Download Civics – Unit 1

Civics – Unit 1
The Beginnings of Democratic
Decision Making
Pannell
Chapter Expectations
You will learn:
 How societies throughout history have made decisions
 How – and where – the idea of democratic decisions
making started
 How – and where – modern ideas about democratic
decision making began to evolve
 How people won the right to participate in the
decision-making process
Key Terms
Authoritarianism
Constitution
Oligarchy
Citizen
Democracy
Republic
Civic conflict
monarchy
totalitarianism
Ways of making decisions
Authoritarian Way
 Total obedience to
the authority of a
single person or
small group
 Individual freedom
does not exist
Democratic Way
 The people control
the process of
making the rules
about how they are
governed
 Greek
demos = people,
kratia = rule
Ways of making decisions cont.
Authoritarian
Governments
Democratic
Governments
Leaders are usually selfappointed
Leaders are elected by
citizens
Leaders cannot usually be
replaced
Leaders’ term in office is
limited. Elections are held at
regular intervals
Citizens cannot question or
speak out against leaders’
actions
Citizens can question and
speak out against leaders’
actions
Roots of Democratic Citizenship
 We were originally
nomadic tribes that
collected into farms,
villages, towns, cities
and then civilizations
 We did not need written
rules since society was
small, and individual
customs were similar
 Everyone understood the
unwritten rules they lived
by
Roots of Democratic
Citizenship
 When we collected in cities
and then civilizations we
shared our space with many
others we did not know, with
different customs
 Merging differing customs led
to civic conflict –
disagreements among people
who live in the same
community
 Conflict arose over land and
property, purchase and sale
or goods and things that
would disturb public peace
We created formal ways
of preventing and
resolving these conflicts.
These rules became laws
Roots of Democratic
Citizenship
 Successful warring cities became vast empires
 Rulers dominated the lives of thousands / millions of
people
Monarchy When the ruler was selected through
hereditary. When a ruler died their eldest (usually
son) child inherited the throne
 Monarchs stayed in power by persuading the people
that their right to rule had been granted by their
god(s)
 Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Mesoamerica……
Ancient Governments –
Monarchy and Divine Right
 China – emperors right to rule
was the “mandate of Heaven”.
Heaven (Chief god) was the
husband of Earth. Emperors
were their sons
 It was the emperor’s duty to
carry out the will of Heaven, not
the will of the people
 This idea of government lasted
thousands of years
T’ai Tsung 626-649 CE
The Evolution of Democracy
Ancient Athens (Greece)
 Originally governed by a single
ruler

Between 700 and 350 BCE some
Greeks gradually won the right to
share in decision making

Polis = public affairs of the city

Greek polis of Athens – cradle of
democracy. Where the idea of
democracy took root

Citizens were expected to
participate actively in the city’s
affairs
Statement of classic democratic
valuse
Ancient Athens cont.
“Funeral Oration”
Our constitution is called a democracy
because power is in the hands not of a
minority but of the whole people. When it
is a question of settling private disputes,
everyone is equal before the law; when it is
a question of putting one person before
another in positions of public
responsibility; what counts is not
membership of a particular class, but the
actual ability which the man possesses. No
one, so long as he has it in him to be of
service to the state, is kept in political
obscurity because of poverty…..
…(In Athens) each individual is interest not
only in his own affairs but in the affairs as
the state as well…
Pericles - Athenian,
lived about
495-429 BCE
Athenian Democracy
 Direct democracy – Every citizen had the right to vote
on decisions affecting the way the city was governed
 Only citizens could participate in the city’s public
affairs – Free adult men born in Athens
 Slaves, women, children and those born outside
Athens's city were protected by Athenian laws yet had
no political rights
 Therefore – most people who lived in Athens had no
political rights – Athenian democracy, a nice ideal!
Ancient Rome

Originally ruled by kings

509 BC, the king was driven out and Rome became a republic.
Rather than being ruled by a hereditary monarchy, people from
rich families took over governing. They were called patricians

Plebs (plebeian) made up everybody else. Although making up
a majority, they had no say in government
Ancient Rome
 494 BCE, demanding a
right to participate in law
making, the Plebs staged
a general strike, vowing
to form a new city
 Plebs’ strategy worked.
They won the right to
form an assembly that
would have some say in
law making
 However the real power
belonged to a separate
assembly – the Senate
Collapse of Rome – Descent into
the Dark Ages

