FYS 151 Designing Democracy
This course will take students behind the scenes to uncover what is required to consolidate democracy. We will examine primary ingredients including constitutions, executives, legislatures, voters/elections, political parties, and judiciaries. We will also consider the challenges to consolidation. Additionally, we will examine case studies that exemplify the institutions in the real-world, before applying them to a constitutional convention simulation event at the end of the course. And of course, we will consider what makes democracy something to strive for in the first place—what makes democracy so great that some consider it a universal value? Is it in fact all it’s cracked up to be?