democracy

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1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
2. A political or social unit that has such a government.
3. The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.
4. Majority rule.
5. The principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community.

[French démocratie, from Late Latin dēmocratia, from Greek dēmokratiā : dēmos, people + -kratiā, -cracy.]

For more information on democracy, visit Britannica.com.

Greek, ‘rule by the people’. Since the people are rarely unanimous, democracy as a descriptive term is synonymous with majority rule. In ancient Greece, and when the word was revived in the eighteenth century, most writers were opposed to what they called democracy. In modern times, the connotations of the word are so overwhelmingly favourable that regimes with no claim to it at all appropriated it (the German Democratic Republic, Democratic Kampuchea). Even when not used emptily as propaganda, ‘democracy’ and ‘democratic’ are frequently applied in ways which have no direct connection with majority rule: for instance, The Democratic Intellect (G. E. Davie) is a well-known discussion of the (supposed) egalitarianism of the Scottish educational system in the nineteenth century. Such uses of ‘democracy’ to mean ‘what I approve of ’ are not considered further here. Issues relating to majority rule include:

(1) Who are to count as ‘the people’ and what is a ‘majority’ of them? Ancient Athens called itself a democracy (from c.500 bc to c.330 bc) because all citizens could take part in political decisions. But women, slaves, and resident aliens (including people from other Greek cities) had no rights to participate. Citizens were thus less than a quarter of the adult population. Modern writers have nevertheless accepted the self-description of classical Athens as ‘democratic’ (see also Athenian democracy). Likewise, well under half the adult population of the United Kingdom had the vote before the first women were enfranchised in 1918; but 1918 is not usually given as the year in which Britain became a democracy. What minimum proportion of adults must be enfranchised before a regime may be called democratic? This simple question seems to lack simple answers.‘Majority’ appears to be more clear-cut than ‘people’; it means ‘more than half ’. In votes between two options or candidates this poses no difficulty; in votes among three or more it does. The difficulty was studied by various isolated people (Pliny the Younger, c. ad 105; Ramon Lull in the thirteenth century; Nicolas Cusanus in the fifteenth) but first systematically tackled by Borda and Condorcet in the late eighteenth century. The plurality rule (‘Select the candidate with the largest single number of votes, even if that number is less than half of the votes cast’) may select somebody whom the majority regard as the worst candidate. Nevertheless, countries using this rule for national elections (including Britain, the United States, and India) are normally described as ‘democratic’. Borda proposed to select the candidate with the highest average ranking; Condorcet proposed to select the candidate who wins in pairwise comparisons with each of the others. Although these are the two best interpretations of ‘majority rule’ when there are more than two candidates, they do not always select the same candidate; and the Condorcet winner—that is, the candidate who wins every pairwise comparison—sometimes does not exist. In this case, whichever candidate is chosen, there is always a majority who prefer some other, and the meaning of ‘majority rule’ is unclear.Voting in legislatures is usually by the binary resolution-and-amendment procedure, which always ensures that the winning option has beaten its last rival by a majority (but does not solve the problems mentioned in the previous paragraph).
(2) Why (if at all) should majorities rule minorities? The first argument for democracy in ancient Greece is that attributed by Thucydides to Pericles, one of the democratic leaders of Athens, in 430 bc. Pericles argued that democracy is linked with toleration, but made no special claims for majority rule. Plato and Aristotle both deplored democracy, Plato on the grounds that it handed control of the government from experts in governing to populist demagogues and Aristotle on the grounds that government by the people was in practice government by the poor, who could be expected to expropriate the rich. However, Aristotle did first mention as a justification of majority rule that ‘the majority ought to be sovereign, rather than the best, where the best are few…. [A] feast to which all contribute is better than one given at one man's expense.’ In medieval elections, the usual phrase was that the ‘larger and (or “or”) wiser part’ ought to prevail. But every losing minority could claim that it was the wiser part. Only in the seventeenth century did a defence of democracy based on an assumption of equal rights for all citizens begin to re-emerge, perhaps as a by-product of the Protestant Reformation. Hobbes and Locke both assume the political equality of citizens, but neither draws explicitly democratic conclusions. A stronger claim of equality was asserted by Colonel Rainborough of Cromwell's army in 1647, with his claim that the ‘poorest hee that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest hee’.Significant widening of the franchise in Western regimes began in the late eighteenth century. In the French Revolution, the franchise was at first restricted to fairly substantial property-holders, but it was widened to something approaching manhood franchise in the constitution of 1791 and the proposed constitution of 1793. Many of the American colonies had broad suffrage before 1776, and the Constitution of 1787 lays the groundwork for democracy in federal elections by giving each state representation in the House and in presidential elections in proportion to its population (except for Indians and slaves). Except between 1865 and the 1890s, however, Southern blacks remained disenfranchised until 1965. The first British act to widen the franchise was in 1832; universal suffrage was achieved in 1928. The leading commentators of the period from 1780 to 1920 all accepted the basic premiss that the ‘poorest hee’ (and for Condorcet and J. S. Mill the poorest she) had as good a right to a vote as the richest, although many of them were concerned about the ‘tyranny of the majority’ (see 4 below) and Mill proposed weighting votes in favour of the richer and the better-educated. (See also Madison; Tocqueville.)Another strand of democratic thought argues from equal competence rather than equal rights. This revives Aristotle's feast. Democrats who see politics as a matter of judgement rather than opinion (including Rousseau and Condorcet) argue that, other things being equal, the more people who are involved in arriving at a decision the more likely the decision is to be correct. Condorcet formalized this in his jury theorem, which states that, providing a large enough majority is required, a large number of only moderately competent people can be relied on to take the right decision.
(3) Direct v. representative democracy. Athenian democracy was direct. All citizens were expected to participate, and the attendance at the sovereign Assembly may have been as high as 6,000. When decision-taking bodies had to be smaller, their members were selected by lot rather than by election. Every citizen of Athens had a reasonably high probability of being chief executive for a day.When democracy was reinvented in the eighteenth century, every system was indirect: voters elected representatives who took decisions for which they were answerable only at the next election. Rousseau argued that this was no democracy (‘The people of England think they are free. They are gravely mistaken. They are free only during the election of Members of Parliament’), but was a lone voice. Interest in direct democracy revived in the 1890s when the referendum became more popular, and to a greater extent in the 1960s, when many people especially on the new left revived Rousseau's criticism of representation. Modern communications and computers have removed many of the technical obstacles to direct democracy, but it is not popular either among politicians (whose jobs it imperils) or among political philosophers (the majority of whom accept Schumpeter's argument that direct democracy is incompatible with responsible government).
(4) Is democracy merely majority rule or are other features necessarily part of the definition? Most of the classical theorists of democracy were liberals; and they all saw a tension between democracy and liberty. If the majority voted to invade the minority's rights, this could be tyrannical. Therefore Madison proposed the divisions of powers, both among branches of government and between levels of government, that are a feature of the US Constitution; and Mill proposed to weight the votes of the more educated. Although Madison's scheme protects only some groups from majority tyranny (until 1954 it did nothing for black people in Southern states), the Madisonian principle has been accepted by Schumpeter and many other modern theorists of democracy. Schumpeter's opponents argue that he ‘posed a false dilemma’ because the persecution of minorities ‘cannot be squared with democratic procedure’. This suggestion leaves undetermined the many cases in the world where majorities vote to persecute minorities: not only are places like Northern Ireland, Cyprus, and the West Bank not democracies, but they would not be democracies whichever faction controlled them. It is probably better to restrict ‘democracy’ narrowly to majority rule, and treat toleration, entrenchment of rights, and so on as preconditions for democracy but not as constitutive of democracy itself.

In Britain, the transition from oligarchy to democracy was piecemeal. The civil wars and Glorious Revolution of the 17th cent. confirmed the supremacy of Parliament, but an unreformed electoral system restricted effective participation to a small minority. What public opinion existed could be expressed only spasmodically. The proliferation of newspapers in the 18th cent. and the publication of parliamentary debates after 1770 widened the scope of opinion, but not until the Great Reform Act of 1832 was the system itself substantially modified, with the introduction of a standard franchise and the grant of representation to great towns like Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, and Leeds. Further extension of the franchise in 1867 and 1884 gave most adult males the vote, secret ballot in 1872 reduced the influence of the gentry, and the Corrupt Practices Act of 1883 curtailed bribery. Two further reforms of 1918 and 1928 gave the vote to women, and the voting age was reduced to 18 by an act of 1969.

Democracy affords voters the opportunity to change their government, but the extent to which the opinions of ordinary people are effective in other matters remains a subject of debate, and it is arguable that specific interest groups carry more weight than the casting of a vote (often for a losing candidate) once every four or five years. In local government, where the influence of the individual might be expected to be greatest, the effect has been reduced by powerful strides towards centralized decision-making, and by the domination of many councils by one party. Participatory democracy, accepted in principle by almost everybody, is not easy to practise in a large country, where issues are many and complex.

democracy (dēmokratia, ‘rule of the people’, i.e. of the demos). Democracy in the sense of government by the majority vote of all male citizens is first known in ancient Greece, and this ideal was most nearly achieved at Athens in the fifth century BC, established in essentials by Cleisthenes (2).

(Greek, rule by the people) In Greek thought, rule by the citizens in general (nevertheless excluding women and of course slaves) in contrast to government by the rich and aristocratic. In modern society the sovereignty of the people in general, expressed not directly by a vote on individual questions, but through representatives. Questions arise whether various mechanisms ensure that decision-making authentically answers to the people, or serves their interest (see also general will). The problem of delimiting a democratic constitution encounters these and other difficulties; critics suggest that political democracy is hollow unless accompanied by power in other spheres, and especially the area of economics.

In the simplest sense, democracy is rule by the ruled. In a democratic political system, government power is legitimized by the consent of the governed. Consent is expressed in a variety of forms, including annual election of government leaders and citizen participation in governing processes. The roots of American democratic culture can be traced to the direct election of many colonial legislatures, as well as the practice of democratic governance in many localities. The American Revolution was animated by the idea that the colonists were defending the principle of democratic self-rule and that the American struggle was analogous to the English Parliament's struggle against the monarchy.

