Lesson video

(indistinct) My name is Ms. Tamasi and I'm gonna be working for a review on your citizenship lesson today.

So, cool, let's get started.

So, our lesson today is what is democracy? And that's part of the unit on the strengths and weaknesses of the democrat system in the UK.

Hopefully by the end, you're gonna be able to explain what a democracy is and describe the key features of a democracy.

Right.

Let's get started.

Here's our keywords.

So, you'll see these through the lesson.

They're gonna be in bold.

We've got democracy, which is a system of government in which citizens vote in regular, fair elections for representatives who then make laws and decisions on their behalf.

The democracy index, an index measuring the quality of democracy across the world.

Active citizenship.

So, the process of learning how to take part in democracy and use citizenship knowledge, skills, and understanding to work together and try to make a positive difference in the world.

Our first lesson outline we're gonna go through is how do we define democracy? So, democracy actually derives from the Greek words, and them two Greek words are demos, which is common people, and Kratos, which is rules.

So, they come together and they form rule by the people.

With that in mind, what do you think democracy might be about? It's that system of government in which citizens vote in regular, fair elections for representatives who make the law and decisions on their behalf.

It is evolved over time.

You'll see the timeline here.

So, we've got the beginning from ancient Greece, which we are going for 431 BC all the way up to modern day.

We've got the Middle Ages in there in the Enlightenment era.

We're gonna go through them now in the session.

So, here, we've got ancient Greece.

There's your image there of it.

This is one of the earliest examples of democracy.

And as we said earlier, this is going back to 431 BC.

This was not only the start of democracy, but what we call direct democracy.

There's no longer a single ruler in charge of the laws and important decisions.

Actually, the people and specifically the male citizens of Athens have started to take an active role.

And when we say direct democracy, we're saying that they actually get to decide on the outcome, whether that's through a vote or a referendum.

With ancient Greece though, obviously, when we are thinking back to things and they start, it's never the kind of the perfect ending.

I mean, with democracy, it's always evolving anyway.

But if we're going right back to the start, there was some flaws in this democracy.

If you think of flaws, have you heard of that term before? If you think maybe if there's any problems or issues with something, that's what we're saying when we are saying a flawed democracy.

So, yes, it's a democratic system, but there might be some tweaks that needed in it.

In this case, in ancient Greece, it wasn't an inclusive system, so it was only a specific part of the population that were involved.

So, in this case, the women, enslaved people, and those who didn't own land could not vote.

So, other examples in flawed democracy, maybe there might be problems in the governance, low political culture or participation or issues with the free press.

True or false, ancient Greece was a flawed democracy.

That is true.

So, as we were saying about what a flawed democracy is, there were issues in it.

It was not inclusive.

There was only certain people that were allowed to form part of that democracy, therefore it's flawed.

So, moving on, we've got this image here.

You might have seen this maybe in history, also possibly in other citizenship lessons at all.

But this here, we are looking at the Middle Ages and in the Middle Ages, big thing happened in 1215, which was a Magna Carta.

If you haven't heard of Magna Carta, it was the beginning of laws and it was signed, so that the king and the government were not above the law.

It meant that everyone was held accountable and colluding the monarchs and gave barrons and landowners a greater voice.

I suppose this was the start of the rule of law.

And in the case here, King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta, giving more voice to the people.

Again, in history, if you've studied that, you might have come across the Enlightenment era.

In this area? In this era, we've got a lot of philosophers that began to question the authority of the government.

And some of them, such as John Locke, they were looking at the social contracts and they believed that more rules should be given to the people.

So, this ended up in revolutions, with what Sofia here is saying, a revolution is a forceful change of government or social structure to establish a new system.

And actually, these revolutions that happened across different countries such as France and America, Haiti, resulted in some key features of the democracy we have today, such as separation of power.

When we say separation of power, what we're saying is that we haven't just got one person.

If we separate things out, we are passing it onto other people.

And along with that also came freedom of speech.

So, that was the Enlightenment era.

True or false, democracy has stayed the same over time.

This is false.

Why? It's evolved over time.

It's become more inclusive and it's includes some key features such as protecting human rights such as the freedom of speech that we saw there in the Enlightenment era.

Modern day democracy is a system of government where citizens can vote in regular, fair elections, and for representatives who then make laws decisions on their behalf.

This again, is relevant to the UK.

The aims of democracy include the promotion of rights and freedoms, equality, justice, good governance, peace.

So, quick check for understanding.

Which of the following are part of the democracy? Is it A, citizens help to decide important decisions? B, the monarch decides all important decisions themselves? Or C, the ruler decides all important decisions themselves? It is the citizen.

So, we are going to move on to a task.

