Democracy and Politics

Democracy and Politics
This topic is relevant in this era especially after the recent two major world occurrences that were spearheaded by politics and elections, the first being Brexit and the other being election of an outsider as the president of the United States. Though the majority of a Britons voted for Brexit, there were still a considerable number of citizens that were against the move, and thus their voice was ignored. This is because the decision was made after a very primitive one round referendum which was based on a simple majority. This means that the fate of the entire European continent was changed by one swing which is not sensible at all owing to the fact that most of the voters were poorly informed and disenchanted and their choice was mostly politically motivated. On the other hand, most of the US citizens voted for Hillary Clinton, but she lost due to the electoral college votes which mean that majority of the voters feel cheated and the may feel like the elections limit democracy rather than promoting it. This topic is relevant to this course since it is about Politics and Democracy which is a core area of study in this course.
Literature Review
According to most surveys, elections are held to bring democracy whereby every individual is given an equal right to choose their leaders through the ballot. In other cases, elections are also held to pass different policies like constitutional reforms. In the referendum in the United Kingdom, the general public participated in an election so as to choose whether they were to remain in the European Union or not.

What started as a boardroom debate had been put to the vote before which politicians went round the country either campaigning for or against the exit. From a politician’s perspective, this was a great way to show their muscle by demonstrating how much support they had from the public regardless of whether they were on the right or the wrong side of history. The general public in the UK was angry with the government, and hence the opposition had an easy time swaying them to their side which was for the exit whereas the government was against the exit. When it came to the referendum, a simple majority voted for the exit simply because they were angry with the current regime and they wanted to demonstrate their muscle. The prime minister then, who had been elected through a popular vote, had to resign since he didn’t want to see Britain go down the drain during his tenure. His resignation plus the uneasiness in Europe brought sense back to the Britons, and they realized the grave mistake they had made. They were also criticized around the world, but the damage had already been done through the ballot. Now the UK is adamant to leave the European Union, but they have little to no options since they already regrettably voted for the move (Goodwin et al., 323-332).
Another case scenario is the election of Donald Trump in the United States of America. Donald, who is a billionaire businessman, is an outsider with no leadership experience and his campaign speeches were very controversial and yet he was still voted in as the president. This can be attributed to the fact that the public was frustrated and angry with the same old all the time and they felt like they needed change. There were no many alternatives except Donald Trump, with all his controversies. Trump Capitalized on the issues that were ailing Americans for decades such as terrorism whereby he promised to deport all the Muslims back to their native countries and limit their ability to get back to the country. Also, he noted that there were many illegal immigrants especially from Africa and to that effect he promised to smoke out all illegal immigrants and deport them back to their countries since they were derailing the US economy. Finally, to curb the drug problem from Mexico, he promised to build a wall separating America from Mexico and claimed that Mexican government would pay for it. The Christians were won by his deputy who was against gays who used the phrase “I will electrocute all gays until they become straight” These promises made Americans happy even though they were far-fetched. They addressed the issues ailing America and therefore the general public had hope that a Trump administration, just like his famous slogan, would help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. These promises were, however, political and were made to sway the public in voting for Trump and most of them such as the deportation of Muslims and building a wall at the America-Mexico border, started disappearing from his website hours after he was declared the president-elect. Those who voted for him felt cheated, but they are yet to experience his presidency, but the famous prediction is that he will still act according to his party’s policies and hence no major changes will be brought by his presidency. This proves that even though the public saw hope in him, their democratic right was useless since most of the promises made were politically motivated and will not be implemented (Ahmadian et al., 49-53).
These two case scenarios prove that even though elections are supposed to portray democracy where every individual is given an equal say through the ballot, they have been greatly politicized, and people use whatever is in their arsenal to sway the public to their side. It is evident from the case of Brexit where the opposition capitalized on the anger and frustration of the general public towards the government which made it very easy to sway them to their side. This, however, was just aimed at showing the political might of the opposition without considering the effects of what they were campaigning for. Reality hit the Britons very hard, and they felt cheated by their politicians but the damage had already been done and it was irreversible. In the scenario of the US elections, the public was also sweet talked into voting for the controversial Trump who promised to make America Great Again by running the country like a business. Most of his promises started disappearing from his web-feed moments after he was declared president-elect which means that there were just political promises made to win votes. If that is the case, then the American public that voted for him were cheated into doing so which means that their democratic voice was just an illusion since they were just politically manipulated into voting for one candidate over the other.