The formal mechanisms of democracy can vary, however, with direct democracy at one pole and representative democracy at the other. Direct democracy allows for unmediated citizen deliberation and decision making on public matters; representative democracy permits citizens to elect representatives who act on their behalf. American democracy is representative in design and function, yet it is clearly influenced by the ideology of direct democracy.

In The Federalist Papers, James Madison argued for representative democracy, because of its power to "refine and enlarge" public opinion and to control the intemperate passions of the people, who—if permitted to make government policy directly—would threaten individual rights. A balance between majority rule and individual liberty could be struck if the people's representatives, at a physical and psychological remove from citizens, ruled on their behalf. Representative democracy was best suited for an "extended Republic"—a large nation with a multiplicity of crosscutting interests. If sufficiently removed from the fray of constituent pressure, legislators would be able to discern a good for the nation that transcended the sum total of voter demands.

While Madison's vision of democracy was ultimately enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, Madison's opponents—the anti-federalists—charged that representative democracy was at too far a remove from citizens. On matters of importance power needed to reside closer to the people, if not exercised by their direct consent. While arguments for representative democracy carried the day, the tension between the two models of democracy is a theme that resonates throughout American political history.

Democracy and the American Party System

The development of democracy is closely related to changes in the American party system. The competition between political parties to win offices often generates interest among the electorate in politics and government policies. Political parties can also pursue demobilization strategies, designed to keep people away from the polls. In the early republic factional differences between rivals were rather quietly resolved in congressional caucus. When intense rivalry between Whigs and Democrats emerged in the 1840s, parties turned their efforts to getting out the vote with speeches, events, and policies tailored to win the long-term loyalty of voters.

The Civil War shifted the party system. Party politics became extremely sectionalized, with Democrats dominating offices in the South and many urban areas elsewhere, and the Republicans consistently winning elections in the East and West. After the election of 1896 Republicans dominated national politics until 1932. Sectionalism and weak competition had the effect of lowering voter turnout as well as general interest in politics. The Great Depression sparked a Democratic Party revival that pulled union members and Roman Catholics, among other groups, into a greater habit of voting and democratic participation than they had practiced previously. In the later decades of the twentieth century party loyalty among the electorate began to wane. Many analysts associated the decline in voter turnout with the loosening of ties between citizens and political parties.

Suffrage

While the theoretical debate over the nature and design of democracy was clearly elucidated during the founding of the United States, the extension of full democratic citizenship came much more slowly. The electorate in the years after the constitutional founding numbered only one out of every thirty Americans. Those without property, African Americans, and women were denied the franchise. Many states dropped the property-holding requirement during the great period of political mobilization and political party growth, the age of Jackson (1820s–1830s). But it was not until 1856 that the last state, North Carolina, eliminated the property-holding requirement. In 1966 the Supreme Court held that the poll tax—a charge levied for voting—was unconstitutional. The poll tax had been commonly used in southern states to deter African Americans from voting.

The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1870) prohibits the denial of the right to vote based on race or color. While many African Americans exercised the new right during the reconstruction period, southern states eventually instituted a regime of legally enforced segregation known as "jim crow," which included laws designed to discourage African Americans from voting. As late as 1960, less than 10 percent of African Americans were registered to vote in Mississippi. A series of Supreme Court decisions in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its extensions, declared most of the jim crow practices to be unconstitutional.

The right of a woman to vote was most readily accepted in the American West. The Wyoming state government made federal acceptance of women's suffrage in the state a condition of its entrance into the Union in 1890. In 1920 the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment extended voting rights to women nationally. In 1971 the Twenty-sixth Amendment lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen.

Voter Turnout and Political Participation

The simplest form of democratic participation is voting. Since 1828 voter turnout among eligible voters in presidential elections has ranged from a high of 81.8 percent in 1876 (Republican Rutherford B. Hayes defeated Democrat Samuel J. Tilden) to a low of 48.9 percent in 1924 (Republican Calvin Coolidge defeated Democrat John W. Davis and Progressive Robert La Follette). During the period 1960–2000 voter turnout in presidential elections averaged 55 percent. Voter turnout rates are lower in off-year elections between presidential contests, when many congressional contests are held; during the second half of the twentieth century typically only about one-third of the eligible electorate voted in off-year elections. The degree of competition between candidates and parties, the salience of issues being discussed in a campaign, legal barriers that increase the difficulty of voting, and the demographic composition of the electorate all affect voter turnout. Americans also face a blinding blizzard of choices, electing hundreds of thousands of officials from posts ranging in importance from the U.S. president to local city and county representatives and school board members.

In the early 2000s the U.S. rate of voter participation trailed that of the major western European democracies, a cause of concern for those who fear that the legitimacy of the governance system is threatened if too few people vote. Nonvoting is sometimes interpreted as a symptom of widespread disgust with the American two-party system. By 2002 calls had been made for the emergence of alternative political parties and ideologies to capture the interest and passion of the disenchanted, as well as changes in electoral law to make the birth of alternative parties easier. The surprisingly robust third-party candidacy of the businessman Ross Perot in the presidential elections of 1992 and 1996 was to many an example of the power of outsiders to attract politically alienated citizens. (Perot won 19 percent of the vote in 1992.) Perot, like other third-party or independent candidates for president, flourished during a time of economic and social unrest. Among the few independent presidential candidates who captured voter attention were Congressman John Anderson in 1980, Senator Robert La Follette in 1924, and former President Theodore Roosevelt running with Progressive Party support in 1912. Low voter participation has also been interpreted as a sign of contentment with the status quo, a signal that Americans are fundamentally happy with the political order.

Voting is the most formal act of political participation, but not the exclusive form of citizen involvement in the political system. A 1995 study found that 10 percent of Americans were political activists, defined as those who voted, worked in and contributed to political campaigns, and lobbied elected officials; 15 percent limited their activity to voting and helping out in political campaigns; 20 percent voted but limited more extensive involvement in community affairs to nonpolitical matters; 20 percent did no more than vote; and 20 percent did not vote at all. This survey suggests that a few people do most of the work seemingly required for the maintenance of democratic institutions.

In the early 2000s attention was devoted to the loss in the United States of "social capital"—the pool of trust and reciprocity among citizens that can be drawn on to solve collective problems. With Americans working longer hours, watching more television, and more attached to their professional and workplace institutions than to their geographical community, participation in local political and civic organizations dropped off. Many worried that the vitality of democracy was threatened as a result.

Democracy and Trust

Despite America's long democratic tradition and the slow but steady enfranchisement of excluded groups of citizens, public opinion surveys showed that trust in the democratic process declined in the United States in the aftermath of President Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal and the fallout from the Vietnam War. Many called for reforms to renew the trust of citizens in democracy.

Campaign finance reform, aimed at capping the amount that candidates and parties can spend on elections, cycled off and on the public agenda from the 1970s to the early 2000s. In the 1990s many states and localities adopted term limits for elected representatives to en-courage the participation of amateurs in politics. Other suggested reforms proposed using new communications technology to involve more citizens in politics, as well as make voting easier.

Calls for reform that seek to augment representative democracies with more direct forms have a long history. During the Progressive Era (c. 1890–c. 1920), many states adopted initiative and referendum procedures to bring policy proposals directly before citizens by placing proposals on the ballot. Citizens could thereby bypass representative institutions that were often under the control of urban political machines or state legislatures dominated by rural interests. In the 1990s direct democracy procedures were adopted at a fevered pace. By 2002 California's most important policy decisions were usually resolved by referendum vote rather than in the state legislature.

Political movements have also argued for more expansive notions of democracy. During the New Deal era many liberals argued for forms of economic democracy that would recognize the workplace as an important site of power, where citizens in their role as workers traditionally had little control. In the 1960s the New Left linked democratic participation with individual development, asserting that the communal activities of direct democracy fulfill human potential and cultivate virtue.

Within the framework of consensus about democratic ideals, Americans will continue to debate the merits of direct and representative forms of democracy, and contest the inclusiveness of democratic citizenship, as well as its duties and obligations.

Bibliography

Gant, Michael M., and Norman R. Luttbeg. American Electoral Behavior: 1952–1988. Itasca, Ill.: F. E. Peacock Publishers, 1991.

Kammen, Michael, ed. The Origins of the American Constitution: A Documentary History. New York: Penguin, 1986.

Morgan, Edmund S. The Birth of the Republic, 1763–1789. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000.

Verba, Sidney, Henry E. Brady, and Kay Lehman Schlozman. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995.

—Richard M. Flanagan

A literal translation of the Greek dēmokratia, democracy means rule of the people, or government by the people. It was understood by the ancients as the direct participation of the citizen body in the government of the political community. The political and social institutions that originally gave rise to democracy both as a form of government and as a tool of political analysis soon died out, but democracy as an idea or an ideal persisted in various permutations through the survival or recovery of classical political thought.

Conventional Forms of Government

In the classical and conventional typology of constitutions or forms of government, as in Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) and Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), democracy is viewed as an unlawful or unjust form of rule. There are three legitimate forms of rule: monarchy, aristocracy, and polity—the rule of one, the few, or the many in the public interest. The corresponding illegitimate forms are tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy—the rule of one, the few, or the many in their own interest. Thus, democracy originally was understood as government conducted in the interest of the poor rather than in the public interest. Democracy did not shed these negative class incrustations until late in the nineteenth century, when it came increasingly to be equated with representative and liberal (constitutional) government.

The feudal and monarchical structures of the medieval West reinforced this tradition. Yet three major historical movements signaled the disintegration of the traditional order, and spawned new political ideas that, although not in themselves democratic, led to the rise of democracy. The first are the Renaissance, the Protestant (especially Puritan) Reformation, and the Enlightenment; the latter are republicanism and social contract theory.

