what are economic sanctions?

Robert P. O'Quinn of the Heritage Foundation offers a backgrounder on economic sanctions. Very useful for those trying to understand what sanctions are--and aren't.

some useful quotes about the limitations of democracy

Anthony Arblaster, Democracy [Second Edition], 1994, U. of Minn. Press, defines democracy as popular sovereignty.

[C]learly it cannot be a democratic act for the people to vote away their own power and their own rights.... For democracy to exist, power must remain with the people. If they freely abdicate that power, what they consent to may have popular support, but it is not democracy.... So, in effect, popular sovereignty must be inalienable. [p.88]

The assumption that there is a necessary connection between democracy and freedom is surely correct, even if we take some of the narrower definitions of democracy. For example, even if the essence of democracy is taken to be the process of choosing between elites competing to govern, the very business of choosing can hardly be confined to the visit to the polling booth.... Choice, however limited in scope, implies freedom...

If we adopt the more expansive definition of democracy... the case is even stronger. Democracy as popular power... should be seen as a continuous process of interaction between government and society, with a maximum involvement of the people in public decision-making at every level. [pp. 91-92]

[I]f we look to the people to play a more positive role, freely voicing their demands and hopes, their fears and grievances, as well as introducing ideas and initiating policies, plainly this can only happen in an atmosphere of the greatest freedom and openness, free from any taint of intimidatory anxiety or apprehension as to the possible consequences of speaking out. [p. 92]

Do we have reasonable grounds for excluding persons from the demos? Robert A. Dahl, Democracy, Liberty, and Equality, 1986, Norwegian Univ. Press, argues that we do (an argument that would ground a negative case).

Locke and Rousseau accepted, and Mill defended, the principle that a demos might properly exclude large numbers of adults who are subject to the laws made by the demos. Thus the attempt to ground "participatory democracy" on Mill and his predecessors is fatally flawed. Participation indeed. But only for the qualified! [p. 211]

Citizenship depends on contingent judgments, not categorical rights. And the contingent judgments need not lead to universal inclusion.... That we cannot get around the principle of competence in deciding on the inclusiveness of the demos is decisively demonstrated by the exclusion of children.... Children therefore furnish us with a clear violation of the principle that a government must rest on the consent of the governed, or that no one should be subject to a law not of one's own choosing, or subject to a law made by an association not of one's own choosing. [pp. 212-214]

[more to come]