Social welfare,democracy and government Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Social welfare,democracy and government - Essay Example The social welfare, democracy and government are all intensely connected aspects of a society and a country. The welfare of the country and its citizens are always the topmost priority of any democracy or government. Britain being a democratic country has a prolonged history of social welfare policies and strategies. The country has extensive social welfare policies to cater to the well being of its citizen and communities. â€Å"After war every where in Europe showed a grave needs for social welfare :broadly speaking social-democratic policies were initiated even by conservative and Christian-democratic governments, while social democrats became parties of government in most European states†(Shaw,1999). However, during these years a major shift has occurred in the socio –economic structure of the country which led to a new paradigm to the social welfare concept. Britain is a country with multi – cultural backgrounds and requires a well co--ordinate and structure d social policies and plans to show justice to the society. 2 –According to Smith (1986)â€Å"Historians have engaged in pro-longed debate how far political theories influenced the actual structure of social policies. As most of its history social-policy making in Britain has been closely linked to a wider context of political, social and economic ideas†. A big part of contributing to the welfare of the nation is giving equal rights to all the social groups in the country .The rights of the citizens to vote and select the right representative to govern the country should be an unbiased and unfair fact. The right to vote is the major foundation and strong principle of any democratic government. A democracy to be a successful one, should allot a substantial voting power to all the social groups of the country. As per (Hannemann, 2003) â€Å"In almost all democratic national elections an individual vote cannot change the election outcome. The fact that many individuals n evertheless participate voluntarily in such elections suggests that people do care about democracy as such†. The main reason for the appreciation for the right to vote is that, it gives the citizens of a country a upper hand in the decision making process of the nation. However, with all this well planned social policies and democratic government, there are still many social groups who are devoid of their basic right of the democratic government. A country like United Kingdom has various social groups like youngsters, women, senior citizens, disabled, asylum seekers and prison inmates. Among all of these, asylum seekers and prison inmates are the one which is most undermined in regard to voting rights. According to (Guardian News,2010)â€Å"Prisoners are to get the right to vote as the government is poised to throw in the towel in a long-running legal tussle with the European court of human rights, it emerged today. It is understood that the coalition is to confirm that it is ready to change the law to remove the voting ban on more than 70,000 inmates of British jails†. I) Right to vote an integral part of the democracy Democracy is a form of government which gives exclusive rights to its citizens in the governing of the country as well as bestows other supreme rights to its people. As per (Deth,2009) â€Å"Modern societies are confronted with a number of virtually unsolvable problems. Particularly prominent are complaints and grievances about the increase of social egoism and isolation, declining feelings of solidarity and community, a public withdrawal from the ‘dirty’ realm of politics, the raise in ‘minor’ forms of criminality, and the decrease of social and political engagement – to mention only a few examples†. Britain having a well defined social welfare structure is not justifiable in concern with the real active voting right. Many minorities and under privileged are stolen of their right to vote, ev en being a genuine part of the country. Generally in a democratic nation, an adult crossed the age of