We've got Lucas and Sam and they've been discussing which aim of democracy is most important in a democracy today.

You've got Lucas there.

He's saying that the ancient Greeks did not show equality in their democracy, and he believes this is really important in democracy today.

Whereas we've got Sam who's saying that the Magna Carta meant there was justice and rule of law, so nobody, even the king, could be above the law, and that's the most important factor today.

So, for you to decide who you agree with more and explain why you believe this aim is the most important.

If you just take some time, and then we'll come back and we can feedback on it.

(object thuds) So, bit of feedback there.

If you agreed with Lucas, you could have had something like equality is important in modern day democracy.

This is because we need to make sure everyone's voices are heard and include people from all backgrounds to promote change in their laws.

Whereas if you agreed with Sam, you could have said something along that citizens must trust their leaders.

They know they could be held accountable just like everyone else.

And that encourages greater democratic participation and trust.

So, that brings us to the end of that section and we're gonna move on to the next outline, which is what the key features of a democracy.

We have here an image.

This is the democracy index, and this is for 2023.

They get updated each year and it looks at democracy across the world.

So, like we were saying, democracy's evolved over time.

It's also evolves across the world.

It's not the same in every place.

And there's different types of democracy as well.

There's not just everyone follows the exact same thing, each country does things slightly differently, but what this index does is it states how democratic each country is.

So, with that in mind, what do you think the different colours might mean here? We've obviously got darker shades of blue all the way up to really dark shades of red.

Yeah, what might that be about? So, the different colours show how democratic the country is.

The darker shades of blue are what we call the full democracies.

And a full democracy is somewhere that's got free and fair elections, basics of all liberties are respected, and there's limited problems. So, this is like, this is the top range in terms of democracy of how democratic a country is.

So, if someone says, oh yeah, that country's really democratic, then it is more likely to fall into a full democracy.

Then, you've got flawed democracy, which is what we looked at earlier with ancient Greece.

And this is where there might be some kind of problems or weaknesses in the governance, the low political culture or participation.

You have a hybrid regime.

So, hybrid, you've heard of that.

Obviously it's kind of a democracy and it's kind of not.

So, in this, they might have elections, but they might not be free and fair.

The weaknesses are a lot more, like you can see that there's weaknesses there.

Rather than an a flawed democracy, there might be a weak rule of law or corruption.

So, there's some parts to a democracy there.

However, they're still not fair in how or consistent in how it's run.

The fourth one you've got is the authoritarian regime.

And in this, there's limited political freedom.

A single group is in charge of the country and the elections are not free and fair.

You might hear people use the word like a dictatorship.

This would more likely fall under a authoritarian regime.

So, which type of democracy is missing from this list? We got full democracy, hybrid regime, and authoritarian regime.

It is flawed democracy that is missing.

Obviously, we talked about the colours earlier.

So, to give context, a full democracy is dark blue to kind of like the middle shade of blue.

And they are scoring eight or above on the democracy index.

The democracy index, like we were saying earlier, not only democracy is different across the world, but it includes various different things.

Yeah.

So, to come up with these scores, they look at five different indicators, which is civil liberties, electoral process, the function of the government, political participation, and political culture in the country.

And then, they use each of them to create this overall score.

So, then, you've got your flawed democracies.

Flawed democracies is scoring from 6 to 7.

99, and they're your lighter blue.

So, you can see them there dotted across the world.

And then, if you want the example, obviously like we said, ancient Greece was a example of a flawed democracy.

Our hybrid regimes, they're going into the yellows.

The yellow colours there, which are a lot, a lot fewer, but they're obviously sharing between a democracy and an authoritarian regime.

And then, the red is the authoritarian regime.

So, that's naught score of naught to 3.

99.

And that's goes from your dark red up to your yellowy orange colour there.

(sniffles) And obviously, the authoritarian regime is where there's limited political freedom and a single group tends to be in charge of the country.

What score does a full democracy have on the democracy index? So, A, naught to 3.

99.

B, 4 to 5.

99.

C, 6 to 7.

99.

Or D, 8 to 10.

It is 8 to 10.

So, as I said earlier, testing a bit of your geography skills here.

Do you know what that country is there? Groups.

So, that's us here.

That's it here in the UK.

In 2023, their score was 8.

3.

So, just having a quick think, what type of democracy would that make the UK? It is an example of a full democracy.

The reason the UK is seen as a full democracy is because we've got a multi-party system.

And when we're saying a multi-party system, you've got lots of different political parties, you've got elections that run at least every five years.

So, there's always a chance for change.

There's a separation of powers.

So, like when I was saying the democracy index is made up of the five different indicators, these are some of them.

So, this is how the UK would then score quite highly, because it's not just the leader in charge or the political party in charge.

