I do think I could have added a more detailed explanation for all of my changes for the Wikipedia community. I will go back and add my thinking soon.

While transferring my draft I also noticed that the live article suffers tremendously from lack of cited references—various paragraphs do not have even one source. I will try to find sources for those paragraphs, or I may also just delete them. It is hard to make the call of whether to improve existing (poor written, old) content or just delete it in favor of having only good (scarce) material on there.

Emerging thoughts on Dahl
As I typed, "Robert A. Dahl defines democracies as systems of government that respond nearly fully to each and every one of their citizens. He then poses that no such, fully responsive system exists today. However, this does not mean that partially democratic regimes do not exist—they do. Thus, Dahl rejects a democracy dichotomy in favor of a democratization spectrum" (above), I realize that Manin fits neatly into Dahl's theory. Of course, no existing government responds completely to all citizens—that is logistically impossible in a direct democracy and theoretically impossible in a representative democracy. However, this removes neither the possibility for a regime to consistently aspire to respond to most of its citizens, nor the potential for a non-government organization or corporation to respond to its members. A democracy spectrum is friendlier tool for measuring and supporting the democratization of systems. Credit can be given where due, and improvements demanded where identified.

March 20, 2018
I am now thinking about the directly and "consensually" governed territories of the U.S., like Puerto Rico, Vieques, Culebra, the Virgin Islands...how do they fit into our democracy?

March 12, 2018
Translating material for Wikipedia's neutral, balanced pages is forcing me to understand some of the course's concepts for better, or so I think. Not being able to use many (long) quotes and having to use simple language has been super challenging, but it is making many things clearer and really embedding them into my head. Tonight, I was able to explain to my physicist/musician boyfriend everything I’ve been thinking about for this class, and he was able to contribute, reinforce, but also challenge my thoughts, even though he hadn’t read everything I had. He raised some great questions about selection by lot:
 * What about the the executive and judiciary? Would they also be drawn by lottery, elected, or appointed by a lottery-drawn Congress?
 * Is there a risk that the military would throw a coup, because they felt that directly selected government officials were illegitimate (i.e. selected by random, didn’t earn their place, are incompetent, etc.)?

Thoughts on Wikipedia
Illustrating Wikipedia sounds complicated. But I think I'll stick with searching for images on https://search.creativecommons.org/ and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page.

Thoughts for final paper maybe
I am adding this sentence to Criticism of democracy "However, Montesquieu also brings into question the extent to which Athenian direct democracy was truly direct. He finds that citizens who had reason to believe they would be accused of "unworthy of selection" commonly withheld their names from the lottery, thereby making selection by lot vulnerable to self-selection bias and, thus, aristocratic in nature. " However, I also wish I could add the following, more opinion/personal connection lines that this observation inspire, but I will probably reserve them for my final analytical paper, if it ends up being about  democracy's limits :

Manin is confused as to why revolutionaries chose representative government over direct government when they founded today's modern democracies. (Manin & the paradox of 18th century American and French revolutionaries: Declaration of equality, enactment of aristocracy.) He finds that direct government is imperfect but indeed superior to representative government  if  that government's goal is equal opportunity to participate in the act of governing. However, the revolutionaries preferred equal opportunity to decide who is governing, and representative government is more supportive of guaranteeing consent than direct government, so elections triumphed. What Manin is not concerned with is including unqualified individuals either in selecting who is governing or in actually governing. Manin, p. 85 Selection by lot: The people (citizens) consent to a procedure Elections: The people (citizens) consent to a procedure and to each particular outcome INTERVENTION by Goodin, p. 43 "Logically, constituting the demos—in the very first instance, at least— cannot itself be a product of ordinary democratic decision making. At later stages we can re constitute the demos in that way," meaning that the people to which the Constitution refers, i.e. the very first USA citizens, did not, in fact, consent to the procedure of elections, they only consented to the particular outcome of whoever were the first representatives (although maybe that is invalidated too?) Manin draws from Montesquieu and Rousseau to show that selection by lot is preferable to (effectively aristocratic) elections. However, Manin, through Montesquieu and Rousseau, also shows that democracies can avoid the "clearly undesirable effects" of lotteries (Manin 79) by either intentionally or unintentionally screening for "notoriously unqualified individuals" (Manin 79). This suggests that Manin, along with Montesquieu and Rousseau, believed in the equal right not of all citizens to populate the government, but in the equal right of good citizens to populate the government, and we know that good citizens are usually just the wealthiest ones.

In Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu claims that "democracy goes with lot and aristocracy with election" is a "constant, universal rule" (Manin 71). Manin unpacks this. Manin reconstructs Montesquieu's criticism of Athen's self-selecting lotteries but confesses that Montesquieu still supported lotteries as democratic and that Montesquieu described elections as aristocratic, even if Montesquieu himself was insensible to election's aristocratic elements. Manin notes that Montesquieu prefers lotteries over elections for democracy because lots prevent jealousy and distribute offices equally (Manin 74). Montesquieu does not care that loterries self-select for people who perceive themselves as "acceptable."

