AmericanDemocracy and dream.docVIP

 Is US democracy the best brand for the world? Randall Frost When the United States emerged from the British colonial system 200 years ago, it pretty much stood alone as a symbol of modern democracy. But today more than 20 countries have been steadily democratic for at least 50 years, and many of these countries-having had the benefit of Americas experience to draw upon, are arguably more democratic than the U.S. In How Democratic Is the American Constitution? (Yale, 2002), for example, the eminent U.S. political scientist Robert A. Dahl ranked his country near the bottom or in the middle on fourteen of fifteen measures of democratic effectiveness when compared with other established democracies.? So just how robust is U.S. democracy and should it be a model for emerging democracies? Studies have found that sizeable numbers of Americans have lost trust in their government, or feel that their political system does not represent them in any meaningful way. A poll conducted in 2002, for example, found that only 33 percent of Americans thought their government was run for the benefit of all, as opposed to the benefit of special interests.? In 1996, millions of U.S. voters opted not to go to the polls because they didnt like their choices or because they felt their choices didnt matter. The uncast ballots that year dwarfed Bill Clintons margin of victory. The nationwide turnout of eligible voters in the next U.S. Presidential election, four years later, was only 50 percent - half of those eligible to vote did not bother to cast ballots.? And while voter turnout was up slightly in 2004 at 60 percent - it was still far short of the 80 percent typical of most other established democratic countries.? In his classic work, The Semisovereign People: A Realists View of Democracy in America (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960), the late E. E. Schattschneider defined democracy as a competitive political system in which competing leaders and organizations define the alternative