Renaissance and Republicanism

The rise of the Italian city-states brought a radical change in political practice and political theory. Popular political institutions emerged, and government by the people was shown to be possible and desirable. These city-states, and the political thought they produced, contributed significantly to the history of modern democratic thought and practice. A renewal of interest in ancient history and culture, especially in historians such as Polybius (c. 200–c. 118 B.C.E.), Sallust (c. 86–35 or 34 B.C.E.), and Tacitus (c. 56–c. 120 C.E.), combined with the political experience of the Italian city-republics, produced a political literature focused on the problems of popular government, and on its relation to liberty and equality. For the first time since the ancients, arguments in favor of popular rule were articulated. Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) is the culmination of this tradition. His thought links popular government, political liberty, and civic and political equality with the socioeconomic health and military strength of the body politic. Government by the people is deemed necessary to the pursuit of the public interest, and the other governmental forms are therefore seen as inferior. Machiavelli is thus a watershed in the history of democratic theory and practice. As such, his thought was mined by subsequent thinkers such as James Harrington (1611–1677), Charles-Louis de Secondat de Montesquieu (1689–1755), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778).

New attitudes. The waning of the Middle Ages, the Protestant Reformation, the dissolution of feudal ties, and the disintegration of a unified religious view, along with profound economic change and painful social dislocations, led to new attitudes, both in the way people perceived themselves and in the way they saw politics and society. The increase in knowledge and wealth, and the spread of literacy and printing, contributed to rapid political and social transformation. The English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution signaled the rise and growing importance of these new attitudes. The execution and deposition of kings exploded the traditional belief in the passive acceptance of political power, showing that the basis for that power is human will and action. Major political theorists such as Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), Samuel von Pufendorf (1632–1694), and John Locke (1632–1704) responded to these economic, political, and intellectual changes by redefining and redirecting traditional ideas of natural law, human nature, and government. Hobbes in particular, with his absolute individualism and radical skepticism, expresses the breakdown of traditional forms of community and legitimate government, and their reconstitution by human reason and will.

Contemporary with Hobbes and with the Puritan revolution there developed in Britain a pamphlet literature in which some authors articulated definite arguments for democratic ideas. Chief among these were the Levellers, whose leader, John Lilburne (c. 1614–1657), located sovereignty in the common people as represented in Parliament. The Levellers developed the first truly modern conception of democratic government, proposing such ideas as universal manhood suffrage, equal representation of electoral districts, equality under law, freedom of expression, and biannual election of Parliaments. English republicanism, as enunciated by James Harrington, John Milton (1608–1674), and Algernon Sidney (1622–1683), also looked to the sovereignty of the people to ensure the public interest. Although not strictly democratic, it was concerned with electoral and political devices that later democrats addressed.

Dutch republicanism contributed significant strands to democratic thought and practice. Weaving together ancient Roman historians, Italian republicanism (especially Machiavelli), and the work of René Descartes (1596–1650) and Hobbes, thinkers such as Pieter de la Court (c. 1618–1685) and his brother Johan (also Jan) de la Court (1622–1660), Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677), and Pufendorf elaborated a theory of the state in which the individual interests and passions of both ruler and people would be subordinated to the common good. Spinoza and the de la Courts believed that a (more or less) democratic system would enable individuals to obey the will of the government and at the same time obey their own will, which in a democratic system is an element of the government's will. Spinoza, especially, thought that of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, the last was the most natural as well as the most rational.

English political thought, whether republican or contractualist, was much more concerned with individual rights than with the rights of the sovereign. Even Hobbes, who obligated the individual to obey an absolute sovereign, nevertheless recognized the absolute and sovereign rights of the individual in the natural state. It was John Locke, though, who integrated the rights of the individual in civil society with the power of the sovereign. His notion of government as a popular trust placed supreme power with a legislature representative of the people, who never alienated their right to change the constitution. Natural right, contract, and political obligation were important ideas; yet they were not necessarily democratic. Most early modern thinkers defined the notion of the people quite narrowly. But they did offer a defense of legislative supremacy, mixed government, and constitutionalism against the traditional and paternalistic claims of absolute monarchy.

In France, Montesquieu combined English ideas of mixed government and parliamentary rights with republican and Machiavellian ideas of the balanced constitution to criticize the despotic tendencies of the French monarchy. The classical sixfold classification of governments he reduced to three: despotism, monarchy, and republic. The latter, in a manner reminiscent of Florentine republican ideas, he further subdivided into aristocratic and democratic. Montesquieu's theory of despotism and his doctrine of the separation of powers were important influences on liberal constitutionalism and on the theory of limited government, but his preferences for limited monarchy and aristocratic government made his ideas undemocratic.

Enlightenment and Social Contract Theory

The Enlightenment, with its emphasis on human rationality and the efficacy of scientific inquiry, and with its belief in the human capacity for growth (or what Condorcet and Rousseau call "perfectibility"), undermined the religious, cultural, and customary underpinnings of the social and political order. Voltaire (1694–1778) and Denis Diderot (1713–1784) in France, like David Hume (1711–1776) and Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) in Britain, explored the human and temporal bases of governmental power. The freedom of thought and expression so necessary for cultural, scientific, and moral development was intimately interwoven with political and civil liberties. In France especially these ideas constituted a thoroughgoing critique of church and state. These thinkers prepared the ground for democracy's future emergence as an actual system of government.

It was Rousseau, product and critic of the Enlightenment, who took the disparate ideas of both the ancients and the moderns (Plato and Aristotle, Roman writers, Machiavelli, Locke, Montesquieu) and made a truly original contribution to democratic theory. Rousseau's thought weds the ancients' concern with the primacy of political activity to the moderns' emphasis on political sociology. Humanity is defined by its capacity for liberty, and liberty means to be the author of one's actions. Thus, in Rousseau, liberty and equality presuppose each other, such that the people, when they come together as the sovereign body, look to the general and common interest of the community. The people acting together as equals in the pursuit of the public good generate the general will. Liberty, equality, and popular sovereignty are embodied in the citizen body as it makes laws for itself through the general will. By returning to the ancient polis, in which the public sphere is the realm of liberty, and in which equal citizens form an indivisible community, Rousseau formulated a novel theory of democracy.

Early modern Europe, from the Renaissance through the Reformation to the Enlightenment, was a transitional stage characterized by political, social, and intellectual/cultural transformation. It established the conditions that would, with the American and the French Revolutions, make possible the birth of the modern. It germinated and brought together ways of thinking and acting that would later form modern democracy. Ideas such as legislative supremacy, representation, constitutionalism, majority rule, and liberty and equality as indefeasible political rights were elaborated during this critical stage of European history. As a result, the basis of political legitimacy was radically transformed: all political power must issue, or appear to issue, from the people.

Bibliography

Bock, Gisela, Quentin Skinner, and Maurizio Viroli, eds. Machiavelli and Republicanism. Cambridge, U.K., 1990. Provides interesting and informative essays on Machiavelli, his forerunners and contemporaries, and on his influence on English and Dutch republicanism.

Burns, James Henderson, ed. The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450–1700. Cambridge, U.K., 1991. A comprehensive history on all aspects of political thought.

Dahl, Robert A. Democracy and Its Critics. New Haven, 1989. An analysis of democratic thought and practice.

Dunn, John, ed. Democracy: The Unfinished Journey, 508 B . C .to A . D . 1993. Oxford, 1992. A number of theorists such as Quentin Skinner, John Dunn, and David Wootton offer interesting analyses of democracy from the ancient Athenians to the present.

Graubard, Stephen R. "Democracy." In Dictionary of the History of Ideas. New York, 1973. A good survey and discussion of democratic thought and practice since classical antiquity.

Hazard, Paul. European Thought in the Eighteenth Century: From Montesquieu to Lessing. Translated by J. Lewis May. London, 1954. Translation of Pensée européenne au XVIIIème siècle. A good discussion of Enlightenment thought.

Pagden, Anthony, ed. The Languages of Political Theory in Early-Modern Europe. Cambridge, U.K., 1987. A series of essays on the political and intellectual changes in early modern Europe.

Riley, Patrick, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau. Cambridge, U.K., 2001. Number of essays on various aspects of Rousseau's thought.

Sartori, Giovanni. The Theory of Democracy Revisited. Chatham, N.J., 1987. Provides both an analytical and historical discussion of various theories of democracy.

Skinner, Quentin. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought. Vol. 1, The Renaissance, and Vol. 2, The Age of Reformation. Cambridge, U.K., 1978.

—BENEDETTO FONTANA

A system of government in which power is vested in the people, who rule either directly or through freely elected representatives.

Quotes:

"The world must be made safe for democracy." - Woodrow T. Wilson

"That a peasant may become king does not render the kingdom democratic." - Woodrow T. Wilson

"America is the place where you cannot kill your government by killing the men who conduct it." - Woodrow T. Wilson

"Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles." - Woodrow T. Wilson

"I believe in democracy, because it releases the energies of every human being." - Woodrow T. Wilson

"Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people." - Oscar Wilde

See more famous quotes about Democracy

For other uses, see Democracy (disambiguation) and Democratic Party.

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Democracy is a political government either carried out by the people (direct democracy), or the power to govern is granted to elected representatives (Representative democracy). The term is derived from the Greek: δημοκρατία - (dēmokratía) "the power to the people",^[1] which was coined from δῆμος (dêmos) "people" and κράτος (krátos) "power", in the middle of the fifth-fourth century BC to denote the political systems then existing in some Greek city-states, notably Athens following a popular uprising in 508 BC.^[2] Even though there is no specific, universally accepted definition of 'democracy',^[3] there are two principles that any definition of democracy includes, equality and freedom.^{[4][dubious – discuss]} These principles are reflected by all citizens being equal before the law, and having equal access to power,^[5] and freedom is secured by legitimized rights and liberties, which are generally protected by a constitution.^[6][7]

There are several varieties of democracy, some of which provide better representation and more freedoms for their citizens than others.^[8][9] However, if any democracy is not carefully legislated to avoid an uneven distribution of political power with balances, such as the separation of powers, then a branch of the system of rule could accumulate power and become harmful to the democracy itself.^[10][11][12]

The "majority rule" is often described as a characteristic feature of democracy, but without responsible government or constitutional protections of individual liberties from democratic power it is possible for dissenting individuals to be oppressed by the "tyranny of the majority". An essential process in representative democracies is competitive elections, that are fair both substantively^[13] and procedurally.^[14] Furthermore, freedom of political expression, freedom of speech and freedom of the press are essential so that citizens are informed and able to vote in their personal interests.^[15][16]

Popular sovereignty is common but not a universal motivating subject for establishing a democracy. In some countries, democracy is based on the philosophical principle of equal rights. Many people use the term "democracy" as shorthand for liberal democracy, which may include additional elements such as political pluralism, equality before the law, the right to petition elected officials for redress of grievances, due process, civil liberties, human rights, and elements of civil society outside the government.