Research Question
Do Elections Limit Democracy in Most Countries around the World? This is an important question especially in current times since elections have been politicized and the general public is swayed to vote politically rather than democratically.
Thesis Statement
Even though Election is the best tool to ensure public participation in the running of the country’s affairs, elections also seem to limit democracy because many political promises are made to win votes, but they are not enacted after elections, and also politicians have a tendency of politically manipulating the general public so as to sway them in a certain way which limits their democracy.
Research Methodology
This research will be aimed at proving that elections usually limit democracy in many democratic nations around the world. It will, therefore, involve the collection of historical data from various democracies and also public participation. After the data is collected, it will be analyzed using qualitative and quantitative methods and conclusions will be made.
Data Collection Methods
Historical election data will be generated online from official government websites to ensure that the data is correct and up-to-date. The voting demographics will also be documented since they will prove important when it comes to public participation. Other data collection tools will include questionnaires and interviews whereby the respondents will retain their anonymity as they respond to the research questions. Since the research will target multiple elections across different countries, there will be different versions of questionnaires, each suiting it targets election. The most crucial question will be “whether the person feels like they exercised their democratic right after voting in that particular election” and “Whether they made their electoral decision willingly or they were manipulated into voting a certain way by some politician.” After data collection, the results will be tabulated and then analyzed statistically.
Data Analysis
The tabulated data will be analyzed using statistical methods the main one being Spearman rank correlation test which helps in demonstrating the relationship between two ranked variables. This test will help to compare responses by the people on whether Elections limits democracy since the most probable answers will be “yes” or “no”. It is a coefficient correlation which is based on ranks, and it shows the association between two variables which are not distributed normally.
In the analysis, the significance of the results will be determined, and the acceptance or rejection of the hypothesis will be based on the level of significance commonly known as the alpha (α) level. The alpha level of confidence will be set at 0.05 (5%) and will be designated as p=0.05.
When performing statistical calculations Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) will be used. This is a computer package that can perform any statistical calculation using any statistical test, therefore, ensuring that the results obtained are accurate and precise.
Qualitative research data collected through interviews will be analyzed using content analysis method which is the procedure of categorizing verbal and behavioral data so as to easily summarize, classify and tabulate the data. This data will be analyzed on two levels the first being the basic level which will help in analyzing that which is said, but there are no theories or comments as to how or why. This is called a descriptive account of data. The second level will be the Latent level or the higher level. This is a more interpretive level which is concerned with the response and also what might be implied or inferred by that response. In content analysis, the data will be coded and classified which is also regarded to as indexing and categorizing with the main aim of attaching some sense to the data collected and also to highlight important findings, features, and messages.
Data Presentation
The analyzed data will be presented in the form of charts and PowerPoint slides which will make explanation very easy since facts and figures will be visible with the demographic data will be represented in the presentation charts.
Conclusion
This research will help determine whether the notion that Elections Limits Democracy is viable. From the research, we will learn whether there are political influences and manipulations behind elections in different democracies in the world. Using the recent Brexit and also the election of Donald Trump as the main case scenarios, the research will help us analyze the mood of the general public after the election which will help determines whether people would choose a different option if given another chance at the ballot. In the course of the research, we will also get responses from young democracies which will help us learn other factors that contribute to the manipulation of voters other than false campaign promises. The various methods used for analyzing data will ensure that the results documented are accurate and exhaustive and thus the conclusions and recommendations made will be viable and politically and democratically feasible. Finally, data presentation will be effective and elaborate since a combination of charts, graphs, and PowerPoint presentation will be used making sure that no statistical or demographic data will be left out.

Work Cited
Ahmadian, Sara, Sara Azarshahi, and Delroy L. Paulhus. “Explaining Donald Trump via communication style: Grandiosity, informality, and dynamism.” Personality and Individual Differences 107 (2017): 49-53.
Cheibub, José Antonio, and Adam Przeworski. “Democracy, elections, and accountability for economic outcomes.” Democracy, accountability, and representation (1999): 222-250.
Goodwin, Matthew J., and Oliver Heath. “The 2016 Referendum, Brexit and the Left Behind: An Aggregate‐level Analysis of the Result.” The Political Quarterly 87.3 (2016): 323-332.
Katz, Richard S. Democracy and elections. Oxford University Press on Demand, 1997.