Lesson video

Hello, how you doing? I hope you're doing well.

My name is Mrs. Tamasi, and I'm gonna be working through with you on your citizenship lesson today.

So if you're all settled, you've got everything you need, and you are all good to go, we'll make a start.

Title of today's lesson is "How Do Others Govern?" And this is part of the unit, which is, How do Democratic Systems Work Around the World? Hopefully, by the end of the lesson today, you're gonna be able to explain how both a democratic and non-democratic government outside of the UK work.

We've got two key words today.

You'll see them in bold throughout.

So if you need to, you can refer back to them here, if you're unsure what they mean or you just wanna clarify something.

We'll start.

Government is the group of people with the authority to govern a country.

In the UK, the government is chosen and led by the prime minister.

Second one is democracy.

This is a system of government in which citizens vote in regular, fair elections for representatives who then make laws and decisions on their behalf.

We've got two learning cycles, so we'll make a start on the first, which is what system of government exists? So when we think about systems of government, we think about political system.

Now, this is the set of processes and structures that work together to make those political decisions.

There are different types, and there's different ways of doing things.

For example, we've got things like authoritarian states, democracies, monarchies, totalitarian states.

We will go through some of these in more detail in the lesson.

Now, the form of government can influence how that country is run and those decisions that are made.

When we say forms of government, they tend to be seen as either democratic or non-democratic.

Now, you might be thinking, hmm, well, I know some that are a bit of a mix.

Yes, this is the thing with democracy.

It's a sliding scale.

There are gonna be some that don't quite fit the norm, but on the whole, if we wanna kind of try and simplify it, there's gonna be some that have these democratic features, and there's gonna be some governments that don't have the democratic features.

And we will look at what these features are, as we go through the lesson.

And then that will help you to judge if a government might be seen as more democratic or non-democratic.

So we have the Democracy Index.

Now, this is a useful tool 'cause it measures the state of democracy in each country.

It gets updated yearly as well.

So you can always look and see for any changes that happen to a country.

This one that you are seeing here is the Democracy Index for 2023.

What do you think those colours might mean? It might give you a little bit of a hint if your geography skills are any good, and you can recognise the UK there, you might have an idea of whether the UK is a democracy or not, and that colour might help you to work out what some of the others are, if you manage to get it.

So the UK is actually a full democracy.

That's why it's in blue on the map.

Now, democratic governments tend to sit between full and flawed democracies, according to the Democracy Index.

So if you're ever having a look at it, and you see something that's scoring as a flawed democracy or a full democracy, they probably have a democratic government.

So full democracies would have a score of eight or above.

That's the highest scores that you can get.

And then you've got flawed democracies, which are six or above.

So those very light pale blue colours are showing democratic governments.

Now, if there's any that you wanted to have a look at in more detail, you could always pause and have a little look, or you can always go on and have a look if you wanna see the exact scores of specific countries as well and find out why they've scored like that.

You could always have a look at the actual indexes.

Like we said earlier about those features, so to be considered democratic, a country is expected to have some of these features.

Can you think what you would expect a democratic country to have? Free and fair elections? Did you manage to get that? What else? So things like a multi-party systems, having more than one political party, offering choice.

Protecting human rights, ensuring those laws are embedded into the constitution and the country.

Active citizenship, that the citizens can participate and get involved without fear of being punished.

Rule of law, that everyone is equal, and no one's above the law.

Separation of powers.

So that idea you've got those different branches.

There's not too much power concentrated in one area.

A full democracy has all of those features, and they work efficiently.

A flawed democracy might have all or some of them, but there will be weaknesses.

So this goes back to that point we were saying right at the start of democracy being a sliding scale.

So this country can still be classed as a democracy and maybe not have all of these features or there might be weaknesses there, but it is still democratic overall.

So according to the Democracy Index, what types of government are considered democratic? A, authoritarian regimes, B, hybrid regimes, C, flawed democracies, D, full democracies? There's a tiny little bit of a clue here because it does have the word democracy in them, but it is flawed and full democracies.

We are gonna talk about the other two as we go further into the lesson.

So as of 2023, according to the Democracy Index, New Zealand has a score of 9.

61.

Now, can you remember what it's out of? It's out of 10.

0.

So they score very highly.

They're seen as a full democracy.

Now, they actually have that top score of 10.

0 for their electoral processes and civil liberties.

Do you know what those two terms mean? So electoral processes is the processes they put in place for their electoral system.

And the civil liberties is talking about the freedoms that exist in the country, those rights being embedded into the constitution.

So to give you a bit of an example here, in terms of their electoral process, they used something called proportional representation.