In the United States, separation of powers is often cited as a supporting attribute, but in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, the dominant philosophy is parliamentary sovereignty (though in practice judicial independence is generally maintained). In other cases, "democracy" is used to mean direct democracy. Though the term "democracy" is typically used in the context of a political state, the principles are also applicable to private organizations and other groups.

Democracy has its origins in Ancient Greece.^[17][18] However other cultures have significantly contributed to the evolution of democracy such as Ancient Rome,^[17] Europe,^[17] and North and South America.^[19] The concept of representative democracy arose largely from ideas and institutions that developed during the European Middle Ages and the Age of Enlightenment and in the American and French Revolutions.^[20] Democracy has been called the "last form of government" and has spread considerably across the globe.^[21] The Right to vote has been expanded in many Jurisdictions over time from relatively narrow groups (such as wealthy men of a particular ethnic group), with New Zealand the first nation to grant universal suffrage for all its citizens in 1893. Suffrage still remains a controversial issue with regard to disputed territories, areas with significant immigration, and countries that exclude certain demographic groups.

Contents 1 History of democracy 1.1 Ancient origins 1.2 Middle Ages 1.3 18th and 19th centuries 1.4 20th century 2 Forms 2.1 Representative 2.1.1 Parliamentary 2.1.2 Liberal 2.2 Constitutional 2.3 Direct 2.4 Participatory 2.5 Socialist 2.6 Anarchist 2.7 Iroquois 2.8 Sortition 2.9 Consensus 2.10 Supranational 2.11 Cosmopolitan 2.12 Non-governmental 3 Theory 3.1 Aristotle 3.2 Conceptions 3.3 Republic 3.4 Constitutional monarchs and upper chambers 4 Facts 5 Opposition to democracy 6 Criticism of democracy 6.1 Mob rule 6.2 Moral decay 6.3 Political instability 6.4 Short-termism 6.5 Slow governmental response 6.6 Vote Buying 6.7 Illiberal democracy 6.8 Volatility/unsustainability 6.9 Popular Rule as a Facade 7 See also 8 References 9 Further reading 10 External links

History of democracy

Main article: History of democracy

Ancient origins

The term democracy first appeared in ancient Greek political and philosophical thought. The philosopher Plato contrasted democracy, the system of "rule by the governed", with the alternative systems of monarchy (rule by one individual), oligarchy (rule by a small élite class) and timocracy.^[22] Although Athenian democracy is today considered by many to have been a form of direct democracy, originally it had two distinguishing features: firstly the allotment (selection by lot) of ordinary citizens to government offices and courts,^[23] and secondarily the assembly of all the citizens^[24].

All citizens were eligible to speak and vote in the Assembly, which set the laws of the city-state. However, the Athenian citizenship was only for males born from a father who was citizen and who had been doing their "military service" between 18 and 20 years old; this excluded women, slaves, foreigners (μετοίκος / metoikos) and males under 20 years old. Of the 250,000 inhabitants only some 30,000 on average were citizens. Of those 30,000 perhaps 5,000 might regularly attend one or more meetings of the popular Assembly. Most of the officers and magistrates of Athenian government were allotted; only the generals (strategoi) and a few other officers were elected.^[2]

A serious claim for early democratic institutions comes from the independent "republics" of India, sanghas and ganas, which existed as early as the sixth century BC and persisted in some areas until the fourth century AD. The evidence is scattered and no pure historical source exists for that period. In addition, Diodorus (a Greek historian at the time of Alexander the Great's excursion of India), without offering any detail, mentions that independent and democratic states existed in India.^[25]

A possible example of primitive democracy may have been the early Sumerian city-states.^[26] Vaishali in what is now Bihar, India is also one of the first governments in the world to have elements of what we would today consider democracy, similar to those found in ancient Greece. A similar proto-democracy or oligarchy existed temporarily among the Medes (ancient Iranian people) in the 6th century BC, but which came to an end after the Achaemenid (Persian) Emperor Darius the Great declared that the best monarchy was better than the best oligarchy or best democracy.^[27]

Even though the Roman Republic contributed significantly into certain aspects of democracy, only a minority of Romans were citizens. As such, having votes in elections for choosing representatives and then the votes of the powerful were given more weight through a system of Gerrymandering. For that reason, almost all high officials, including members of the Senate, came from a few wealthy and noble families.^[28] However, many notable exceptions did occur.

Democracy Index as published in January, 2007. The palest blue countries get a score above 9.5 out of 10 (with Sweden being the most democratic country at 9.88), while the black countries score below 2 (with North Korea being the least democratic at 0.86).

Middle Ages

During the Middle Ages, there were various systems involving elections or assemblies, although often only involving a small amount of the population, such as the election of Uthman in the Rashidun Caliphate, the election of Gopala in Bengal, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Althing in Iceland, certain medieval Italian city-states such as Venice, the tuatha system in early medieval Ireland, the Veche in Novgorod and Pskov Republics of medieval Russia, Scandinavian Things, The States in Tirol and Switzerland and the autonomous merchant city of Sakai in the 16th century in Japan. However, participation was often restricted to a minority, and so may be better classified as oligarchy. Most regions in medieval Europe were ruled by clergy or feudal lords.

A little closer to modern democracy were the Cossack republics of Ukraine in the 16th-17th centuries: Cossack Hetmanate and Zaporizhian Sich. The highest post - the Hetman - was elected by the representatives from the country's districts. Because these states were very militarised, the right to participate in Hetman's elections was largely restricted to those who served in the Cossack Army and over time was curtailed effectively limiting these rights to higher army ranks.

Magna Carta, 1215, England

The Parliament of England had its roots in the restrictions on the power of kings written into Magna Carta, explicitly protected certain rights of the King's subjects, whether free or fettered — and implicitly supported what became English writ of habeas corpus, safeguarding individual freedom against unlawful imprisonment with right to appeal. First elected parliament was De Montfort's Parliament in England in 1265.

However only a small minority actually had a voice; Parliament was elected by only a few percent of the population (less than 3% in 1780.^[29]), and power to call parliament was at the pleasure of the monarch (usually when he or she needed funds) and the system had problematic features such as rotten boroughs, of which measures were taken against notably Reform Act 1832 that introduced wide-ranging changes to the electoral system of the United Kingdom, increasing the size of electorate by 50–80%. After Glorious Revolution 1688, English Bill of Rights 1689 was enacted, which codified certain rights and increased the influence of Parliament.^[29] The franchise was slowly increased and Parliament gradually gained more power until monarch became largely a figurehead.^[30]

Democracy was also seen to a certain extent in bands and tribes such as the Iroquois Confederacy. However, in the Iroquois Confederacy only the males of certain clans could be leaders and some clans were excluded. Only the oldest females from the same clans could choose and remove the leaders. This excluded most of the population. An interesting detail is that there should be consensus among the leaders, not majority support decided by voting, when making decisions.^[31][32]

Band societies, such as the Bushmen, which usually number 20-50 people in the band often do not have leaders and make decisions based on consensus among the majority. In Melanesia, farming village communities have traditionally been egalitarian and lacking in a rigid, authoritarian hierarchy. Although a "Big man" or "Big woman" could gain influence, that influence was conditional on a continued demonstration of leadership skills, and on the willingness of the community. Every person was expected to share in communal duties, and entitled to participate in communal decisions. However, strong social pressure encouraged conformity and discouraged individualism.^[33]

18th and 19th centuries

Number of nations 1800-2003 scoring 8 or higher on Polity IV scale, another widely used measure of democracy.

Although not described as a democracy by the founding fathers, the United States founders shared a determination to root the American experiment in the principle of natural freedom and equality. ^[34] The United States Constitution, adopted in 1788, provided for an elected government and protected civil rights and liberties for some.

In the colonial period before 1776, and for some time after, only adult white male property owners could vote; enslaved Africans, free black people and women were not extended the franchise. On the American frontier, democracy became a way of life, with widespread social, economic and political equality.^[35] However, slavery was a social and economic institution, particularly in eleven states in the American South, that a variety of organizations were established advocating the movement of black people from the United States to locations where they would enjoy greater freedom and equality.^[36]

During the 1820s and 1830s the American Colonization Society (A.C.S.) was the primary vehicle for proposals to return black Americans to freedom in Africa. It had broad support nationwide among white people, including prominent leaders such as Henry Clay and James Monroe, who saw this as preferable to emancipation in America, and in 1821 the A.C.S. established colony of Liberia, assisting thousands of former African-American slaves and free black people to move there from the United States.^[36]

By the 1840s almost all property restrictions were ended and nearly all white adult male citizens could vote; and turnout averaged 60–80% in frequent elections for local, state and national officials. The system gradually evolved, from Jeffersonian Democracy to Jacksonian Democracy and beyond. In the 1860 Census the slave population in the United States had grown to four million.^[37], and in Reconstruction after the Civil War (late 1860s) the newly freed slaves became citizens with (in the case of men) a nominal right to vote, and full enfranchisement of citizens was not secured until after the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968) which campaigned for freedom of oppression from white Americans, gained passage by the United States Congress of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The establishment of universal male suffrage in France in 1848 was an important milestone in the history of democracy.

In 1789, Revolutionary France adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and, although short-lived, the National Convention was elected by all males in 1792.^[38] Universal male suffrage was definitely established in France in March 1848 in the wake of the French Revolution of 1848.^[39] In 1848, several revolutions broke out in Europe as rulers were confronted with popular demands for liberal constitutions and more democratic government.^[40]

The Australian colonies became democratic during the mid 19th century, with South Australia being the first government in the world to introduce women's suffrage in 1861. (It was argued that as women would vote the same as their husbands, this essentially gave married men two votes, which was not unreasonable.)