We've got the monarch, we've got Parliament, and we've got government.

Then, we've also got the courts that are completely independent and separate.

So, it means that at each stage, everyone can be held accountable.

There's a lot of opportunity for political participation in the UK.

If you're thinking, you've probably likely seen people promoting change, whether it might be through the media, maybe protests, there's always a chance for citizens to express their opinions, always a chance to scrutinise the government and can campaign without the fear of being punished.

There are places across the world where people can't do that.

So, it's not something to be taken for granted.

Another little quick geography test.

Do you know this country here? It's a lot larger country over in Asia.

That's China.

And in 2023, their score was 2.

1.

So, again, if we're thinking back to the democracy index, where do you think China lies? What type of regime is this? So, it's an authoritarian regime.

The reason China is seen as an authoritarian regime is because they have got different political parties, but there's only one party that's in control.

So, when it comes to actually making change, there is only one party that's able to do that.

Whereas obviously in the UK, other parties can still vote in the House of Commons, they can still put ideas, they can still bounce back with laws, et cetera, and scrutinise the government.

This is the difference in China that that can't be done.

The media is controlled and censored.

Yeah, so when we say censored, parts of the media might be blocked or only certain things may be allowed through, which again, leads to it being so democratic because you haven't got all the voices and people aren't getting that kind of shared information.

Citizens can only vote for the lowest level of government.

So, they have different levels, and at the lowest level, citizens can vote.

However, if in the UK, you wanted to go run as a member of Parliament, anyone's free to do that.

You can even be an independent candidate.

You don't need to be affiliated to a political party.

However, in China, in order even just to run that, that lowest level, you would still have to be approved by the party in charge.

So, although there is some kind of democratic features there, there's still a lot of control and that's why it's seen as an authoritarian regime.

So, true or false, China is considered more democratic than the UK according to the democracy index.

That is false.

Why? Obviously, the UK has a higher score, so it is in that dark blue colour, which means it is more democratic according to the index.

So, if we're looking at the key features, there are six key features to a democracy and these are touched upon within the democracy index.

And then, we'll explain them further here.

So, we start with free and fair elections.

You've got the multi-party system, protection of human rights, active citizenship, rule of law, separation of powers.

We will go through each of them.

Obviously active citizenship's one of the key words.

So, this is the process of learning how to take part in a democracy and use citizenship knowledge, skills, and understanding to work together and try to make a difference in the world.

If we start with free and fair elections, we touched upon it a little bit, so hopefully you've got a bit of an idea.

But the idea is that in a democracy, they reflect the free expression of the people, and this is by making sure they're held regularly.

Obviously, if you only hold it once and then you never change it again, you are gonna have a different crowd of people, different citizens who then wouldn't have taken part in an election.

So, by holding them regularly, it allows that constant kind of change and free expression for the people.

Ensuring it's a secret ballot.

I guess sometimes, if you think of situations where you might have been said, asked your opinion on someone or something, it could be quite awkward if you had to do it in front of everyone.

So, by having it in secret, it means that people maybe can't sway your vote and you can feel free to actually express what you want.

Then, we've got universal suffrage.

That word suffrage, you might have heard actually.

Have you heard about the suffragettes and the work that was done to get the rights and the vote for women? This is where it comes from.

So, this universal suffrage is this idea of as many people as possible being able to vote.

So, we are not specifying certain criteria except during voting.

Yeah, so then there's a majority rule.

There's no point giving everyone the chance to a free and fair election and then saying, oh, okay, yeah, but we are gonna pick the person that got 1% of the votes.

So, it's that idea that hopefully, the most of the people that asked for a certain party or person, et cetera, candidate, they get that.

Obviously there, I explained it already, but we've got universal suffrage, so it's that getting the right for as many people as possible within the government's law.

So, how many different key features are there of a democracy? Is it A, four, B, five, or C, six? It is six.

So, we've gone through a couple of them.

We're gonna carry on now with the others.

We've got the multi-party system.

Again, I spoke a little bit about it earlier.

Can you remember anything about it? It's the idea that we've got multiple parties.

Yeah, so there's more than one people that you can vote for.

And by doing that, it gives citizens choice.

There's one person, there's no choice.

It allows scrutiny, because again, if we've just got one person, where's the disagreement there? So, that other side offers the disagreement.

Or sides, there could be loads.

It offers citizens limitation of power, so that one person hasn't got all the control, we can offer power to lots of different people and for different things.

So, we've got Andeep saying, how many parties are there in the UK Parliament? Alex says, in 2024, there were 14 different parties and 14 MPs who were registered as independent candidates in the UK Parliament.

So, this is saying actually, the people that were actually elected as well.

