Lesson video

And welcome to "Citizenship." My name is Mrs. Shortland and I'll be taking you through this lesson.

in this new unit called "How do others Govern?" We'll be having a look at the concept of power and in particular exploring how the UK is positioned in terms of democracy.

We'll also look at how the rights and freedoms of people are bound up with the different types of systems of government that exist.

So I hope you enjoy it, and I will see you in a bit.

Welcome back, so this is the first lesson of six and we're going to explore the main question, "What is the difference between democratic and non-democratic government?" But before we get started as ever, just if you need to get organised and find some paper and a pen, that would be great.

Pause the video and when you're ready, just rejoin me.

Okay, here's the plan for today.

We're going to have a look at these four questions in order to break the lesson down a little bit.

What are the key features of politics in the UK and China? What are the key features of a democratic and non-democratic government? What is a semi-democratic government and what is a dictatorship? And what are the pros and cons of different systems of government? Quite a lot to get through, but we'll be there before you know it.

Before we get started, let's just have a look at these four options.

They describe different words, but I'd like you to tell me which word best describes the government.

And if you can work out what the other descriptions are, that would be great as well.

So pause the video and come back to me when you've read through the four options.

How did you do? Yeahp, it's option three.

I'm sure you didn't have any difficulties there.

The government is, or are the individuals who have been elected to run the state led by the prime minister.

How did you do on the other options? Option one, the things or processes that work together to enable politics to work and political decisions to be taken, that's a political system.

Option two, a system of government where the citizens are able to vote in regular and fair elections for representatives who make laws and decisions on their behalf, that is democracy.

And four, the body that makes law in the UK, it's made up of the House of Commons, House of Lords and the Monarch, and that word is Parliament.

As we're looking at democratic and non-democratic countries we're going to use the UK and China as our case studies.

But before thinking about the key features of politics in both countries, how have a look at some basic facts.

Firstly, you can see leaders, Boris Johnson and Xi Jinping.

Boris Johnson has been the leader of the Conservative Party since July, 2019.

And he is a member of parliament for Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 means that Parliament is dissolved automatically after every five years.

And so the next general election can be expected to take place on Thursday the 2nd of May, 2024.

Xi Jinping was elected in 2013 as the President of the People's Republic of China by the Chinese Congress.

He's the most powerful figure in the Chinese political system.

He is President of China but he's also the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party which controls every government department, military force, court and parliamentary meeting.

So similar to the UK the Chinese leadership changes every five years.

Think about the size now of China, it's big.

China is the world's third largest country.

It's about 39 times bigger than the UK with a population of over 1.

43 billion people.

Let's put that into context.

In the UK Prime minister Johnson serves and is responsible for 67'ish million people.

So if you consider the people in Britain and times the number of roughly by 21, that is the amount of people that President Jinping is responsible for, quite a few people.

Okay, let's try task one.

Now we have some very basic facts about each country, let's have a look at the first task.

Thinking about the UK and China, I'd like you to write down your ideas about the characteristics of life in each of these countries.

So imagine what it might be like to live here and think about these questions.

What rights do people have? How are decisions made? What do you know from the news or from other subjects about these countries? So just pause the video to make some notes, answer those questions and rejoin me when you finished.

How did you do? I'm sure you've got many more points than shown here but here's some key features of living in the UK.

As you know, we're a democratic country and as such we abide by the rule of law, which is really powerful.

No one's above the law.

We have laws to protect people such as The Human Rights Act of 1998.

And this protects citizens rights such as freedom of speech.

Citizens can vote if they're eligible, in free and secret elections.

And when people vote, they have multiple parties for people to choose between in an election.

So what's about China, how did you do there? China, whose political system is very different to the UK and it's really complex, today we're looking at just a few features.

Unlike the UK, China is not a democracy.

Throughout Chinese history democracy and individual human rights have not been given the same importance in society as in the UK.

So let's have a look at these points.

There is limited access to the media.

So the State controls and runs the internet and television.

More than this, newspapers, radio and the television reflect the views of the communist party.

So journalists are restricted in what they can report and can be arrested or imprisoned for any criticism of the government or Communist Party.

Politics are dominated by the Communist party, no effective political opposition.

So since really the birth of Communist China, it's operated under a single political party, the Communist Party of China.

And the third point, although eligible citizens have a secret ballot to elect their local representatives, in terms of national leaders there are five levels of People's Congress and only the top tier of that Congress are able to choose the national leaders.

So we can say that China has a lot less freedoms for people and it does not operate as a democracy in terms of democracy that we would associate with the United Kingdom.

So when we compare both countries we can see really they're quite different.

Politics in the UK is based on a democratic system of government, and it's reflected in the rule of law and respect for diversity, whereas politics in China, one of the few Communist States in the world, basic belief that the community is more important than the individual, and it has been criticised for its methods of rule and compared to the idea of an authoritarian state.

People are told what to do, given limited say over running of the country.

So if you want to just make a few more notes please do so by pausing the video.

Great, well you've done lots of learning so far so let's just have a short pause to test what you understand.

Have a look at this slide.

Which of the options below is the most accurate definition of politics in the UK? Number one, UK's semi-democratic.

Leader of the government is a prime minister who holds the power.

Number two, the UK is a non-democratic as freedoms are restricted, or three, UK is democratic.

Eligible citizens vote in free and secret elections to choose elected representatives.

Okay, will just give you a minute to write down one two or three, you can shout it out if you like.