You might have heard that or you might have come across it.

If you have, then can you remember what it is? And if you haven't, it's this idea that when votes are made, the percentage of people that are elected represents that proportion that voted for 'em.

So to just give you example.

If you've got party C, and they got 20% of the votes, you would expect, then, in proportional representation that they had 20% share roughly of the seats in parliament.

Now, some other things about New Zealand, they have an independent body called the New Zealand Electoral Commission.

So what they're there to do is they are separate to the other branches, and they make sure that elections are held fairly, impartially, and according to the law.

So these are extra protections in place to make sure there aren't any rigged elections.

The strong civil liberties, things like freedom of speech and a strong rule of law.

they are embedded into the way that that country runs.

Now, if we take a look at a flawed democracy, 'cause do you remember what we said? They don't have to have all of those features.

They might, but there'd be some weaknesses there as well.

So as of 2023, according to the Democracy Index, India has a score of 7.

29.

So it is seen as a flawed democracy.

Now, why? This is because their elections were judged to be generally fair and free.

However, the ruling party's influence over news media allowed it to shape political narratives.

So what they're saying, actually, the political party has links to the media, and because of that, citizens might not be getting all the sides and the different sides of the political parties.

So then, the system can't be as free and fair as it suggests.

Can you complete the sentences with the correct missing words? So as of 2023, according to the Democracy Index, New Zealand is seen as a what? And then as of 2023, according to the Democracy Index, India is seen as a.

What is the correct missing words? Hopefully, you managed to get that that was a full democracy and India is seen as a flawed democracy.

Now, we mentioned earlier two of these others.

So not all countries follow a democratic system.

Non-democratic governments tend to sit between hybrid regimes and authoritarian regimes.

As we said, though, you might get some that crossover.

Yeah, so it is not always exactly like that.

But to give you an idea, if you saw a country that sat in a hybrid regime or authoritarian regime, it probably is more likely to be non-democratic than it is to be democratic.

So hybrids have a score of 4 to 5.

99, and authoritarian regimes have the score from 0 to 3.

99.

And they are the more red colours.

So, again, if there's one country that you're specifically looking at or you are interested in, you can go and find out there, more information about that country.

You could always pause and have a look, if you want to spend some more time on it.

We are gonna look at two examples.

So as of 2023, Turkey has a score of 4.

26.

It's seen as a hybrid regime.

Now, this is because Turkey has elections with irregularities where elections are held, but concerns exist over the fairness, media bias, and restriction to opposition parties.

So there's a weak separation of powers because the president can appoint 12 of the 15 members of the constitutional court of Turkey.

Here, there's some weaknesses across different areas of the way that they run.

And because these weaknesses exist in most areas, it has been pushed down to more of a hybrid regime.

If we talk more about non-democratic governments, it tends to mean the power is more concentrated between maybe one person or a small group.

There are different types of non-democratic nations.

So these include things like absolute monarchies.

Do you know what that is? So if we spoke about a monarchy being a king or queen, what's an absolute monarchy? Great work, if you managed to get this one.

It's that idea of the king or queen being the leader and being able to make all those decisions for that country.

'Cause when you think just because a country's got a monarch, then it's no longer democratic, that's not the case 'cause you have another type of monarchy that's a constitutional monarchy, like you'll see in the UK, where that's when the king or queen play a ceremonial role.

And it might be the government or other elected representatives who are in charge.

It's the absolute monarchy that can be seen as non-democratic.

You then have others.

So you've got dictatorships.

So, again, like the leader might be in control in authoritarian regimes or states.

And that is part of the Democracy Index.

So we'll have a look at what that is as well.

So we just said about the absolute monarchy, and that's the idea where they've got the complete power.

What this can mean is that maybe the country might be run on certain traditions or have a religious influence as well.

And what that could mean is some of the legal systems might limit the ruler's power to some extent, if you have got those traditions or religious influences in the country as well.

A dictatorship is governed by a dictator and their rule with total power.

They could come in through force.

So things like a military coup would be an example, revolution or rigged elections, something that's forced them in to take the lead and to take charge.

Then, you've got the authoritarian regimes or states.

And this is where it's controlled, again, either by a leader or a small group of people.

So let's give you an example here.

If we're looking back at the Democracy Index, as a 2023, North Korea has a score of 1.

08.

So this is classed as an authoritarian regime.

And this is because the supreme leader has centralised control.

They dominate the government, the military, and the economy.

So if we are thinking there in terms of those separation of powers, that's not happening here, is it? Because you've got those different dominations of those different multiple different areas.