So, within that, we've got 14 different parties and we've got people that are just registered as independent candidates.

So, they're not affiliated with anyone specifically, which obviously offers a lot of choice.

Protection of human rights.

So, the idea that a strong democracy is aimed to protect the interests of people, such as through freedom of speech, by offering choice, we're allowing lots of different people to have lots of different opinions.

Freedom association and individual and minority rights.

So, again, by having all the different parties, by having that option for people to be independent, et cetera, we've got lots of different voices that can be represented and lots of different voices that can be heard.

Active citizenship.

So, do you remember what you were saying about that? That idea that can promote change, et cetera.

Obviously, this is essential to a democracy because it offers to the people they can engage, it means they can participate and it means they can have a voice.

Whether that's, it could be the protest, it could be the campaigning, you can join a political party.

There's options to advocate lobbying in Parliament.

So, there's lots of different things that can be done.

And at the end of the day, that then helps to promote the change, et cetera, in a democracy.

So, if we go back to actually what a democracy was, it was that rule by the common people.

So, active citizenship is an essential part of that, because that's what part that is offering the people that kind of rule and say in it.

Which leads us onto the rule of law.

So, that is that no one is above the law.

In a democracy with rule of law, it is meaning that the laws are clear, evenly apply.

So, it's not just a case of, oh, we've got this law, but it doesn't apply to X, Y, Z.

And it means that the citizens are protected from the abuse of power as well.

So, again, it goes back to that protection of the citizens.

It allows citizens to be active as well, because we know that everyone would be treated equally and the same for that.

The final key feature of democracy is this separation of powers.

And as we were saying, we've got power.

By separating it, we are dividing it to different people.

Just out of interest, if you think in the UK, do you know how the power is separated? We have these three different areas.

We've got legislative, executive, and judiciary.

This separation makes sure there's scrutiny, so it makes sure that they can scrutinise each other as well.

And it makes sure that people are held accountable.

So, if someone's not doing what they've said they should, we've got these other areas that can sort that out, which then obviously helps to keep that check and that balance.

So, the legislative is Parliament.

So, that is our laws, that's our side.

In terms of Parliament in itself, obviously there, we've got a separation there, because it's made up of three parts.

Any ideas of what they are? You might seen these before.

So, we've got the House of Commons, House of Lords, and the monarch.

The executive is in the government.

And if you're thinking of the elected part, they sit in the House of Commons, obviously responsible for running the country.

And then, the judiciary.

So, think judge, the words linking.

Obviously, they're looking at the judges, et cetera, and the kind of the court system there.

Which of these are key features of a democracy? Is it protection of human rights, active participation of citizens, or separation of power? A little bit of a trick one there.

It is all three of them.

So, yeah, I mean, we've gone over 'em and they are all really important.

So, that moves us onto our next task.

If you could, try to design your own mini democratic community.

Now, it doesn't matter where this is.

If you've got a club you're part of, maybe even in your household, it could be at school, but the main kind of focus is if you could add an explanation to show how you encourage them six features that we've already looked at.

So, in your own democratic community, how are you having free and fair elections, a multi-party system, protection of human rights, active participation of citizens, rule of law, and separation of power? Sofia is part of the school council and she says, I will look at how we can structure our school to give students more of a voice.

So, have a little think and then you can design it, and then come back and we can go through them.

So, hopefully again, gave you a little bit of a chance to be a little bit creative there.

Now, obviously, I've given you a written example here, but you could have done this in any shape or form, you could have drawn it, et cetera.

You could have made something.

That is totally up to you.

It's just about getting them ideas of how you've shown them features.

So, here, Sofia says, she thinks that we should have elections at the start of every year and make sure pupils in every class get to elect a candidate to represent them.

Pupils will be able to vote in secret.

We'll let pupils choose if they want to be involved and if they wanna vote, no one will be forced to do anything.

So, we protect their human rights.

Our school council will work together with the staff, and at meetings, we'll make sure that the school staff are held accountable.

We'll listen to the pupils and put in place what they would like.

And there will be different department and departments and roles like an afterschool club committee to look at the different areas in school.

Now, as I said, you could have gone along any of them lines, but it's really just the key of looking at how are you allowing the people within that community to have a say and to be involved? So, if you've done that, brilliant, and I'm sure we've got some really creative designs there.

Now, that brings us to a end.

So, just to summarise some of the kind of key points that we've looked at today.

Democracy has changed and evolved over time.

The democracy index shows what democracy looks like across the world.

And we've got them six key features, which include free and fair elections, multi-party system, protection of human rights, active participation of citizens, rule of law, and separation of power.

So, thank you for working with me today and hopefully you've learned a little bit about what democracy is.