One, two, three, great.

I'm sure you had no problems there at all.

UK is democratic.

What about this one? Which of the options below is most accurate definition of politics in China? Is it semi democratic, non-democratic or is it democratic? Just give you a couple of seconds to have a think.

The answer is of course China is non-democratic as freedoms are restricted.

Okay, let's move on to our second tasks now.

And you'll need to pause the video in a minute, Not just yet, because I'm going to give you some key words.

So task two, features of a democratic and non-democratic government.

Arrange this statements on the next slide into two groups based on whether they are features of democratic or non-democratic forms of government.

And if you like it would be good for you to challenge yourself to add any statements of your own.

Here are the statements and all you need to do is put them into two lists.

So if you think there is a free and open media as a feature of a non-democratic country, that's the site that you'd put that in.

Pause the video now and write down your answers and when you're ready, just rejoin me.

How did you do? Okay, there's the list, Just give yourself a big tick because I'm sure he got all of those right.

Features of a democratic government are, there is a free and open media, secret ballots are held, you can openly criticise the government, your representatives will listen to your views and elections are free and fair.

Features of non-democratic governments, lack of effective party opposition, the media is controlled by the government, citizens have little access to a political system and there is little opportunity to speak against those in power.

So we're going to go on to describing systems of government because systems of government are not always clear cut.

And you've seen that with China.

Countries can use elements of different types of government.

So, as we saw with China, they do hold elections using secret ballots.

However, these are limited to the election of local politicians and no political party ever stands against the Communist Party in National Elections.

So it sort of gives an illusion of democracy.

As well as democratic and non-democratic, there are other ways to categorise political systems. And some of these you might've heard about, but you do need to be aware of these terms especially if you're taking GCSE.

So semi democratic countries are somewhere in between democratic and non-democratic.

It shares both democratic and authoritarians features.

So a semi democratic country may have elections and some form of representation of the people, but elections may not be fair and free.

In authoritarian political systems, one ruler or small group of leaders have the real power and they may have elections, but citizens don't really have any voice in how they're ruled.

Their leaders do not give free choice but decide what the people can and cannot have.

Authoritarian systems don't really follow freedoms of speech, press and religion and they don't protect minority rights.

Finally, we have a dictatorship where there is rule by one person and decisions are made solely by that leader.

No opposition to this way of leadership is tolerated.

Human rights are disregarded, and this form of government you're probably more familiar with as some of you may have studied Nazi Germany and Hitler.

Now it's your turn, on to task three.

I'd like you to write a paragraph explaining, a democratic system of government and a non-democratic system of government.

I've put some words there that you could use, democracy, government, authoritarian, values, dictatorship, rights but you might have lots more words to use than that.

So pause the video now and rejoin me when you're ready.

How did you do? Here's one I prepared earlier, and you can add any detail that you might not have included.

So some feedback for task three, within a democratic system of government such as the UK, you would see many political parties competing for power.

Certain freedoms of the individual are protected and upheld through legislation such as the Human Rights Act of 1998.

The government is elected through the consent of the people who can vote in fair and free elections.

In a non-democratic system of government such as China, you would see only one political party.

People have few opportunities to influence government and have limited choice.

Freedoms are restricted as the government controls aspects of the media and freedom of speech is limited.

Task four, final task.

And again, you'll need to pause the video to complete it.

We're looking at pros and cons.

So draw a table of pros and cons for democratic governments and draw a table of pros and cons for non-democratic governments.

Now this task is quite tricky because you might think, well that's for democracy.

There might not be too many disadvantages of having a democratic government.

So think carefully, think critically and see what you can come up with.

Pause the video and we'll have a look at this in a few moments.

How did you do? Okay, tricky wasn't it? Here let's have a look at non-democratic countries.

So the positives of these are that decisions are made quickly and everyone usually does what they're told and countries are efficient at decision making.

However, in non-democratic countries, as we sort of alluded with China, human rights are often ignored, different opinions and often encouraged, freedoms within the country is limited.

And sometimes people do live in fear.

In terms of a democratic country, the positives are everybody's views get heard, a range of political parties represent the people, and people get to be part of the political process.

However, sometimes decisions aren't made as agreements can't be found, too many people's opinions it can take time to make decisions.

Are all viewpoints represented? Smaller parties don't have as much of a say.

And certainly we can see that in Britain can't we? Where we tend to be a two party system with a Labour Party and a Conservative Party dominating politics for quite some time now, through the system of First Past the Post.

Okay, so I sort of flipped when I said it was the final task but this is just a takeaway task and I'd be really interested to know your opinions about this.

What is your opinion about this statement? "Democracy is the best way to rule the country." Write a paragraph.

You should justify your opinion with a clear explanation and use any of your learning today to strengthen your opinion.

That's it I promise.

We did it, the end of the lesson here we are, well done.

Who can ever think that we've gone through today.

So I would go back through notes and just double check that you can out tick off each of these areas, you know the key features of politics in the UK and China, of democratic and non-democratic government.

You could say what a semi-democratic government is and compare it to a dictatorship, and you know some pros and cons of different systems of government.

If you can do all that, that's brilliant.

So, I'd love it if you could share your work with Oak National so I can have a look at all the great stuff you've done, but please ask your parents or carer to share your work on Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

And very finally just don't forget to complete the exit quiz before signing off.

And I wish you a really lovely rest of your day.

Thank you for being with me today.