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Elites and non Elites The political decisions are mainly taken by the politicians who are supposed to express the interests of people who grated them power of authority to work out the rules for the society. Public people, i. e. people who are recognized due to their popularity influence the mass opinion greatly. In democratic country each member of society has his own social responsibility for the political decisions. The role of the public people or elite can not be underrated in the democracy processes.
Policy makers sometimes do not enjoy the trust of people. Very often the initiators of some political decision are required. The policy makers sometimes are influenced by a number of factors which do not allow them to take this or that even the most humane decision. Public people or elite need to attract attention of masses to such problems in order to urge policy makers to take an appropriate political decision. Once the attention of people is attracted through mass media, the politicians can not ignore the problem. The vivid example of such process could be the anti land mine campaign initiated by Princess Diana who as Elton John sang lived her life like a candle in the wind.
The land mines are inhuman, meaningful from the military point of view and objected exclusively to the civilians. The inhumane nature of land mines is that such mines very often do not kill but make victims invalids. The meaningless of the mines from the military point of view is that they are easily detected by special devices, mine detectors. That means the probability of damage of civilians is very high while the soldiers are able to detect and neutralize mines. Military specialists and politicians realized it perfectly well. The problem is that the policy makers and the generals are sitting in their headquarters and not exposed to the danger of the mines in their everyday life unlike people living in the regions where the mines are placed.
On the other hand war is a profitable business for some leaders. They invest billions to their weapon development and the ban of certain weapons would cause the financial losses. This factor sometimes dominates over the humane one. Diana, Princess of Wales, devoted herself to a host of domestic and international issues, such as disadvantaged children, the homeless, HIV/Aids, and landmines. 1 The vast majority of the population if it is a democratic country participates in the political processes directly through certain tools one of which is the referendum. Most of the countries have the procedure of referendum in their constitutions. Normally the referendum is held on the questions on the important political issues when the political decision is supposed to influence the entire population of the country.
The examples of the nationwide referendums could be recent referendums in the EU on the European Constitution. The political activity had been concentrated on these referendums for a long period of time. The population of the EU member countries was explained the pros and cons of the EU Constitution but it was not supported in some major EU countries and what is more important, it was not supported in France which was among the initiators of the EU formation. The EU constitution is the issue which is vitally important for the entire population of Europe, both elites and non-elites. Such issues are initiated by the politicians who could be also considered as elites but these issues are very complicated to realize their benefits and disadvantages by non-elites or just the citizens of EU member countries.
The nationwide referendum is supposed to give the additional approval of the important decision to be taken by politicians. Such tools are normally used to promote some forthcoming new decisions as for example it was in 1991 in the former USSR and in some of its ex-republics. The people of republics voted for the political independence and it was later formalized by the parliamentary decisions. Such referendums are normally initiated by the politicians who are interested in promoting them. The situation is a little bit different when it is necessary to abolish some political decision. It this case the initiative most likely would come from the people and it would be articulated by those whom we call elites, people who are not indifferent to the political needs and interests of the society and whose voices will be heard.
Such outstanding personalities as Princess Diana, Martin Luther King Jr. , Nelson Mandela, Academician Sakharov, Alexander Solzhenitsyn and many others targeted their efforts to make the society more humane. Citation Princess Diana, Bibliography Princess Diana, available at web retrieved 22. 04. 2006
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Research essay sample on Point Of View Princess Diana