New Zealand granted suffrage to (native) Māori men in 1867, white men in 1879, and women in 1893, thus becoming the first major nation to achieve universal suffrage. However, women were not eligible to stand for parliament until 1919.

Liberal democracies were few and often short-lived before the late nineteenth century, and various nations and territories have also claimed to be the first with universal suffrage.

20th century

Since World War II, democracy has gained widespread acceptance. This map displays the official self identification made by world governments with regard to democracy, as of March 2008. It shows the de jure status of democracy in the world.^{[citation needed]}      Governments self identified as democratic^{[citation needed]}      Governments not self identified as democratic: Vatican City, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar and Brunei.^{[citation needed]}

20th century transitions to liberal democracy have come in successive "waves of democracy," variously resulting from wars, revolutions, decolonization, religious and economic circumstances. World War I and the dissolution of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires resulted in the creation of new nation-states from Europe, most of them at least nominally democratic.

In the 1920s democracy flourished, but the Great Depression brought disenchantment, and most of the countries of Europe, Latin America, and Asia turned to strong-man rule or dictatorships. Fascism and dictatorships flourished in Nazi Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal, as well as nondemocratic regimes in the Baltics, the Balkans, Brazil, Cuba, China, and Japan, among others.^[41]

World War II brought a definitive reversal of this trend in western Europe. The successful democratization of the American, British, and French sectors of occupied Germany (disputed^[42]), Austria, Italy, and the occupied Japan served as a model for the later theory of regime change.

However, most of Eastern Europe, including the Soviet sector of Germany was forced into the non-democratic Soviet bloc. The war was followed by decolonization, and again most of the new independent states had nominally democratic constitutions. India emerged as the world's largest democracy and continues to be so.^[43]

In the decades following World War II, most western democratic nations had mixed economies and developed a welfare state, reflecting a general consensus among their electorates and political parties. In the 1950s and 1960s, economic growth was high in both the western and Communist countries; it later declined in the state-controlled economies. By 1960, the vast majority of country-states were nominally democracies, although the majority of the world's populations lived in nations that experienced sham elections, and other forms of subterfuge (particularly in Communist nations and the former colonies.)

This graph shows Freedom House's evaluation of the number of nations in the different categories given above for the period for which there are surveys, 1972-2005

A subsequent wave of democratization brought substantial gains toward true liberal democracy for many nations. Spain, Portugal (1974), and several of the military dictatorships in South America returned to civilian rule in the late 1970s and early 1980s (Argentina in 1983, Bolivia, Uruguay in 1984, Brazil in 1985, and Chile in the early 1990s). This was followed by nations in East and South Asia by the mid- to late 1980s.

Economic malaise in the 1980s, along with resentment of communist oppression, contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the associated end of the Cold War, and the democratization and liberalization of the former Eastern bloc countries. The most successful of the new democracies were those geographically and culturally closest to western Europe, and they are now members or candidate members of the European Union^{[citation needed]} .

The liberal trend spread to some nations in Africa in the 1990s, most prominently in South Africa. Some recent examples of attempts of liberalization include the Indonesian Revolution of 1998, the Bulldozer Revolution in Yugoslavia, the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, and the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan.

Currently, there are 123 countries that are democratic, and the trend is increasing^[44] (up from 40 in 1972).^{[citation needed]} As such, it has been speculated that this trend may continue in the future to the point where liberal democratic nation-states become the universal standard form of human society. This prediction forms the core of Francis Fukayama's "End of History" controversial theory. These theories are criticized by those who fear an evolution of liberal democracies to post-democracy, and other who points out the high number of illiberal democracies.

Forms

Main articles: Varieties of democracy and List of types of democracy

Democracy has taken a number of forms, both in theory and practice. The following kinds are not exclusive of one another: many specify details of aspects that are independent of one another and can co-exist in a single system.

Political ratings of countries according to Freedom House’s Freedom in the World survey, 2009:     Free     Partly Free     Not Free The report states that economic freedom, not democracy, leads to political freedom.

Representative

Representative democracy involves the selection of government officials by the people being represented. If the head of state is also democratically elected is also called a democratic republic. The most common mechanisms involve election of the candidate with a majority or a plurality of the votes.

Representatives may be elected or become diplomatic representatives by a particular district (or constituency), or represent the entire electorate proportionally proportional systems, with some using a combination of the two. Some representative democracies also incorporate elements of direct democracy, such as referendums. A characteristic of representative democracy is that while the representatives are elected by the people to act in their interest, they retain the freedom to exercise their own judgment as how best to do so.

Parliamentary

Parliamentary democracy is where government is appointed by parliamentary representatives as opposed to a 'presidential rule' wherein the President is both head of state and the head of government and is elected by the voters. Under a parliamentary democracy, government is exercised by delegation to an executive ministry and subject to ongoing review, checks and balances by the legislative parliament elected by the people.^{[45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52]}

Liberal

A Liberal democracy is a representative democracy in which the ability of the elected representatives to exercise decision-making power is subject to the rule of law, and usually moderated by a constitution that emphasizes the protection of the rights and freedoms of individuals, and which places constraints on the leaders and on the extent to which the will of the majority can be exercised against the rights of minorities (see civil liberties).

Constitutional

See: Constitutional democracy

Direct

Direct democracy is a political system where the citizens participate in the decision-making personally, contrary to relying on intermediaries or representatives.The supporters of direct democracy argue that democracy is more than merely a procedural issue. A direct democracy gives the voting population the power to:

1. Change constitutional laws,
2. Put forth initiatives, referenda and suggestions for laws,
3. Give binding orders to elective officials, such as revoking them before the end of their elected term, or initiating a lawsuit for breaking a campaign promise.

Of the three measures mentioned, most operate in developed democracies today. This is part of a gradual shift towards direct democracies. Examples of this include the extensive use of referenda in California with more than 20 million voters, and (i.e., voting).^[53] in Switzerland, where five million voters decide on national referenda and initiatives two to four times a year; direct democratic instruments are also well established at the cantonal and communal level. Vermont towns have been known for their yearly town meetings, held every March to decide on local issues. No direct democracy is in existence outside the framework of a different overarching form of government. Most direct democracies to date have been weak forms, relatively small communities, usually city-states. The world is yet to see a large, fundamental, working example of direct democracy as of yet, with most examples being small and weak forms.

See: List of direct democracy parties

Participatory

A Parpolity or Participatory Polity is a theoretical form of democracy that is ruled by a Nested Council structure. The guiding philosophy is that people should have decision making power in proportion to how much they are affected by the decision. Local councils of 25-50 people are completely autonomous on issues that affect only them, and these councils send delegates to higher level councils who are again autonomous regarding issues that affect only the population affected by that council.

A council court of randomly chosen citizens serves as a check on the tyranny of the majority, and rules on which body gets to vote on which issue. Delegates can vote differently than their sending council might wish, but are mandated to communicate the wishes of their sending council. Delegates are recallable at any time. Referenda are possible at any time via votes of the majority of lower level councils, however, not everything is a referendum as this is most likely a waste of time. A parpolity is meant to work in tandem with a participatory economy See: Parpolity

Socialist

"Democracy cannot consist solely of elections that are nearly always fictitious and managed by rich landowners and professional politicians."

— Che Guevara, Marxist revolutionary^[54]

Socialist thought has several different views on democracy. Social democracy, democratic socialism, and the dictatorship of the proletariat (usually exercised through Soviet democracy) are some examples. Many democratic socialists and social democrats believe in a form of participatory democracy and workplace democracy combined with a representative democracy.

Within Marxist orthodoxy there is a hostility to what is commonly called "liberal democracy", which they simply refer to as parliamentary democracy because of its often centralized nature. Because of their desire to eliminate the political elitism they see in capitalism, Marxists, Leninists and Trotskyists believe in direct democracy implemented though a system of communes (which are sometimes called soviets). This system ultimately manifests itself as council democracy and begins with workplace democracy. (See Democracy in Marxism)

Anarchist

Anarchists are split in this domain, depending on whether they believe that a majority-rule is tyrannic or not. The only form of democracy considered acceptable to many anarchists is direct democracy. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon argued that the only acceptable form of direct democracy is one in which it is recognized that majority decisions are not binding on the minority, even when unanimous.^[55] However, anarcho-communist Murray Bookchin criticized individualist anarchists for opposing democracy,^[56] and says "majority rule" is consistent with anarchism.^[57]

Some anarcho-communists oppose the majoritarian nature of direct democracy, feeling that it can impede individual liberty and opt in favour of a non-majoritarian form of consensus democracy, similar to Proudhon's position on direct democracy.^[58] Henry David Thoreau, who did not self-identify as an anarchist but argued for "a better government"^[59] and is cited as an inspiration by some anarchists, argued that people should not be in the position of ruling others or being ruled when there is no consent.

Iroquois

Iroquois society had a form of participatory democracy and representative democracy.^[60] Iroquois government and law was discussed by Benjamin Franklin^[60] and Thomas Jefferson.^[61] Though some others disagree,^[62] some scholars regard it to have influenced the formation of American representative democracy.^[61]

Sortition

Sometimes called "democracy without elections", sortition is the process of choosing decision makers via a random process. The intention is that those chosen will be representative of the opinions and interests of the people at large, and be more fair and impartial than an elected official. The technique was in widespread use in Athenian Democracy and is still used in modern jury selection.

Consensus

Consensus democracy requires varying degrees of consensus rather than just a mere democratic majority. It typically attempts to protect minority rights from domination by majority rule.

Supranational

Qualified majority voting (QMV) is designed by the Treaty of Rome to be the principal method of reaching decisions in the European Council of Ministers. This system allocates votes to member states in part according to their population, but heavily weighted in favour of the smaller states. This might be seen as a form of representative democracy, but representatives to the Council might be appointed rather than directly elected.

