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SOSC 1520 9.0 Markets & Democracy

Assignment 4: reading questions

Readings:

(i) Thomas Carothers (1998). “The rule of law revival”. Foreign Affairs 77 (2): 95-106.

(ii) Yascha Mounk (2019). The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; ISBN 9780674237681), chapter 2: “Rights without democracy”, pp. 70-73, subsection "Judicial review".

Weight: 5% of course grade

Due date: Friday, 22nd October

Instructions:

- answer each of the following questions as clearly and concisely as you can;

- do not write anything which is not relevant to the question;

- keep within the word limit given in brackets after each question;

- make sure that you write in full and grammatically correct sentences;

- each question refers to a particular part of one of the readings, so give citations to the chapter for each answer. You do this by providing a citation, e.g. (Carothers 1998, p. 97), if you are referring to material on page 97 of Carothers' text.

1) Why might the rule of law be said to be undemocratic? (1 mark) (Word limit: 50)

2) Yascha Mounk gives arguments for and against judicial review but he concludes that judicial review is ultimately a good thing. Quote a passage from his text which shows that he supports judicial review (2 marks) (Word limit: 75)

(Hint on answering: when quoting a passage, you must (i) use the exact words in the exact order in which they appear in the text; you must also (ii) place those words in quotation marks and (iii) putting the author's name and date of publication in brackets after the quotation. Here is an example using James Fulcher's text from week 2. I am quoting a passage on page 4 of Fulcher's text:

“Markets were manipulated by buying up stocks and holding back sales” (Fulcher 2004, p. 4).

By quoting like this, you are showing the reader that you are not using your own words but someone else's. And the bracket is you citation - it tells the reader the source from which you take the quotation. So your answer to question 2) this week must contain a quotation from Yascha Mounk's text of the kind I have just given).

3) Why is the rule of law important for the functioning of a capitalist economy? (2 marks) (Word limit: 75)