Roman citizenship still
limited to only men living in
Rome – all slaves, women,
country folk are not citizens

Roman democracy would go
full circle

Roman Empire collapse by
410 CE

Western Europe descends
into the Dark Ages

Idea of democracy virtually
snuffed out
Authoritarianism
(dictator)
Democracy
of sorts
Dark and Middle Ages 500-1215 CE
 Europe developed into small medieval city
states – usually had Oligarchy rule
 Eventually city states were absorbed into
larger nations ruled by monarchies
(England, Scotland, France, Spain…)
 Ideas of democracy never truly died. There
were always ideas, talk of democracy and
actions taken to try to win citizen rights
Magna Carta 1215 CE
 Britain – absolute Monarchy
“divine right”
 1215 – group of nobles
forced King John (tyrannical
reigning monarch) to sign a
document that put limits on
his power
 Document – Magna Carta or
Great Charter
 Put the law of the land above
anything else
Magna Carta 1215 CE
Examples:

no free man could be imprisoned
“except by the lawful judgment of his
peers and by the law of the land”

No Forcing widows to remarry

No forcing villagers to build bridges
over rivers

No forcing knights to pay money to
excuse themselves from guarding
castles

No confiscating the horses or carts of
freemen

No helping themselves to firewood that
did not belong to them
Early Parliaments

Established shortly after the signing
of the Magna Carta

Gatherings of representatives of the
people that discussed matters
including law making and taxes

British parliament split in two
1.
House of Lords (those with
inherited titles – lord, duke, earl)
House of Commons (commoners
with no titles)
2.
Note: members of the H of C were not
elected like today, but chosen by a
small wealth elite
Thomas Hobbs 1588-1679
Hobbs believed that ….life without
government was “solitary, poor,
nasty, brutish and short” because
human beings were egotistical and
selfish.
 In order to avoid anarchy , the
people had to surrender freedom
for order
 People gave up doing whatever they
wanted to a ruler in return for order
and stability
John Locke 1632-1704
 Rejected Hobbes dark vision of
human nature
 Father of Liberalism
 liberalism puts the individual
ahead of government.
 Humans were rational, not
aggressive and shared
natural rights
1. life
2. liberty
3. protection of property
John Locke continued
 Believed that a contract existed between citizens and
their rulers
 The people agreed to support and assist the
government and , in turn, the government agreed to
protect and defend their natural rights
 Should a government fail to do this, the citizens had
the right (duty) to overthrow that government
 Locke’s ideas gave way to the age of revolutions
American Revolution 1776
United States declaration of independence
(from Britain) is based in Locke’s ideas
 Thomas Jefferson believed that government
was the instrument of the people and
created a government to ensure the
American people their right to life, liberty
and, in stead of protection of property –
pursuit of happiness
 Job of government is to protect and defend
its citizens rights
French Revolution 1789-1799
 Slogan “Liberty, Fraternity,
Equality”
 Upset about an unfair taxation
system
 French monarchs Louis XVI and
his queen Marie Antoinette
were executed – all nobility fled
into exile
 Established new republic based
on Locke’s ideas
Industrial Revolution 1850

Mass movement of people from the
country to the cities to work in
factories

Gave way to an entirely new class
system. Instead of nobility and
commoners we now have a new class
system
nobility
rich (factory owners),.
Poor (workers)

This new rich class (factory workers)
want access to power in decision
making – government

Also gave way to Marxism
Communist (Russian) Revolution
1917
 Russia – monarchy under
Czar Nicholas
 World War 1
 Vladimir Lenin and his
communist party
overthrow the monarchy.
Monarchy executed by
firing squad
 Attempt to create a
utopian society by
implementing the ideas
of Karl Marx.
 No private ownership
 Everyone was supposed
to be equal
 Slogan “From each
according to his abilities;
to each according to his
needs.”
The Great Depression 1930s
 Prior to depression
governments had a limited
involvement in economics –
laissez faire
 Depression led to the social
welfare state – now
governments have an
obligation to provide for all
citizens
 Unemployment insurance…
Civil Rights movement 1960
 Rights that were
granted to only white
citizens would be
fought for and earned
by African Americans
 Sit-ins and
demonstrations
 Martin Luther King
 Nelson Mandela
 Desmond Tutu