Course Description

In this course, you will learn three matters from Politics. The first is "what is democracy." Democracy is usually defined as a political system in which people, as sovereigns of the country, make political decisions through parliamentary elections that are held on a free and equal basis. However, only if your country's constitution has such a provision, it is surely uncertain if the country is a democracy. What conditions should we have if we can truly call our country democracy? The second is "how we can and should improve our democracies." This question is quite important because it is quite reasonable that we sometimes, or even usually, become dissatisfied with our political system even if it is a full democracy. The third is "what we have already done to improve our democracies in modern history." Through discussions of America’s presidency and Japan's parliamentary system, we will learn major achievements and remaining problems of modern democracies. As a result, you will essentially change your perspectives to understand politics and other social problems, becoming able to analyze them in multiple dimensions, though you might experience some adverse-effects like having quite different opinions with your friends and family members on political issues.