Filtering by
- All Subjects: Democracy
- Creators: School of Politics and Global Studies
- Creators: Simhony, Avital
The right to cast a meaningful vote, equal in value to other votes, is a fundamental tenet US elections. Despite the 1964 Supreme Court decision formally establishing the one person, one vote principle as a legal requirement of elections, our democracy consistently falls short of it. With mechanisms including the winner-take-all format in the Electoral College, disproportioned geographic allocation of senators, extreme partisan gerrymandering in the House of Representatives, and first-past-the-post elections, many voters experience severe vote dilution. <br/><br/>In order to legitimize our democratic structures, American elections should be reformed so every person’s vote has equal weight, ensuring that the election outcomes reflect the will of the people. Altering the current election structure to include more proportional structures including rank choice voting and population-based representation, will result in a democracy more compatible with the one person, one vote principle.
Since the global financial crisis of 2007-8, interest in worker-cooperatives and alternative forms of organization has surged. Mondragon, located in the Basque region of Spain, represents the largest federation of worker-cooperatives around the world, consisting of 98 cooperatives and 143 subsidiaries, which earned a total revenue of $14.5 billion in 2019. While previous attempts to establish a similar model have historically reached limited success, Mondragon has achieved a unique balance of remaining economically viable, on the one hand, and staying true to its founding principles of democratic governance, on the other. This paper sets out to analyze the democratic structure and the cooperative culture at the heart of the Mondragon model, as well as the new type of human relationship that it fosters. In particular, this relationship is one in which individual well-being is bound up with communal well-being that avoids the antagonistic clash between the capital and labor.
The right to vote is widely considered as one of the fundamental pillars of a democratic society. Throughout the history of the United States, this pillar has gradually grown in strength as voting has become a far more inclusive and accessible exertion of political power and expression of political will. Currently in the United States, for the first time in decades, that pillar is slowly yet steadily eroding. There is a narrative, one that has been cultivated and carefully constructed for centuries, that the United States is a bastion of democracy. Although various groups have been oppressed and excluded from the voting franchise historically, the narrative promotes the idea that the right to vote is now fully enjoyed. But what does “the right” to vote really mean? Additionally, is the narrative that the United States is a true democracy with robust voter protections a reality, or is it a deceptive tactic meant to shroud the fact that voter power is undeniably waning?
This paper challenges that narrative, as well as argues that having “the right” to vote is hollow. The power of voters has always been diluted by the blanket exclusion of certain groups. Currently, however, the power of voters is being diluted by various forms of political, legal, and financial manipulation. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, and big money all contribute to the distortion and destruction of democracy in the United States, preventing it from fully realizing the ideals that have, ostensibly, guided it since its inception. This paper will examine each of these forms in terms of their history, their implementation, and their effects and consequences on voter power, as well as their influence on democracy in the United States as a whole. Additionally, this paper analyzes the potential solutions to these pernicious forms of voter dilution, seeking to discover if democracy in the United States can avoid becoming unrecognizable from the narrative that has supported it for centuries.