If you had to compare the American Gov't to a Democracy of another nation...

[inyourdreams]

for a pol science paper, which country would you choose and why?

[Felix_Leiter]

China

[sassa]

You cannot really compare it to any other country...no one does shit like the US.

[o-jay®]

Originally posted by inyourdreams

for a pol science, which country would you choose and why?

Well, we're most similar to England, for obvious reasons. There are over 100 democracies in this world though, most being parliamentary democracies.

I suggest you go with the more well known democracies though so you can find more info. Some examples: India, Australia, Canada, Germany.

I think I might go with Germany Inyourdreams being that democracy has only been around 60 or so years, and they have proven to be one of the most successful democracies in the shortest amount of time. I'd be interested to see how their 60 year old system compares with our 200 year old system. Just my thought.

-Juice

[inyourdreams]

Originally posted by sassa

You cannot really compare it to any other country...no one does shit like the US.

Well I'm gonna have to compare it according to my Pol Science professor...

[breaksny]

Well, I was a polisci major in college. I'll tell you this much, if you wanna compare opposites, than pick a country like China, North Korea, or Iraq. There really isn't much democracy (in the Western sense of the word anyway) in any of those nations, especially the latter 2. If you wanna paper where you'd probably have more to talk about since there's more in common and therefore fewer, but more subtle differences and possibly interesting differences, pick an industrialized country like somewhere in Europe, Japan, or some of the East Asian countries. In the same vein, if you wanna pick a poor country, then pick somewhere where democracy has a long history like India, Botswana, or one of the newly democratic countries like Poland, South Africa, Chile, or Thailand.

The bottom line is, it really depends on what parts of democracy you're looking to compare. Maybe if you pick a specific topic like human rights, the welfare/social services system, elections, the legal system or some such thing, that'll help you. One other thing, write about whatever country or topic interests you since that'll probably help you write the best paper you can write since it'll be something you'll wanna be working on. Good luck.

[inyourdreams]

See the problem is that I'm having trouble on picking a country, the topic is "Compare the US Democracy to that of another nation"

I looked information up on Australia and it seems that they have a similiar gov't to the US, so I'm probably gonna stick to that one

I can basically anything about it, like I can either choose a particular thing about it or I can do an overview which is most likely what I'm going to do...

Do you have any input on Australia??

Thanks for all your help

[breaksny]

Australia's a good choice. As one of the earlier posters said about England, America probably shares more with countries like Canada, England, and Australia than almost any other. And there'll also be alot of info available to you published in English, for obvious reasons. You should start with books, newspapers, and magazines from there I guess. And obviously for the US, you can start with papers like the NY Times and whatever slse you want. I mean one topic you could consider is immigration policy since Australia's been in the news recently (@ least on the bbc) for some prison riots in immigrant detention centers over the last couple weeks, and immigration is certainly a hot political issue in America too (especially since 9/11). Elections would also be a good topic since Australia just had its last general election a few weeks ago, and the American 2000 election is obviously pretty famous historically, and didn't happen that long ago. Just a couple thoughts anyway.

[tribal]

You cannot really compare it to any other country...no one does shit like the US.

i agree. we do shit better than anyone else in terms of govt structure, efficiency, military technology and business opportunity (except maybe Switzerland). the closest system to ours is probably Japan and Israel, with the Japanese Diet and Israeli Knesset being somewhat like Congress.

[kjlive]

I'm no authority on any of this, but...

I think you might have a relatively easy time comparing the US democracy to that of ancient Rome, as strange as that might sound, for the following reasons:

1. Both republics divided their democracies into executive, judicial, and legislative branches. Balance of power kept both running smoothly.

2. Both had elements of a mixed government system. In other words, the governments had a little bit of oligarchy (judicial), monarchy (executive), and representative democracy (legislative).

3. Each democracy did well to accomodate an ever expanding and changing populace, made up of different cultures (think of how big the Roman Empire was before its fall and how many different cultures are subsumed by the American democracy).

4. There is a clearly defined lineage of philosophy of government that links ancient political thought of Greece and Rome to our current system.

You can find info on Rome in many places, I'm sure, so it wouldn't be that difficult to track down the specifics for your research. Of course there are some obvious and important differences between these two democracies, but taking a country's democracy from another era might give you an interesting and unique spin on your paper.

Good luck and I hope this helps.

kjlive

[LavenderMenace]

Originally posted by kjlive

I'm no authority on any of this, but...

I think you might have a relatively easy time comparing the US democracy to that of ancient Rome, as strange as that might sound, for the following reasons:

1. Both republics divided their democracies into executive, judicial, and legislative branches. Balance of power kept both running smoothly.

2. Both had elements of a mixed government system. In other words, the governments had a little bit of oligarchy (judicial), monarchy (executive), and representative democracy (legislative).

3. Each democracy did well to accomodate an ever expanding and changing populace, made up of different cultures (think of how big the Roman Empire was before its fall and how many different cultures are subsumed by the American democracy).

4. There is a clearly defined lineage of philosophy of government that links ancient political thought of Greece and Rome to our current system.

You can find info on Rome in many places, I'm sure, so it wouldn't be that difficult to track down the specifics for your research. Of course there are some obvious and important differences between these two democracies, but taking a country's democracy from another era might give you an interesting and unique spin on your paper.

Good luck and I hope this helps.

kjlive

OMFG. Was that a kj SIGHTING???