Manin also argues that Rousseau too, in the Social Contract, connects lottery with democracy, and election with aristocracy (Manin 74). Manin notes that Rousseau prefers lotteries over elections for democracy because lots choose indifferently and prevent self-interest and partiality from polluting choice (and thus prevent hereditary aristocracy) (Manin 77). However, Rousseau also fails to consider who is in the lot to begin with.

Neither Montesquieu nor Rousseau like lotteries because they ensure equal access to politics to every member of society. They like lotteries because they are preferable to elections.

 And so it seems like neither Montesquieu, Rousseau, nor Manin see that both direct and representative democracy are inherently undemocratic/they both lend themselves to the political participation of the "good" i.e. wealthy citizens —the former because it is vulnerable to self-selection (potentially unfounded anti-selection by oneself) and the latter because it is aristocratic (selects and self-re-selects for the upper classes)? ' Or do they notice the inherent undemocraticness/inequality and simply not care that both direct and representative democracy choose for those who are perceived as great? (Manin 72) ' That is, maybe neither Montesquieu, Rousseau, nor Manin dwell on direct democracy's potentially aristocratic elements, because they believe that there is nothing alarming about the exclusion of citizens who may be incompetent and instead they believe that this exclusion may be inherent/natural/inevitable in any method of selection.  Alternatively, is it that to be pro-democratic does not mean to be pro-equality, it simply means to be pro-the best, and the pro-the best always end up being the people in the upper classes?  Nice paragraph to back this up, all from Manin, p. 91,

During the founding of modern democracies, "the question of legitimacy very much obscured (or at least relegated to the background) the problem of distributive justice in the allocation of political functions . . . It was the manner in which power was distributed that made the outcome acceptable, whatever it was . . . The difference between the respective distributive effects of lot and election was something that educated leaders, whether conservative or radical, were certainly aware of. Yet it failed to arouse controversy because conservatives were (secretly or not so secretly) quite happy about it, and radicals were too attached to the principle of consent to defend lot." However, Manin doesn't bring attention to the fact that even his distributive justice only has sympathy for those who are not "notoriously unqualified individuals" (Manin 79). The early stages of democracy seem to be concerned with consent and sovereignty of those who are expected to be capable of governing. They do not seem to be concerned with legitimacy among everyone who is actually governed (none of these thinkers conjure the reality of the mass disenfranchisement of slaves and poor whites during the first century of American democracy).

Which is why we need not just lottery, but a deliberative lottery that includes everyone, even those seen as incompetent. In this way, if the lottery chooses a citizen who is perceived as incompetent, then that selected citizen can transform into a competent legislator? But then there emerge the problem of who is in charge of that transformation...

Manin also conjures the Roman principle of Quod omnes tangit, or "What touches all should be considered and approved by all" (Manin 87) and argues that the use of election is compatible with the principle QOT; however, isn't Goodin's "all affected interests" principle more compatible?

Two revelations after reading Manin again:
1) My understanding of the history of the social contract, descending bullet points in chronological order 2) If the USA was founded in pursuit of "the people"'s equal right to consent to power, then why doesn't everyone who is under American power get the right to consent to American power, e.g. undocumented immigrants? I guess this is where Goodin's "Enfranchising All Affected Parties Interests" article comes in in... If the USA is to be consistent with its founding/constitution, then it must get the consent of all affected parties...even if the way of getting that consent is by letting them participate in the inferior method of elections... Of course, the step after enfranchisement for all people (citizens and undocumented immigrants alike) would be to obtain the equal right to populate the government.
 * All historical moments assume a world with unequal distribution of resources and wealth
 * Feudalism/hegemonies/competitive oligarchies: Birth gives legitimacy to the ruling aristocracy
 * Polyarchies/aristocratic democracies: The "good" (which in effect equals wealthy) people give legitimacy to the government, which is populated by the aristocracy
 * Polyarchies/representative democracies: The ""good" (wealthy) people are/populate the government
 * Direct and deliberative democracies: All the people are/populate the government (even if they are "bad, incompetent" people, they can become "good, informed" people through deliberation)
 * OR Eliminate unequal distribution of resources and wealth ---> Direct democracies: All the people are/populate the government (everyone will already be "good" because everyone will have the time and money to be politically involved/informed)

3) If we bring Manin, Dahl and Nagel together, we arrive at this theory of how democracies form:    1. Hegemony or oligarchy (Dahl) 2. Revolution??? 3. Obsession with consent (Manin) 4. Dahl's polyarchy or Nagel's sovereignty (concentration of power in the hands of a the few who will govern) 5. Demand for legitimacy from the governed (Nagel) 6. Reform or revolution (Nagel) 7. Legitimacy / fuller democracy (Nagel, Dahl) (Note: clearly, consent, sovereignty, and legitimacy are different.) Patrice Guéniffey: argues that "selection by lot [requires] political functions [to] be simple and not need any special competence. And [that] for it to be possible to select rulers at random, an equality of circumstances and culture must 'pre-exist among the members of the body politic, in order that the decision may fall on any one of them indifferently'" (Manin 82; See: Guéniffey, Le Nombre et La Raison, p. 123).