Some might consider the "individuals" being democratically represented to be states rather than people, as with many other international organizations. European Parliament members are democratically directly elected on the basis of universal suffrage, may be seen as an example of a supranational democratic institution.

Cosmopolitan

Cosmopolitan democracy, also known as Global democracy or World Federalism is a political system in which democracy is implemented on a global scale, either directly or through representatives. The supporters of cosmopolitan democracy argue that it is fundamentally different than any form of national or regional democracy, because in a Cosmopolitan Democracy, decisions are made by people influenced by them, while in Regional and National Democracies, decisions often influence people outside the constituency, which by-definition can not vote.^[63]

In a globalised world, argue the supporters of Cosmopolitan Democracy, any attempt to solve global problems would either be undemocratic or have to implement cosmopolitan democracy. The challenge of cosmopolitan democracy is to apply some of the values and norms of democracy, including the rule of law, the non-violent resulutions of conflicts, and the equality among citizens, also beyond the state. This requires to reform international organizations, first of all the United Nations, and to create new institutions, such as a World Parliament, which could increase the degree of public control and accountability on international politics.

Cosmopolitan Democracy was promoted, among others, by physicist Albert Einstein ^[64], writer Kurt Vonnegut, columnist George Monbiot, and professors David Held and Daniele Archibugi^[65].

Non-governmental

Aside from the public sphere, similar democratic principles and mechanisms of voting and representation have been used to govern other kinds of communities and organizations.

• Many non-governmental organizations decide policy and leadership by voting.
• Most trade unions choose their leadership through democratic elections.
• Cooperatives are enterprises owned and democratically controlled by their customers or workers.

Theory

Voting is an important part of the formal democratic process.

Aristotle

Aristotle contrasted rule by the many (democracy/polity), with rule by the few (oligarchy/aristocracy), and with rule by a single person (tyranny or today autocracy/monarchy). He also thought that there was a good and a bad variant of each system (he considered democracy to be the degenerate counterpart to polity).^[66][67]

For Aristotle the underlying principle of democracy is freedom, since only in a democracy the citizens can have a share in freedom. In essence, he argues that this is what every democracy should make its aim. There are two main aspects of freedom: being ruled and ruling in turn, since everyone is equal according to number, not merit, and to be able to live as one pleases.

Now a fundamental principle of the democratic form of constitution is liberty—that is what is usually asserted, implying that only under this constitution do men participate in liberty, for they assert this as the aim of every democracy. But one factor of liberty is to govern and be governed in turn; for the popular principle of justice is to have equality according to number, not worth, and if this is the principle of justice prevailing, the multitude must of necessity be sovereign and the decision of the majority must be final and must constitute justice, for they say that each of the citizens ought to have an equal share; so that it results that in democracies the poor are more powerful than the rich, because there are more of them and whatever is decided by the majority is sovereign. This then is one mark of liberty which all democrats set down as a principle of the constitution. And one is for a man to live as he likes; for they say that this is the function of liberty, inasmuch as to live not as one likes is the life of a man that is a slave. This is the second principle of democracy, and from it has come the claim not to be governed, preferably not by anybody, or failing that, to govern and be governed in turns; and this is the way in which the second principle contributes to equalitarian liberty.^[4]

Conceptions

Among political theorists, there are many contending conceptions of democracy.

• Aggregative democracy uses democratic processes to solicit citizens’ preferences and then aggregate them together to determine what social policies society should adopt. Therefore, proponents of this view hold that democratic participation should primarily focus on voting, where the policy with the most votes gets implemented. There are different variants of this:
  • Under minimalism, democracy is a system of government in which citizens give teams of political leaders the right to rule in periodic elections. According to this minimalist conception, citizens cannot and should not “rule” because, for example, on most issues, most of the time, they have no clear views or their views are not well-founded. Joseph Schumpeter articulated this view most famously in his book Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy.^[68] Contemporary proponents of minimalism include William H. Riker, Adam Przeworski, Richard Posner.
  • Direct democracy, on the other hand, holds that citizens should participate directly, not through their representatives, in making laws and policies. Proponents of direct democracy offer varied reasons to support this view. Political activity can be valuable in itself, it socializes and educates citizens, and popular participation can check powerful elites. Most importantly, citizens do not really rule themselves unless they directly decide laws and policies.
  • Governments will tend to produce laws and policies that are close to the views of the median voter – with half to his left and the other half to his right. This is not actually a desirable outcome as it represents the action of self-interested and somewhat unaccountable political elites competing for votes. Downs suggests that ideological political parties are necessary to act as a mediating broker between individual and governments. Anthony Downs laid out this view in his 1957 book An Economic Theory of Democracy.^[69]
  • Robert A. Dahl argues that the fundamental democratic principle is that, when it comes to binding collective decisions, each person in a political community is entitled to have his/her interests be given equal consideration (not necessarily that all people are equally satisfied by the collective decision). He uses the term polyarchy to refer to societies in which there exists a certain set of institutions and procedures which are perceived as leading to such democracy. First and foremost among these institutions is the regular occurrence of free and open elections which are used to select representatives who then manage all or most of the public policy of the society. However, these polyarchic procedures may not create a full democracy if, for example, poverty prevents political participation.^[70] Some^[who?] see a problem with the wealthy having more influence and therefore argue for reforms like campaign finance reform. Some^[who?] may see it as a problem that the majority of the voters decide policy, as opposed to majority rule of the entire population. This can be used as an argument for making political participation mandatory, like compulsory voting or for making it more patient (non-compulsory) by simply refusing power to the government until the full majority feels inclined to speak their minds.
• Deliberative democracy is based on the notion that democracy is government by discussion. Deliberative democrats contend that laws and policies should be based upon reasons that all citizens can accept. The political arena should be one in which leaders and citizens make arguments, listen, and change their minds.
• Radical democracy is based on the idea that there are hierarchical and oppressive power relations that exist in society. Democracy's role is to make visible and challenge those relations by allowing for difference, dissent and antagonisms in decision making processes.

Republic

Main article: Republicanism

In contemporary usage, the term democracy refers to a government chosen by the people, whether it is direct or representative.^[71] The term republic has many different meanings, but today often refers to a representative democracy with an elected head of state, such as a president, serving for a limited term, in contrast to states with a hereditary monarch as a head of state, even if these states also are representative democracies with an elected or appointed head of government such as a prime minister.^[72]

The Founding Fathers of the United States rarely praised and often criticized democracy, which in their time tended to specifically mean direct democracy; James Madison argued, especially in The Federalist No. 10, that what distinguished a democracy from a republic was that the former became weaker as it got larger and suffered more violently from the effects of faction, whereas a republic could get stronger as it got larger and combats faction by its very structure.

What was critical to American values, John Adams insisted,^[73] was that the government be "bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend." As Benjamin Franklin was exiting after writing the U.S. constitution, a woman asked him Sir, what have you given us?. He replied A republic ma'am, if you can keep it^[74]

Constitutional monarchs and upper chambers

Initially after the American and French revolutions the question was open whether a democracy, in order to restrain unchecked majority rule, should have an elitist upper chamber, the members perhaps appointed meritorious experts or having lifetime tenures, or should have a constitutional monarch with limited but real powers. Some countries (as Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Scandinavian countries, Thailand, Japan and Bhutan) turned powerful monarchs into constitutional monarchs with limited or, often gradually, merely symbolic roles.

Often the monarchy was abolished along with the aristocratic system (as in France, China, Russia, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Greece and Egypt). Many nations had elite upper houses of legislatures which often had lifetime tenure, but eventually these lost power (as in Britain) or else became elective and remained powerful (as in the United States).

Facts

In practice it may not pay the incumbents to conduct fair elections in countries that have no history of democracy. A study showed that incumbents who rig elections stay in office 2.5 times as long as those who permit fair elections.^[75] Above $2,700 per capita, democracies have been found to be less prone to violence, but below that threshold, more violence.^[75] The same study shows that election misconduct tends to fall in countries with low per capita incomes, small populations, rich in natural resources, and a lack of institutional checks and balances. Sub-Saharan countries, as well as Afghanistan, all tend to fall into that category.^[75]

Governments that have frequent elections averaged over the political cycle have significantly better economic policies than those who don't. This does not apply to governments with fraudulent elections, however.^[75]

Opposition to democracy

Main article: Opposition to democracy

This is one attempted measurement of democracy called the Polity IV data series. This map shows the data presented in the polity IV data series report as of 2003. The lightest countries get a perfect score of 10, while the darkest countries (Saudi Arabia and Qatar), considered the least democratic, score -10.

Democracy in modern times has almost always faced opposition from the existing government. The implementation of a democratic government within a non-democratic state is typically brought about by democratic revolution. Monarchy had traditionally been opposed to democracy, and to this day remains opposed to its abolition, although often political compromise has been reached in the form of shared government.

Currently, opposition to democracy exists in communist states, absolute monarchies, and Islamic governments, which appear to have various reasons for opposing the implementation of democracy or democratic reforms.

Criticism of democracy

Main article: Criticism of democracy

Economists since Milton Friedman have strongly criticized the efficiency of democracy. They base this on their premise of the irrational voter. Their argument is that voters are highly uninformed about many political issues, especially relating to economics, and have a strong bias about the few issues on which they are fairly knowledgeable.

Mob rule

Plato's The Republic presents a critical view of democracy through the narration of Socrates: "Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequaled alike."^[76] In his work, Plato lists 5 forms of government from best to worst. Assuming that the Republic was intended to be a serious critique of the political thought in Athens, Plato argues that only Kallipolis, an aristocracy lead by the unwilling philosopher-kings (the wisest men) is a just form of government.

Moral decay

Traditional Asian cultures, in particular that of Confucian and Islamic thought, believe that democracy results in the people's distrust and disrespect of governments or religious sanctity. The distrust and disrespect pervades to all parts of society whenever and wherever there is seniority and juniority, for example between a parent and a child, a teacher and a student.

