Political Science Democracy Paper (2)

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Political Science

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Oct 30, 2023

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Ethan Varughese Professor M.M Eskandari-Qajar Political Science 101 SBCC Semester 1 9/1/21 CRN 31589 How democratic is America? This politically complex question can be perceived in a variety of different perspectives depending on who you ask. We are provided with three of those contrasting perspectives by Howard Zinn, Sidney Hook, and Kenneth Janda. Howard Zinn effectively answers our question first, by providing ten statement points, by which to measure how democratic something is. Sidney Hook goes on to directly respond to Zinn by writing a rebuttal, disagreeing strongly with his criteria for democracy. The third and final perspective, Kenneth Janda analyzes to what extent the government utilizes public opinion to influence or make a change to our democracy. The first perspective of our democracy comes from political science teacher, philosopher, and author Howard Zinn. Zinn starts by defining the word democracy, to prevent it from receiving lazy definitions such as, “a set of formal institutions” thus making it very easy to state that America is democratic (Zinn 149). Instead, Zinn proposes ten different criteria points, a governing body should meet to be considered democratic. Zinn felt that it was important to include other factors such as economic, social, and psychological elements into his criteria. The first point of Zinn’s criteria is to what degree can constituents participate in the political and economic decisions that will directly affect them (Zinn 149). Zinn argues that because we live in a representative democracy, one where representatives enact policy for their constituents, we do not truly live in a democracy “No representative can adequately represent another’s needs” (Zinn 152). However, he does believe it is an improvement in modern democracy compared to a monarchy. Another important facet of Zinn’s criteria for a democratic government is equality before the law. Zinn argues that in this country, the judicial system treats those who are poor, nonwhite, and politically unorthodox with less representation and/or harsher

sentencing. This is often true and is especially applicable to American politics today, because of the treatment of minorities by police, nationwide protests, and criminal justice reform demanded from constituents over the last year. Finally, the last major point of criteria from Zinn is the distribution of resources. “Democracy is devoid of meaning if it does not include equal access to available resources of the society” (Zinn 158). Zinn argues that there is such a massive wealth differential in America, with the top 5 percent earning 40 percent of our country's income and the bottom fifth only earning 5 percent. Zinn believes that for an incredibly prosperous country, the inequality of resources available is undemocratic. While Howard Zinn takes on a very liberal viewpoint with socialist tendencies, not everyone shares those beliefs. One of the people who oppose Zinn’s liberal viewpoints on democracy is pragmatic conservative and philosopher Sidney Hook. Hook’s article is a direct response to Zinn's belief America is not a democracy, however, he believes that our democracy could use improvement. Hook begins by disagreeing with Zinn’s definition of the word democracy. “He confuses democracy as a political process with a political product or state of welfare” (Hook 164). Hook continues to dismantle Zinn's arguments on democracy in a verbal spar by stating the weaknesses of his argument. Hook claims that it is illogical to measure the democracy of America, by comparing it to an unrealistic society. “To measure our democracy against an ideal (even if inadvertently achievable) standard even if utopian” (Hook 164). Hook argues that the best way to measure improvement in society is by comparing it to the past which completely disagrees with points made earlier by Zinn. The only viewpoint that is shared among both men Zinn and Hook, is that public protest and acts of defiance from constituents are necessary to make a change. The final rebuttal Hook makes, is the topic of representative democracy not being a true democracy. Hook calls it Rousseauistic garbage and claims that if representative democracies are not democratic “All societies that Mr. Zinn ever claimed at any time to be democratic- could possibly exist” (Hook 167). Hook finishes his rebuttal by stating that if America is this horrible, undemocratic country, why do the people choose to stay. The last article, written by political science professor Kenneth Janda, works to

answer the question “ Does the government do what people want? ”. Janda is a centrist with a more fact-based and statistical approach. To help solve this question Janda cites two major studies focused on public opinion’s influence on government policy. One of the studies by Alan Monroe states “Government policy conformed to public opinion on 63 percent of all 327 cases” (Janda 179). Janda states that this number may seem appealing, but if left to chance, the government would conform to public policy 50 percent of the time. The second study cited by Janda, and performed by Shapiro and Page concluded very similar data to the first study. The second study showed that “Policy changes were consistent with opinion changes in 66 percent of cases” (Janda 180). This ties well into current politics in America because many constituents do not believe the government responds to the average public opinion. Janda uses these studies to try to answer his essential question but also implores readers to consider themes such as freedom, order, equality when formulating opinions on democracy. Three different men came up to bat and tried to answer this complex question, all in different ways. Zinn defined the word democracy, provided criteria by which to judge it, and then highlighted the flaws in our democracy. Hook immediately dismantled Zinn’s argument and states that using the democracy of the past is the only way to measure the improvement over the years. Hook, however, agrees with Zinn that civil disobedience is crucial to enacting change. Finally, Janda uses various studies and data to validate whether or not our government is truly a democracy. All three men had differing opinions on democracy, but all agree that improvements to our democracy must be made.

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