The subject of the essay Democracy: What’s It Good For? is related to the issues of democracy in terms of its efficiency regarding the misinformation and irrationality of people’s choices. The thesis statement of the essay is that because of democracy a person is forced to exist by the rules chosen by disinformed people whose choices can be irrational and foolish. It is argued on the basis of discussing if there are any positive aspects of democracy, which are then tried to be exposed by the author to show that, in fact, they are negative. The main point of the author is that democracy is insufficient for people to exist with politics alone, as there are many social issues related to majoritarianism (Talisse, 2020). The author provides different pro-democratic arguments, such as Winston Churchill’s quote regarding democracy being the least bad option, which the author claims are an insufficient justification to view the system as good and efficient. The author mentions the intrinsic value of democracy, its redundant complexity, and how it affects human relationships as well and discusses the issues related to them. The essay consists of an introduction where the author provides general information about why he perceives democracy as a poor mechanism, a body discussing the benefits of democracy and their critique. The conclusion states that democracy is insufficient for the wellness of society, and people should be engaged in many social processes to make democracy function properly.
The subject of the essay The New Concert of Powers is the creation of a new international concert for global politics. The author states that creating a new concert is crucial for world politics because of the current political crisis in the multipolar political environment, and the efficiency of that concept was proven before. This is argued by the points related to how the concert would work and what it would give in result in terms of the international dialogue. The non-existence of other options, no fallbacks of this option, and other nuances of the implementation of the concert support the argument as well. The introduction gives a general description of what a concert is and why it is relevant, and the body consists of paragraphs divided by their main arguments (Haas & Kupchan, 2021). The conclusion paragraph claims that creating a concert is the best alternative, even though there would still be issues left to resolve.
References
Talisse, R.B. (2020). Democracy: What’s It Good For?
Haass, R.N. & Kupchan, C.A. (2021). The New Concert of Powers.