Political instability

More recently, democracy is criticised for not offering enough political stability. As governments are frequently elected on and off there tends to be frequent changes in the policies of democratic countries both domestically and internationally. Even if a political party maintains power, vociferous, headline grabbing protests and harsh criticism from the mass media are often enough to force sudden, unexpected political change. Frequent policy changes with regard to business and immigration are likely to deter investment and so hinder economic growth. For this reason, many people have put forward the idea that democracy is undesirable for a developing country in which economic growth and the reduction of poverty are top priority.^[77]

Short-termism

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Democracy is also criticised for frequent elections due to the instability of coalition governments. Coalitions are frequently formed after the elections in many countries (for example India) and the basis of alliance is predominantly to enable a viable majority, not an ideological concurrence.

This opportunist alliance not only has the handicap of having to cater to too many ideologically opposing factions, but it is usually short lived since any perceived or actual imbalance in the treatment of coalition partners, or changes to leadership in the coalition partners themselves, can very easily result in the coalition partner withdrawing its support from the government.

Slow governmental response

Democratic institutions work on consensus to decide an issue, which usually takes longer than a unilateral decision.

Vote Buying

This is a simple form of appealing to the short term interests of the voters. This tactic has been known to be heavily used in north and north-east region of Thailand.

Another form is commonly called Pork barrel where local areas or political sectors are given special benefits but whose costs are spread among all taxpayers.

Illiberal democracy

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Mere elections are just one aspect of the democratic process. If one examines the central tenets of democracy, i.e., equality and freedom, these are frequently absent in ostensibly democratic countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Moreover, in many countries, democratic participation is less than 50% at times, which makes them democracies only in name.^[opinion] The Election of individual(s) instead of ideas is the primary disrupter of democracy.

Volatility/unsustainability

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The new establishment of democratic institutions in countries where the associated practices have as yet been uncommon or deemed culturally unacceptable, can result in institutions, that are not sustainable in the long term. One circumstance supporting this outcome may be when it is part of the common perception among the populace that the institutions were established as a direct result of foreign pressure.

All political parties in Canada are now cautious about criticising of the high level of immigration, because, as noted by the Globe and Mail, "in the early 1990s, the old Reform Party was branded 'racist' for suggesting that immigration levels be lowered from 250,000 to 150,000."^[78]

Popular Rule as a Facade

The 20th Century Italian thinkers Pareto and Mosca (independently) argued that democracy was illusory, and served only to mask the reality of elite rule. Indeed, they argued that elite oligarchy is the unbendable law of human nature, due largely to the apathy and division of the masses (as opposed to the drive, initiative and unity of the elites), and that democratic institutions would do no more than shift the exercise of power from oppression to manipulation^[79].

In a liberal democracy such as Canada, the following paradox persists. Even though the majority of respondents answer yes to the question: 'Are there too many immigrant arrivals each year?' immigrant numbers continue to rise until a critical set of economic costs appear.^[80][81]

See also

Politics portal

• List of types of democracy
• Parliamentary democracy
• Cosmopolitan democracy
• Crowdsourcing
• Community of Democracies
• Democracy Index
• Democratic Peace Theory
• Democratization
• Direct democracy
• List of direct democracy parties
• E-democracy
• Election
• Foucault/Habermas debate
• Freedom deficit
• Freedom House, Freedom in the World report
• Liberal democracy
• Majority rule
• Media democracy
• Netocracy
• Poll
• Polyarchy
• Sociocracy
• Sortition
• Subversion
• Voting

"Model Government Charters: A City, County, Regional, State, and Federal Handbook," published by McFarland and Co., Inc., Jefferson, NC, USA; and London, UK, edited by Roger L. Kemp, Ph.D.

The United Nations has declared Sept. 15 as the International Day of Democracy.^[82]

References

1. ^ Demokratia, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, "A Greek-English Lexicon", at Perseus
2. ^ ^{a b} Democracy is people who rule the government directly.BBC History of democracy
3. ^ Liberty and justice for some at Economist.com
4. ^ ^{a b} Aristotle, Politics.1317b
5. ^ For example, in a representative democracy every vote has equal weight and no restrictions must apply to anyone wanted to become a representative.
6. ^ R. Alan Dahl, I. Shapiro, J. A. Cheibub, The Democracy Sourcebook, MIT Press 2003, ISBN 0262541475, Google Books link
7. ^ M. Hénaff, T. B. Strong, Public Space and Democracy, University of Minnesota Press, ISBN 0816633878
8. ^ G. F. Gaus, C. Kukathas, Handbook of Political Theory, SAGE, 2004, p. 143-145, ISBN 0761967877, Google Books link
9. ^ The Judge in a Democracy, Princeton University Press, 2006, p. 26, ISBN 069112017X, Google Books link
10. ^ A. Barak, The Judge in a Democracy, Princeton University Press, 2006, p. 40, ISBN 069112017X, Google Books link
11. ^ T. R. Williamson, Problems in American Democracy, Kessinger Publishing, 2004, p. 36, ISBN 1419143166, Google Books link
12. ^ U. K. Preuss, "Perspectives of Democracy and the Rule of Law." Journal of Law and Society, 18:3 (1991). pp. 353-364
13. ^ Substantively fairness means equality among all citizens in all respects i.e. equality in chances, in starting point etc.
14. ^ Procedural fairness means that the rules of the elections are clear and set in advance
15. ^ A. Barak,The Judge in a Democracy, Princeton University Press, 2006, p. 27, ISBN 069112017X, Google Books link
16. ^ H. Kelsen, Ethics, Vol. 66, No. 1, Part 2: Foundations of Democracy (Oct., 1955), pp. 1-101
17. ^ ^{a b c} John Dunn, Democracy: the unfinished journey 508 BC - 1993 AD, Oxford University Press, 1994, ISBN 0198279345
18. ^ Kurt A. Raaflaub, Josiah Ober, Robert W. Wallace, Origin of Democracy in Ancient Greece, University of California Press, 2007, ISBN 0520245628, Google Books link
19. ^ Weatherford, J. McIver (1988). Indian givers: how the Indians of the America transformed the world. New York: Fawcett Columbine. pp. 117–150. ISBN 0-449-90496-2. 
20. ^ "Democracy". Encyclopædia Britannica.
21. ^ "The Global Trend" chart on Freedom in the World 2007: Freedom Stagnation Amid Pushback Against Democracy published by Freedom House
22. ^ Political Analysis in Plato's Republic at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
23. ^ Aristotle Book 6
24. ^ Grinin L. E. Democracy and Early State. Social Evolution & History 3(2), September 2004 (pp. 93-149)Democracy and early State
25. ^ Dio. 2.39
26. ^ Jacobsen, T. (July 1943), "Primitive Democracy in Ancient Mesopotamia", Journal of Near Eastern Studies 2(3): 159-72
27. ^ Snell, Daniel C. (2001). Flight and Freedom in the Ancient Near East. Brill Publishers. p. 18. ISBN 9004120106. 
28. ^ ANCIENT ROME FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES DOWN TO 476 A.D
29. ^ ^{a b} The National Archives | Exhibitions & Learning online | Citizenship | Struggle for democracy
30. ^ The National Archives | Exhibitions & Learning online | Citizenship | Rise of Parliament
31. ^ Activity Four
32. ^ Rousseau, David (3 September 1995). "Peaceful Democrats or Pragmatic Realists?: Revisiting the Iroquois League". Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. http://www.ssc.upenn.edu/~rousseau/IRO.PDF. 
33. ^ "Melanesia Historical and Geographical: the Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides", Southern Cross n°1, London: 1950
34. ^ Jacqueline Newmyer, "Present from the start: John Adams and America", Oxonian Review of Books, 2005, vol 4 issue 2
35. ^ Ray Allen Billington, America's Frontier Heritage (1974) 117-158. ISBN 0826303102
36. ^ ^{a b} "Background on conflict in Liberia Paul Cuffee believed that African Americans could more easily "rise to be a people" in Africa than in the U.S. where slavery and legislated limits on black freedom were still in place. Although Cuffee died in 1817, his early efforts to help repatriate African Americans encouraged the American Colonization Society (ACS) to lead further settlements. The ACS was made up mostly of Quakers and slaveholders, who disagreed on the issue of slavery but found common ground in support of repatriation. Friends opposed slavery but believed blacks would face better chances for freedom in Africa than in the U.S. The slaveholders opposed freedom for blacks, but saw repatriation as a way of avoiding rebellions". http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=731&issue_id=75. .
37. ^ Introduction - Social Aspects of the Civil War
38. ^ The French Revolution II
39. ^ (French) French National Assembly. "1848 « Désormais le bulletin de vote doit remplacer le fusil »". http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/histoire/suffrage_universel/suffrage-1848.asp. Retrieved 2009-09-26. 
40. ^ "Movement toward greater democracy in Europe". Indiana University Northwest.
41. ^ AGE OF DICTATORS: TOTALITARIANISM IN THE INTER-WAR PERIOD
42. ^ Did the United States Create Democracy in Germany?: The Independent Review: The Independent Institute
43. ^ BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Country profiles | Country profile: India
44. ^ freedomhouse.org: Tables and Charts
45. ^ Keen, Benjamin, A History of Latin America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980.
46. ^ Kuykendall, Ralph, Hawaii: A History. New York: Prentice Hall, 1948.
47. ^ Mahan, Alfred Thayer, "The United States Looking Outward," in The Interest of America in Sea Power. New York: Harper & Bros., 1897.
48. ^ Brown, Charles H., The Correspondents' War. New York: Charles Scribners' Sons, 1967.
49. ^ Taussig, Capt. J. K., "Experiences during the Boxer Rebellion," in Quarterdeck and Fo'c'sle. Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1963
50. ^ Hegemony Or Survival, Noam Chomsky Black Rose Books ISBN 0-8050-7400-7
51. ^ Deterring Democracy, Noam Chomsky Black Rose Books ISBN 0374523495
52. ^ Class Warfare, Noam Chomsky Black Rose Books ISBN 1-5675-1092-2
53. ^ Article on direct democracy by Imraan Buccus
54. ^ "Economics Cannot be Separated from Politics" speech by Che Guevara to the ministerial meeting of the Inter-American Economic and Social Council (CIES), in Punta del Este, Uruguay on August 8, 1961
55. ^ Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. General Idea of the Revolution See also commentary by Graham, Robert. The General Idea of Proudhon's Revolution
56. ^ Bookchin, Murray. Communalism: The Democratic Dimensions of Social Anarchism. Anarchism, Marxism and the Future of the Left: Interviews and Essays, 1993-1998, AK Press 1999, p. 155
57. ^ Bookchin, Murray. Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm
58. ^ Graeber, David and Grubacic, Andrej. Anarchism, Or The Revolutionary Movement Of The Twenty-first Century
59. ^ Thoreau, H. D. On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
60. ^ ^{a b} Iroquois Contributions to Modern Democracy and Communism. Bagley, Carol L.; Ruckman, Jo Ann. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, v7 n2 p53-72 1983
61. ^ ^{a b} Native American Societies and the Evolution of Democracy in America, 1600-1800 Bruce E. Johansen Ethnohistory, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Summer, 1990), pp. 279-290
62. ^ Political Theory and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples By Duncan Ivison, Paul Patton, Will Sanders. Page 237
63. ^ Article on Cosmopolitan democracy by Daniele Archibugi
64. ^ letter by Einstein - "TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE UNITED NATIONS"
65. ^ Daniele Archibugi & David Held, eds., Cosmopolitan Democracy. An Agenda for a New World Order, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1995; David Held, Democracy and the Global Order, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1995, Daniele Archibugi, The Global Commonwealth of Citizens. Toward Cosmopolitan Democracy, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2008
66. ^ Aristotle, The Politics
67. ^ [http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/aristotl.htm Aristotle (384-322 BC): General Introduction Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
68. ^ Joseph Schumpeter, (1950). Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. Harper Perennial. ISBN 0-06-133008-6.
69. ^ Anthony Downs, (1957). An Economic Theory of Democracy. Harpercollins College. ISBN 0-06-041750-1.
70. ^ Dahl, Robert, (1989). Democracy and its Critics. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300049382
71. ^ democracy - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
72. ^ republic - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
73. ^ Novanglus, no. 7, 6 Mar. 1775
74. ^ Republican Government: Introduction
75. ^ ^{a b c d} Paul Collier (2009-11-08). "5 myths about the beauty of the ballot box". Washington Post. Washington Post. pp. B2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/06/AR2009110601906.html. 
76. ^ Plato, the Republic of Plato (London: J.M Dent & Sons LTD.; New York: E.P. Dutton & Co. Inc.), 558-C.
77. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7671283.stm
78. ^ "Is the current model of immigration the best one for Canada?", Globe and Mail, 12 December 2005. Retrieved 16 August 2006.
79. ^ Femia, Joseph V. "Against the Masses", Oxford 2001
80. ^ "The Political Economy of Canadian Immigration Debate: A Crumbling Consensus?". Don J. DeVoretz. Co-Director Centre of Excellence on Immigration and Integration and Professor of Economics , Simon Fraser University. April 17, 1996
81. ^ "Canadian Immigration Targets for 1994". Migration News. June 1994.
82. ^ GENERAL ASSEMBLY DECLARES 15 SEPTEMBER INTERNATIONAL DAY OF DEMOCRACY; ALSO ELECTS 18 MEMBERS TO ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL

