2000 Vol. 5 No. 2
 

Democracy and Geography

The Internet unit on democracy designed by the Curriculum Support Directorate can be used to support the new Stage 6 syllabus in geography.

The project, Democracy, is part of a broader international civics project, One world, many democracies: Citizens of the world. As part of this project schools are asked to register. However, for the Higher School Certificate, the materials are a resource, and it is not necessary to register.

The Democracy unit is a resource for the Preliminary course topic: Global challenges, including:

  • Population geography
  • Cultural integration
  • Political geography
  • Development geography
  • Natural resource use.

Common threads
Concepts:

  • Diversity and uniqueness of every democracy
  • Common threads that make a nation a democracy:
    • The vote
    • Freedoms
    • Equality and justice
    • Diversity of views
    • Political frameworks for a nation
    • Stability

Activities:

  • creating web pages
  • selecting, assessing, and presenting information about common threads
  • synthesising information

Common threads establishes the parameters of democracy as a political system. It provides background information that is important for the study of the options in Global challenges.
It complements the focus of the study:

  • a geographical investigation of the social, cultural, political, economic and environmental challenges which are occurring at the global scale.

Pushing it to the limits
The principal focus is:
The success of democracy is in its ability to adapt to change.

Concepts:

  • Historical change and continuity
  • Equality and justice
  • Forces of change
  • Adaptability of democracy

Activities:

  • Internet searches
  • creating web pages
  • locating, selecting, assessing, and presenting information about issues, people, events and change
  • synthesising information

Population geography
Issues arising from the changing size and distribution of population, including environmental, economic and social impacts.

Option 1: Cultural integration
The effects of cultural integration, such as homogenised landscapes, economic dominance and dependence, threats to cultural diversity and sovereignty, and shrinking time and space.

Option 2: Political geography

  • the changing role and nature of the nation-state
  • the increasing influence of international governance, transnational corporations and non-government organisations (NGOs) as challenges to national sovereignty
  • the causes of political tensions and conflict, economic instability, and migration and mobility of people
  • the consequences of these challenges on national
    sovereignty, and the various paths towards resolving issues and meeting these challenges.

And the walls came tumbling down
The principal focus is:
To be a strong democracy is to be one nation, many voices.

Concepts:

  • Diversity
  • Stability
  • Frameworks for government

Activities:

  • Internet searches
  • using listserv
  • creating web pages
  • locating, selecting, assessing, and presenting information about political history
    diversity national and international aid issues
  • synthesising information

Option 3: Development geography

  • issues arising from these spatial patterns of
    development, such as access to food, shelter, social support, health and educational opportunities
  • equity issues related to ethnicity, class and gender, and ecologically sustainable development.

Option 4: Natural resource use

  • economic and political issues related to the use of
    natural resources, their ownership and management
  • environmental and social issues related to the use of natural resources, such as ecologically sustainable development, and the impacts on, and responses of, indigenous peoples.

The power of one
The principal focus is:
The success of democracy is reliant on people participating actively and responsibly through their vote.

Concepts:

  • voting systems
  • free and fair elections
  • laws of voting
  • continuity and change
  • citizens and responsibility

Activities:

  • Internet searches
  • using listserv
  • creating web pages
  • locating, selecting, assessing, and presenting information about:
    • voting as a responsible and active citizen
    • differentiating types of voting reasons for voting
  • synthesising information

Population geography
Issues arising from the changing size and distribution of population, including environmental, economic and
social impacts.

Option 2: Political geography

  • the changing role and nature of the nation-state
  • the increasing influence of international governance, transnational corporations and non-government organisations (NGOs) as challenges to national sovereignty
  • the causes of political tensions and conflict, economic instability, and migration and mobility of people
  • the consequences of these challenges on national sovereignty, and the various paths towards resolving issues and meeting these challenges.

Option 3: Development geography
Equity issues related to ethnicity, class and gender, and ecologically sustainable development.

Challenges
Concepts:

  • frameworks for government
  • stability
  • roles and responsibilities of government and citizens

Activities:

  • Internet searches
  • using listserv
  • creating web pages
  • locating, selecting, assessing, and presenting information about
    frameworks of government
    global, national and personal responsibility
  • synthesising information

Population geography
Issues arising from the changing size and distribution of population, including environmental, economic and
social impacts.

