differences between democracy and autocracy
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Summarize the differences between democracy and autocracy?
In two paragraphs respond to the prompt above. Do not plagiarize and include one source to support response.
When done with those two paragraphs respond to the students response below in one paragraph.
 Democracy and autocracy are two common ways of organizing power in a government in order to run a state and provide for the people in it. Their most essential difference is in whether or not power is shared. Democracy is basically defined as a government in which the people share decision making power. Most modern democracies are representative, so people vote for politicians who they expect to make decisions they agree with as they run the government. As a social studies teacher, I have seen how much Americans love to speak loftily about democracy without actually talking about the mechanics of government. They associate democracy with being “one of the greatest countries” and having “freedom of choice in how to live.” I have also heard endless discussions of democracy being equivalent to freedom, rights, and security.
Democracy is certainly an effective way to get the people to consent to be governed, but it does not mean you can do whatever you want, nor does it mean the state will do everything you want. Shively describes the “democratic bargain”-- “an agreement among...all other groups to take their chances on the outcome of a process of policymaking,” and “each group accepts that it must abide by the end result and hopes that it will be able to get enough of what it wants out of the process” (145). The big appeal of democracy is that it grants citizens a voice, but it also requires people to be good losers and compromisers, which they often aren’t.
In an authoritarian system, “those who hold power in the government are not formally responsible...to the broad citizenry of the state” (Shivley 156). Instead, authoritarian leaders gain their power and legitimacy in the public eye from their place in a religious or military organization, a royal family, or a single all-powerful political party. Shively explains that both authoritarian governments and democratic ones can lead to economic well being, and both forms are often supported by the public, at least at first. Researchers at Northwestern University concluded that democracy’s biggest advantage over authoritarianism is flexibility. A democracy is better able to pivot when a country is changed by some major event, while authoritarian governments usually require a coup to do anything significantly differently.
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