Topic: Democratic Audit Paper

Order Description
Assignment details on page 2 on wards in the assignment instructions attached to the order.

Democratic Audit Paper

This assignment, counting for 70% of the final assessment, consists of a 2,500 word paper focused on an analysis of how democratic is a common political or policy feature of Australia, Canada and the United States. Looking at the voting systems of Australia, Canada and the United States choose a minimum of three of the following 7 themes that you need to consider analysing in relation to the voting systems of the three countries:

7 themes that you could consider analysing in relation to the voting systems of the three countries:
1. Political equality
2. Popular control of government
3. Civil liberties
4. Quality of public discussion
5. Public participation in politics
6. The inclusiveness of politics
7. The responsiveness of politics to citizen concerns.

INFORMATION ABOUT A DEMOCRATIC AUDIT: Broadly, a Democratic Audit is an assessment of democracy. Many countries claim to be democracies, but it’s only by examining facets of their political systems that determine how democratic a country is. For example, looking at voting in Canada, Australia, and the US which you need to do for this paper. Obviously, in Australia voting is compulsory, but in Canada/the US it isn’t. Does that mean that Australia is less democratic than the other countries? When we look at Canada and the US we see that the US system is very complex which may discourage people from voting, so by this measure they are less democratic than Canada. But in Canada, less people vote relative to the numbers of voters in the US, so Canada is not a perfect model of democracy either.

Please be aware that the democratic audit paper needs to be well researched and properly referenced drawing on peer reviewed papers. (There is no maximum number of references, but use anything that is relevant to what you are writing. Please keep in mind that it is really important to back up your thoughts and ideas with peer reviewed research. Demonstrating your research effort is very important and essential for you to pass this assignment.

REFERENCING: Please see attached to the order the American Studies Style Guide: A guide to referencing in the American Studies Discipline about referencing. Please refer to this guide as this topic is very strict in regards to referencing. Reference Citations in Text (this is also in the style guide attached to the order): Students must use a footnote when: (1) quoting someone else; (2) when using a fact that others may doubt or; (3) when borrowing ideas or concepts from another author. This is in no way an exhaustive list, and if in doubt, reference! Every reference that appears as a footnote must also appear in the bibliography at the end of the paper. The American Studies Discipline uses the ‘Chicago style’ of referencing, examples are provided in the Style Guide attached to the order. Please note that some resources that you might find useful to assist you in writing the paper is attached as a pdf file. When using resources, only use the most recent and relevant resources as references because it is only a 2500 word paper. Please also see in the instructions attached the text books used in the topic. You can use them as sources if they are relevant to what you are writing.

WORD COUNT MUST BE 2,500 WORDS (DO NOT GO OVER THIS WORD COUNT, THERE ARE PENALTIES)