Also we are looking at citizens having restrictive freedom of speech, movement, political expression, the news outlets are owned and regulated by the government and no political opposition is allowed.

So thinking back to those characteristics of a democratic state, of the multi-party system, and the separation of powers, protection of human rights, it's not so much happening.

Now, with authoritarian regimes, we won't see that so much because the power is being controlled.

So non-democratic governments are more likely to experience things like censorship.

Do you know what this one is? So this is the idea that information might be controlled, or might be blocked, or prevented from seeing certain information.

You've got propaganda.

So, the promotion of certain ideologies.

There might be restricted citizen participation.

So you won't be able to be as active or maybe take part in protest, free speech, et cetera.

And the reason for this is 'cause it helps that ruling government to stay in control.

In many non-democratic governments, things like surveillance and the use of fear might be more widespread to ensure that the citizens remain compliant and allows that ruling party to stay in control.

Can you highlight which types of government are non-democratic? So you've got some ideas there.

Which ones are non-democratic? How did you get on? Did you manage to get them? So we've got four there.

It's the absolute monarchy, one party state, dictatorship, and authoritarian regime.

That moves us onto the first task for today.

So Laura says here, "A democratic government does not need elections 'cause the leader knows what the citizens want." Can you, one, correct Laura's mistakes? And then, can you, two, design two revision cards to help Laura remember the differences between a democratic and non-democratic government? Now, take your time with this because if you are working towards the GCSE, you could always keep these revision cards for you for when you come to try and remember the difference.

Or you could use it to help others as well.

So it could be handy to design it in a way that's gonna help you remember as well.

When you've corrected the mistakes and you've designed the cards, then unpause and we can have a look through some ideas and feedback together.

So how did you get on? First of all, if we correct Laura's mistakes.

So your correction could look like this.

A democratic government relies on free and fair elections where people vote to choose their leader.

This ensures that the power comes from the people, not just the leader's opinion.

Leaders must listen to the public, and if they don't, people could vote them out in their next election.

And that's really important, isn't it? Because, actually, in a democratic government, if the leaders are held accountable, so if they're not listening, and they're not doing as they say, it's unlikely that they would get voted back in again.

Now, for the second part.

As I said, you could have designed these in a way that helps and supports you with your remembering.

It's more making sure you've got these different ideas in.

So the idea that the non-democratic has maybe no elections or controlled, minimal opposition, limited human rights, concentrated power, restricted public participation.

And it can always be handy to have a real life example there that's gonna help you remember 'cause if you saw non-democratic, and you remembered, oh yeah, North Korea, I know about that, then it might help you to then define it.

So the same there is Democratic.

We've got free and fair elections, multi-party system, protection of human rights, separation of power, active citizenship.

And example there, New Zealand.

But as I said, you can do it in any way that's gonna support you with remembering the differences for your GCSC.

So that's the end of that learning cycle.

We're now gonna look at how the different countries compare and how the different systems compare.

So what do the differences look like between democratic and non-democratic governments? From what you've done already, what can you think of? So hopefully, you managed to think of some of those ideas that you had down on your revision card.

So the difference of the democratic governments having those free and fair elections, the multi-party system, the human rights, active citizenship, rule of law, separation of powers.

And then the non-democratic governments may restricting those ideas and concentrating the power.

So to give you an example.

So as of 2023, according to Democracy Index, Belgium has a score of 7.

64.

So it's seen as a flawed democracy.

Now, the reason it's seen as a flawed democracy is because some of the different elements.

So it's quite an interesting one because they have got many elements that are actually full democracy.

So these are things like their electoral processes, free and fair elections, their functioning of government, and their civil liberties are all very strong.

But it's the political participation.

It scores only a 5.

And do you remember where 5 scores on the Democracy Index? So 5 is actually a hybrid regime.

So this is very low in comparison to their other scores.

And what they introduced in Belgium is mandatory voting.

So you have to vote.

And even though this is in place, citizens still show a low engagement, and this reflects their limited involvement in political decision making.

So this is why, then, the score is quite low.

We'll look in a bit more depth into Belgium.

To give you a bit of context, Belgium has a constitutional monarchy.

Do you remember what that is? So that Monarch has this ceremonial role, and they've got a parliamentary system.

So they've got a prime minister.

The monarch is the head of state, and they've got the ceremonial role.

The government is run by the elected representatives and is led by the prime minister.

Now, in their case, the prime minister is chosen by the party with the majority or, more likely, the coalition with the most seats because it's quite common in Belgium to have a coalition.

The reason for this is because they've got two chambers.

So they've got the Chamber of Representatives, the main lawmaking body, and the Senate, which is their revising chamber.

