Gateway Lectures — 2007: Democracy
CHFY 10 - Professor John Medearis, Political Science Professor and Recipient of the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize, Harvard University Press, 2000, for Joseph Schumpeter's Two Theories of Democracy (2001)
What is the core value of democracy — participation or deliberation, or something else? Should democracy be extended to the workplace or to international institutions? Must democracy be just a dressed-up form of elite rule? From a term of derision or ridicule in the 17th century, democracy has become the universal label to which all states and movements aspire. We have grown up in the age of democracy, in which everyone claims to be a democrat, and in which democratic transitions have been almost commonplace. Yet it is not at all clear what democracy is or should be. This course will explore the questions above and more issues related to the riddle of democracy.