Citizens, Judges, Juries: Who Decides in Democracy? 

Citizens, Judges, Juries: Who Decides in Democracy
GOVERNMENT 399, Fall 2022, Spring 2024
Instructor: Sonali Chakravarti
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The tensions between rule by the people, rule by elites, and rule of law are at the core of democratic theory. What is the proper balance among the three? Under what circumstances is one group of decision makers better than another? What happens when they come into conflict? This was an upper-level course in political theory designed for students who have taken GOVT159, The Moral Basis of Politics or an equivalent course in philosophy and related disciplines. We focused on the following topics: the role of voting in liberal democracies, the Athenian jury system, deliberative democracy, referendum and initiatives, civil disobedience, and the role of juries in the U.S. criminal justice system. In 2022, this course included a focus on Connecticut’s history of jurisprudence, especially the 1971 abortion case Women v Connecticut. In 2024, the course covered the Black Panther trials in New Haven, drawing on Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) and texts by Yohuru Williams.