CBSE Class 10 Social Science
Revision Notes
Political Science Chapter 1
Power Sharing
1. With this chapter, we resume the tour of democracy that we started last year.
2. An intelligent sharing of power among a legislature, executive and judiciary is very
important to the design of a democracy.
3. We start with two stories from Belgium and Sri Lanka.
4. Both these stories are about how democracies handle demands for power sharing.
Belgium and Sri Lanka:
1. Belgium is a small country in Europe.
2. It has borders with Netherlands, France and Germany.
3. 59% in the Flemish region speaks Dutch.
4. Another 40% people live in Wallonia region and speaks French.
5. Remaining 1% of the Belgians speak Germany.
6. In the capital city Brussels, 80% people speak French while 20% are Dutch – speaking.
7. The minority French – speaking community was relatively rich and powerful.
8. This was resented by the Dutch-speaking community who got the benefit of the economic
development and education much later.
9. The tension between two communities was acuter in Brussels.
10. Like other nations in the south Asia region, Sri Lanka has a diverse population.
11. The Sinhala speaks are 74% and Tamil speakers are 18%