Now, so they vote every five years.

Like we said, voting is mandatory.

It's compulsory if you're eligible.

And you can be fined if you choose not to vote.

So people are made to vote.

But how their voting system works is that they use proportional representation.

So it's this idea of getting the proportion of seats, and what it does, it does give representation from smaller parties.

It encourages coalition government, this idea that the government is then made up of one or more political party.

To show you how this works with the representation, as of February 2025, 13 political parties are represented in the Chamber of Representatives with the coalition government consisting of five of them.

So they have five political parties just in their government.

Can you circle the correct answer? In 2023, Belgium is seen as a full or flawed democracy, according to the Democracy Index.

Belgium has a strong or weak separation of powers.

Belgium uses proportional representation or first pass the post as its voting system.

So it is flawed.

They do have elements of a full democracy, though.

It's strong separation of powers, and they use proportional representation.

Now, we're gonna have a look at a non-democratic government.

So this is China.

China has a score of 2.

11, according to the Democracy Index of 2023.

And it's seen as an authoritarian regime.

This is because China is an example of a one-party state.

Think what's one party mean? There's one political party in charge.

So that one party is the communist party controls the state.

There's limited access to media, state run internet and TV, and there's no effective political opposition.

So to give you an example of that, the government can block access to websites using the Golden Shield Project.

You might have heard of it to be known as the Great Firewall of China.

And what it does is it filters and sensors internet content.

So it controls what the citizens can see online.

And because of this, then, it's seen that they might not be getting all the information.

Kind of earlier, like we talked about censorship, information is being restricted.

So the president of China is also the leader of the ruling party, which is the Chinese Communist Party.

And the CCP controls the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

This is gonna mean that there is a warped separation of powers.

Do you think that it's a weak separation of powers here? Now, the main body is The People's Congress.

That system consists of five tiers.

So if you look at that and you're like, okay, well, they've got five different levels of legislative body, and you've got one at the top, that's probably a good thing, actually, yes, the citizens can vote, and they have a secret ballot, but it's only to elect that bottom tier, which is the local representatives.

The top tier, which is The People's Congress, meets once a year.

They mostly approve decisions that have already been made by the Chinese Communist Party rather than they're not there so much to debate, and challenge them.

And to be elected into The People's Congress, you can only be elected by those just below.

So the actual citizens do not have any say in who is at the top levels.

What is one why China is considered an authoritarian regime according to the Democracy Index? A, citizens have full access to uncensored media, B, there is a weak separation of powers, C, The People's Congress challenges party decisions? It is B.

Well done, if you manage to get that.

So now we're gonna move on to the final task for today.

Can you explain two differences between a democratic and non-democratic government? Include examples from different countries in your answer.

If you take some time to structure this, a bit like you're doing a four-mark answer, that will help you to make sure you're including all the information that you need.

So pause, and then when you're ready, unpause, and we'll go through the feedback.

So how did you get on with that? Now, hopefully you managed to include all the detail that you need.

If you feel like, actually, you answer might look a bit shorter, you might wanna go through this response and see if you can add to your own because it's good to practise writing in that full detail for the GCSE exams. So in a democratic government, citizens have the right to vote in free and fair elections, whereas in non-democratic government, elections are often controlled or do not allow real choice.

For example, in Belgium, people vote for different political parties using proportional representation, while in China, only the Chinese Communist Party is allowed to hold power.

Citizens cannot vote for opposition parties.

In a democracy, there's usually freedom of speech and a free press, while in non-democratic governments, the media is censored.

For example, in Belgium newspapers and journalists can criticise the government.

In contrast, in China, the government controls the media and blocks access to websites that criticise the state.

Now, hopefully, that's shown you those different steps.

So you've got your point, then you've got the example, then you've got another point, and you've got examples.

That's why, like we said, the revision cards, it's really useful to have those countries written down as well 'cause it will help you to add in real life examples into your GCSE answers.

For now, this brings us to the end of this lesson.

We'll just, then, do a quick summary before we finish.

So to summarise, today, democracy looks different across the world.

Different countries follow different types of democracies.

Countries can be considered democratic or non-democratic.

Features of democratic governments include free and fair elections multi-party system, protection of human rights, active citizenship, rule of law, and separation of powers.

Countries that lack some or all of these features are more likely to be classified as non-democratic where power is more concentrated and citizens have less influence over decision making.

Belgium is an example of a democratic government and uses proportional representation as its voting system.

China is considered non-democratic and is could considered a one-party state.

So that summarises today.

Thank you so much for working with me today.

I hope you have a better understanding of how others govern.

And enjoy the rest of your day.