Option 2: Political geography

  • the changing role and nature of the nation-state
  • the increasing influence of international governance, transnational corporations and non-government organisations (NGOs) as challenges to national sovereignty
  • the causes of political tensions and conflict, economic instability, and migration and mobility of people
  • the consequences of these challenges on national sovereignty, and the various paths towards resolving issues and meeting these challenges.

Option 3: Development geography
Equity issues related to ethnicity, class and gender, and ecologically sustainable development.

Example of an option using as a resource
OPTION 2: POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY

the changing role and nature of the nation-state

  • the increasing influence of international governance, transnational corporations and non-government organisations (NGOs) as challenges to national sovereignty
  • the causes of political tensions and conflict, economic instability, and migration and mobility
    of people
  • the consequences of these challenges on national sovereignty, and the various paths towards resolving issues and meeting these challenges.

THE INTERNET UNIT:

  • Common threads
  • Pushing it to the limits
  • And the walls came tumbling down
  • The power of one
  • Challenges.

Outcomes
The student:

P4 analyses changing demographic patterns an processes
P5 examines the geographical nature of global challenges confronting humanity
P7 formulates a plan for active geographical inquiry
P8 selects, organises and analyses relevant geographical information from a variety of sources
P9 uses maps, graphs and statistics, photographs and fieldwork to conduct geographical inquiries
P12 communicates geographical information, ideas and issues using written and/or oral, cartographic and graphic forms.

Students learn to:
investigate and communicate geographically by asking and addressing geographical questions such
as

  • how and why is the distribution of the world’s population affecting democracies?
  • what is the future of the nation-state?
  • Democracy
    • how can spatial inequality be resolved?
    • what types of conflicts can arise from the shifts in population?

use geographical skills and tools such as

  • using information technology to collect and synthesise
  • data relevant to ecologically sustainable development identify geographical methods applicable to, and useful in, the workplace such as mapping global patterns of population distribution and migration
  • applying information technology, such as the Internet, to understand population change
    understanding the relevance of global challenges to a particular vocation such as: advising diplomats and politicians, practising journalism, participating in non-government organisations (NGOs),
  • providing background information for tourist
  • agencies and media outlets.

Common threads
Democracy is an important aspect of world history.
Democracy, like all dynamic political systems, has evolved and has been shaped by the many and ever changing needs of society.
It complements the focus for global challenges because democracy as a political system has to meet the challenges of population geography to be a viable
form of government.

Students visit the site. Establish that the common threads are the essential components of a democracy.

Then consider: How is the changing nature of global population an issue for all democracies? Assess how global population impacts on each of the threads.

Pushing it to the limits
All democracies have had to change and will continue to have to change, for they reflect the social and moral values which underpin our societies. The nature of global population has been, and continues to be, an issue for all democracies.

Students visit the site and select the issue of global population. What social, economic and political issues arise from the changing nature of global population?
How are governments meeting the challenges of its changing nature?

And the walls came tumbling down
In 2000 there are about 128 nations which have democracy as their preferred model of government.

The processes by which each of the 128 nations became a democracy are unique. How each nation
practises its democracy is unique. But the threads of stability and diversity are common between them.

Using the frameworks of government (there is a list of world constitutions and official government home pages supplied), students locate, select and assess government policies about population.
How does the changing nature of population influence the stability and diversity of a democracy? What are or have been the responses from governments and
international organisations?

The power of one
Democracy depends on people taking part. If citizens don’t bother to vote, if they are prepared to leave public matters to others, if they don’t bother to find out about issues, or if they just complain about things they don’t like and do nothing about them, then democracy won’t survive and ultimately their rights will be weakened or lost.

The vote is the most powerful way to effect change for most citizens. Establish the importance of voting, using the exercises provided. Students then use the information they have located and selected from other sections to assess the influence of the changing nature of population on voting, especially migration and the urban-rural shifts.

Challenges
Societies are always in a state of change. Societal changes happen because of ideas or philosophies e.g. non-violent protest as practised by Gandhi; or the liberal philosophies of John Stuart Mill; or fights for rights e.g. the Abolitionists who fought for the legal extinction of slavery in Europe and the Americas; or the changing nature of population.

The changing nature of population will continue to be an issue for all nations and the international
community.

Students are asked to devise new frameworks (constitution or bill of rights) for government for their country.

Using the information gathered from previous sections, devise a new population section of a
constitution or bill of rights.

Visit the Internet site Democracy