Democratic Disorder. Why Modern Democracy is Failing and its Alternatives

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject Politics - Basics and General, grade: 80.00, University of London, course: Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, language: English, abstract: In light of recent political occurrences such as the Brexit Referendum and Donald Trump's election as well as overall economic instability throughout democratic states around the world, there is an increasing urgency to discuss alternative political systems. This dissertation will form a comprehensive thesis in favour of epistocracy - a political system where political power is distributed according to knowledge. My dissertation will begin with establishing the values and standards according to which a political system ought to be evaluated. This will be followed by demonstrating the ways in which democracies are failing and what the reasons might be. I will show with empirical data that due to voter ignorance and the use of rhetoric to manipulate voters, democracies tend to elect bad politicians and policies. I will also outline Plato's concept of the philosopher-kings from the Republic. I will contend that several problems associated with democracy can be resolved by epistocratic systems. I conclude that an epistocracy will likely perform better than a democracy and therefore we, citizens and intellectuals alike, ought to seriously consider it.