By CUONG NGUYEN
After the results of the 2008 Presidential Election I believe it’s important for us to consider our basic notions of democracy and the democratic process that comes with it.  With Barack Obama as our President-elect, many people believe he will bring about the positive “change” needed in the United States.  But what is this “change?”  It was in 1776 when our founding fathers gathered together to draw out and construct the basic guidelines of our democratic society.  Since then it has been 202 years since the inception …

By MOLLY SHIPMAN
Election Day 2008 was defined by many landmark and surprising decisions by the American people. However, my excitement and pride in being part of the democratic process was somewhat undermined when I learned that California voters’ decided to pass Proposition 8, a state ballot proposition that amended the state Constitution to restrict the definition of marriage to a union between a man and a woman. John Stuart Mill’s arguments concerning personal autonomy and the role of government, as outlined in his seminal work On Liberty, were not far …

By MIN SHIN

Unlike Joshua Cohen and Thomas Christiano who argue that in ideal government institutions, justice and democracy are purely intrinsic; Richard Arneson’s paper on Democratic Rights at the National Level partakes in the conception of justice and democratic rights from an instrumental standpoint.  He argues that a protective account of democratic rights provides the most natural and convincing justification of modern political regimes.  Throughout his paper, Arneson argues for the instrumental view of social institutions because in pluralist societies, this particular view of justice and democracy brings about …