Further reading

• Appleby, Joyce. (1992). Liberalism and Republicanism in the Historical Imagination. Harvard University Press.
• Archibugi, Daniele, The Global Commonwealth of Citizens. Toward Cosmopolitan Democracy, Princeton University Press ISBN 978-0691134901
• Becker, Peter, Heideking, Juergen, & Henretta, James A. (2002). Republicanism and Liberalism in America and the German States, 1750-1850. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521800662
• Benhabib, Seyla. (1996). Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691044781
• Blattberg, Charles. (2000). From Pluralist to Patriotic Politics: Putting Practice First, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0198296881.
• Birch, Anthony H. (1993). The Concepts and Theories of Modern Democracy. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415414630
• Castiglione, Dario. (2005). "Republicanism and its Legacy." European Journal of Political Theory. pp 453–65.
• Copp, David, Jean Hampton, & John E. Roemer. (1993). The Idea of Democracy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521432542
• Caputo, Nicholas. (2005). America's Bible of Democracy: Returning to the Constitution. SterlingHouse Publisher, Inc. ISBN 978-1585010929
• Dahl, Robert A. (1991). Democracy and its Critics. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300049381
• Dahl, Robert A. (2000). On Democracy. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300084559
• Dahl, Robert A. Ian Shapiro & Jose Antonio Cheibub. (2003). The Democracy Sourcebook. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0262541473
• Dahl, Robert A. (1963). A Preface to Democratic Theory. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226134260
• Davenport, Christian. (2007). State Repression and the Domestic Democratic Peace. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521864909
• Diamond, Larry & Marc Plattner. (1996). The Global Resurgence of Democracy. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0801853043
• Diamond, Larry & Richard Gunther. (2001). Political Parties and Democracy. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0801868634
• Diamond, Larry & Leonardo Morlino. (2005). Assessing the Quality of Democracy. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0801882876
• Diamond, Larry, Marc F. Plattner & Philip J. Costopoulos. (2005). World Religions and Democracy. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0801880803
• Diamond, Larry, Marc F. Plattner & Daniel Brumberg. (2003). Islam and Democracy in the Middle East. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0801878473
• Elster, Jon. (1998). Deliberative Democracy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521596961
• Fotopoulos, Takis. (2006). "Liberal and Socialist “Democracies” versus Inclusive Democracy", The International Journal Of Inclusive Democracy. 2(2)
• Fotopoulos, Takis. (1992). "Direct and Economic Democracy in Ancient Athens and its Significance Today", Democracy & Nature, 1(1)
• Gabardi, Wayne. (2001). Contemporary Models of Democracy. Polity.
• Griswold, Daniel. (2007). Trade, Democracy and Peace: The Virtuous Cycle
• Halperin, M. H., Siegle, J. T. & Weinstein, M. M. (2005). The Democracy Advantage: How Democracies Promote Prosperity and Peace. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415950527
• Hansen, Mogens Herman. (1991). The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0631180173
• Held, David. (2006). Models of Democracy. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0804754729
• Inglehart, Ronald. (1997). Modernization and Postmodernization. Cultural, Economic, and Political Change in 43 Societies. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691011806
• Khan, L. Ali. (2003). A Theory of Universal Democracy: Beyond the End of History. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. ISBN 978-9041120038
• Köchler, Hans. (1987). The Crisis of Representative Democracy. Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3820488432
• Lijphart, Arend. (1999). Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300078930
• Lipset, Seymour Martin. (1959). "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy." American Political Science Review, 53(1): 69-105.
• Macpherson, C. B. (1977). The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0192891068
• Morgan, Edmund. (1989). Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America. Norton. ISBN 978-0393306231
• Plattner, Marc F. & Aleksander Smolar. (2000). Globalization, Power, and Democracy. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0801865688
• Plattner, Marc F. & João Carlos Espada. (2000). The Democratic Invention. John Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0801864193
• Putnam, Robert. (2001). Making Democracy Work. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-5551091035
• Raaflaub, Kurt A., Ober, Josiah & Wallace, Robert W. (2007). Origins of democracy in ancient Greece. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520245624
• Riker, William H.. (1962). The Theory of Political Coalitions. Yale University Press.
• Sen, Amartya K. (1999). "Democracy as a Universal Value." Journal of Democracy 10(3): 3-17.
• Tannsjo, Torbjorn. (2008). Global Democracy: The Case for a World Government. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0748634996. Argues that not only is world government necessary if we want to deal successfully with global problems it is also, pace Kant and Rawls, desirable in its own right.
• Weingast, Barry. (1997). "The Political Foundations of the Rule of Law and Democracy." American Political Science Review, 91(2): 245-263.
• Weatherford, Jack. (1990). Indian Givers: How the Indians Transformed the World. New York: Fawcett Columbine. ISBN 978-0449904961
• Whitehead, Laurence. (2002). Emerging Market Democracies: East Asia and Latin America. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0801872198
• Willard, Charles Arthur. (1996). Liberalism and the Problem of Knowledge: A New Rhetoric for Modern Democracy. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226898452
• Wood, E. M. (1995). Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing historical materialism. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521476829
• Wood, Gordon S. (1991). The Radicalism of the American Revolution. Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0679736882 examines democratic dimensions of republicanism

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Democracy

Look up democracy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Democracy vs. REPUBLIC
• Democracy at the Open Directory Project
• Center for Democratic Network Governance
• Democracy at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Is Democracy the BEST form of governance? at TooStep
• Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Democracy
• Ethical Democracy Journal
• The Economist Intelligence Unit’s index of democracy
• Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America Full hypertext with critical essays on America in 1831-32 from American Studies at the University of Virginia
• Democracy Watch (Canada) – Leading democracy monitoring organization
• Ewbank, N. The Nature of Athenian Democracy, Clio History Journal, 2009.
• [1]Democracy News

Critique

• Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Liberty or Equality
• J.K. Baltzersen, Churchill on Democracy Revisited, (24 January 2005)
• GegenStandpunkt: The Democratic State: Critique of Bourgeois Sovereignty
• Does Democracy End Tyranny?
• Please Don't Vote

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - demokrati

Nederlands (Dutch)
democratie, democratisch stelsel, medezeggenschap

Français (French)
n. - démocratie

Deutsch (German)
n. - Demokratie

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - δημοκρατία

Italiano (Italian)
democrazia

Português (Portuguese)
n. - democracia (f)

Русский (Russian)
демократия

Español (Spanish)
n. - democracia

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - demokrati

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
民主政治, 民主主义

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 民主政治, 民主主義

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 민주주의, 대중, 민주당

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 民主主義, 民主主義国

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) الديمقراطيه, نظام حكم الشعب لبلد عادة يتم عن طريق نواب منتخبين, السماح بحريه الكلام والدين والرأي السياسي, العدل والمساواة في معامله المواطنين دون وجود الطبقيه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮דמוקרטיה‬

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