March 7, 2018
It is hard to believe that I am finding summarizing harder than analyzing. I have been taking for granted that analyzing takes more time and effort and definitely more of those hard-to-come-by moments of epiphany than summarizing or describing. After all, I have spent college learning how to read with a critical eye, write with a bit of my own voice, and always be in search of a link to contest or a link to make. It has become difficult to put down facts without immediately drawing connections. But for this Wikipedia assignment, I have to stay neutral and objective. I wonder what this will be like, but I imagine that whatever I do produce will benefit greatly from peer-reviewing.

Chosen article
In an effort to have it all—a neutral article and a space to "be critical"—I will try to save the personal thoughts on Criticism of democracy, the article I have assigned myself, for my final analytical paper for this course.

Settling on an article to work on has also been challenging. Generally, I am drawn to the individuals at the peripheries of political systems and theory, i.e. the individuals who don't fit neatly into a hegemonic narrative or ordering but that are there nonetheless. In this course, I have been drawn to the fragility of democracy vis-a-vis mass migration, inequality, climate change, etc. I skimmed through many articles in search of one that could accommodate my interest and really, I think, only Criticism of democracy can.

But back to my original point of concern: neutrality, objectivity. Doing Criticism of democracy, by definition, means that I am only exploring the cons of democracy and assuming that my reader is on this page after having read about the pros in another page. Maybe, a way to balance coverage can be by reconstructing the "pro" that usually fails to consider the particular "con" I am talking about.

Representative government
Bernard Manin's The Principles of Representative Government confirmed for me the truth that the democracies that I know and live in are a fallacy, especially, if not because of, their use of "representation" (whatever that means) as the means of ensuring democratic principles. They are a fallacy in that they are not "rule for the people," and definitely not, "by the people." Rather, the United States for example, is ruled by aberrational citizens and it can be no other way. If it is true that not everyone can feasibly govern, then that means only a few can; and our current approximation to democratic selection of the few privileges those who can distinguish themselves from the rest, i.e. the aberrational ones, and inspire our vote for them. The role of the average citizen, in this case, seems to be no other than choose among a procedurally chosen elite.

I want to bring some of these revelations to Wikipedia. I thought, perhaps representative government is a place for them. However, there is currently no Wikipedia article on representative government and I am not sure I am up for the task of creating one.

Global justice
This may be another appropriate space in which to "neutrally" or "objectively" criticize or de-romanticize democracy as I know it. I could do this by intentionally and explicitly adding a section on the relationship between global justice and democracy—the short answer being that there is no inevitable positive relationship between the two. I feel like many people associate a democracy with "good" things, like global justice. But in reality, democracy on its own, without for example universal human rights, has no reason to result in global justice. I fear, however, that if I add something about the relationship between global justice and democracy, I will have to add something about the relationship between global justice and other forms of government, for the sake of balance in perspectives, and that may be outside the purview of our course.

To be clear, I don't want to push my opinions into a Wikipedia article or persuade a reader to agree with me. Simply, I want to balance the currently available information on democracy with critical perspectives. It is a form of government taken for granted as the best, and it just may well be the best, but this does not mean we can't ponder its limits and gross outcomes. I believe that, ultimately, the more information, the better informed the reader.

Criticism of democracy
This page seems like my best bet. First, somehow, it lacks definitions of democracy (or alternatives names for systems usually identified as democracies). I can change this, by drawing from Manin, but also Dahl, Brennan and Goodin, all of whom are currently excluded from the page. I can also add another topic of interest of mine: the demarcation of the demos. After all, my point of entry to "thinking beyond representative government" was its symptoms of exclusion and disenfranchisement.

Deliberative opinion poll
I added the following line, "Deliberative polls have been tested around the world, including in the European Union, the United States, China, and Australia.

"

United States presidential primary
If the lead section is an overview of the article, then the "United States presidential primary" article does not need to include the following line, "The first state in the United States to hold its presidential primary was New Hampshire in 1920." Up until that line, the first paragraph of the article flows nicely and directly. The historical fact distracts the reader, if not brings them to an unpleasant, abrupt pause. In truth, I wonder if the contributor who added this line was from New Hampshire, or has a bias for or against New Hampshire's role in presidential primaries. That is, I wonder if the line is neutral.

Still, I would say that, overall, the content of the article reads neutral. If there is room for improvement, it is in its structure. Discussion about "front-loading" is included in two different sections of the article, the "History" section and the "Criticisms" section. I would include all information about "front-loading" either in the same paragraph or close to each other and not in sections that are many paragraphs apart.

The references seem appropriate and like they can be traced back to reputable sources. Moreover, the links are relatively up-to-date.

Minor errors include: The source, "Scala" is mispelled in the Notes as, "Sacala." The link to source #32, http://www.gop.com/Images/AllStateSummaries.pdf leads to an error page.