Tyranny of the majorityThe tyranny of the majority (or tyranny of the masses) is an inherent weakness to majority rule in which the majority of an electorate pursues exclusively its own objectives at the expense of those of the minority factions. This results in oppression of minority groups comparable to that of a tyrant or despot, argued John Stuart Mill in his 1859 book On Liberty. The scenarios in which tyranny perception occurs are very specific, involving a sort of distortion of democracy preconditions: Centralization excess: when the centralized power of a federation make a decision that should be local, breaking with the commitment to the subsidiarity principle.
Democracy in AmericaDe La Démocratie en Amérique (dəla demɔkʁasi ɑ̃n‿ameˈʁik; published in two volumes, the first in 1835 and the second in 1840) is a classic French text by Alexis de Tocqueville. Its title literally translates to Democracy in America. In the book, Tocqueville examines the democratic revolution that he believed had been occurring over the previous several hundred years. In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont were sent by the French government to study the American prison system.
EliteIn political and sociological theory, the elite (élite, from eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. Defined by the Cambridge Dictionary, the "elite" are "those people or organizations that are considered the best or most powerful compared to others of a similar type." American sociologist C. Wright Mills states that members of the elite accept their fellows' position of importance in society.
Liberty (1881–1908)Liberty was a 19th-century anarchist market socialist and libertarian socialist periodical published in the United States by Benjamin Tucker from August 1881 to April 1908. It was instrumental in developing and formalizing the American individualist anarchist market socialist philosophy, publishing essays and serving as a format for debate. Contributors included Tucker, Lysander Spooner, Auberon Herbert, Dyer Lum, Joshua K. Ingalls, John Henry Mackay, Victor Yarros, Wordsworth Donisthorpe, James L. Walker, J.
RechtsstaatRechtsstaat (lit. "state of law"; "legal state") is a doctrine in continental European legal thinking, originating in Dutch and German jurisprudence. It can be translated into English as "rule of law", alternatively "legal state", state of law, "state of justice", or "state based on justice and integrity". A Rechtsstaat is a constitutional state in which the exercise of governmental power is constrained by the law. It is closely related to "constitutionalism" while is often tied to the Anglo-American concept of the rule of law, but differs from it in also emphasizing what is just (i.
Non-interventionismNon-interventionism or non-intervention is a political philosophy or national foreign policy doctrine that opposes interference in the domestic politics and affairs of other countries but, in contrast to isolationism, is not necessarily opposed to international commitments in general. A 1915 definition is that non-interventionism is a policy characterized by the absence of "interference by a state or states in the external affairs of another state without its consent, or in its internal affairs with or without its consent".
Michael SandelMichael Joseph Sandel (sænˈdɛl; born March 5, 1953) is an American political philosopher and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government Theory at Harvard Law School, where his course Justice was the university's first course to be made freely available online and on television. It has been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world, including in China, where Sandel was named the 2011's "most influential foreign figure of the year" (China Newsweek).
Equality of outcomeEquality of outcome, equality of condition, or equality of results is a political concept which is central to some political ideologies and is used in some political discourse, often in contrast to the term equality of opportunity. It describes a state in which all people have approximately the same material wealth and income, or in which the general economic conditions of everyone's lives are alike.
Original positionThe original position (OP), often referred to as the veil of ignorance, is a thought experiment used for reasoning about the principles that should structure a society based on mutual dependence. The phrases original position and veil of ignorance were coined by the American philosopher John Rawls, but the thought experiment itself was developed by William Vickrey and John Harsanyi in earlier writings.
