Democracy

Cleisthenes in 508 BCE when he introduced a regular assembly of the adult males in Athens.

Republic refers to the composition and structure of government while democracy refers to how it is organised.

The ancient Greek city-state of Athens is considered to have been organized as a limited democracy during much of its Classical Period simply because its democratic privileges and rights did not extend to all of its members. For instance, only certain males were allowed to vote and to hold public office.

In a democracy, the vote of the people guides the policy of the government. If the people are not informed of the truth, they cannot vote rationally. If the press is not free, the rulers determine whether the press publishes the truth or propaganda.

In social science and politics, power is the ability to influence the behavior of people. The term authority is often used for power perceived as legitimate by the social structure. Power can be seen as evil or unjust, but the exercise of power is accepted as endemic to humans as social beings. In the corporate environment, power is often expressed as upward or downward. With downward power, a company's superior influences subordinates. When a company exerts upward power, it is the subordinates who influence the decisions of the leader.

The use of power need not involve coercion (force or the threat of force). At one extreme, it more closely resembles what everyday English-speakers call influence, although some authors make a distinction between power and influence - the means by which power is used.

Much of the recent sociological debate on power revolves around the issue of the enabling nature of power. A comprehensive account of power can be found in Steven Lukes Power: A Radical View where he discusses the three dimensions of power. Thus, power can be seen as various forms of constraint on human action, but also as that which makes action possible. French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-1984) saw power as "a complex strategic situation in a given society social setting". Being deeply structural, his concept involves both constraint and enablement. For a purely enabling (and voluntaristic) concept of power see the works of Anthony Giddens.

The idea of a complete democracy scared the framers. They feared that the majority would have complete control over every aspect of the government making things very one sided. The idea of a small republic was also somewhat nerve wrecking because after leaving such tyrannic rule they didn't think trusting government with every decision was a good idea either--elected or not! The key was to find a happy medium where the aspects of direct voter input from democracy and constituency from republic were both thrown into the equation.

The Nazis loathed democracy and made it perfectly clear that they wanted to get rid of it.

Without the text in front of us, we can only provide conjecture, but given when and where Pericles lived (Ancient Athens, 500 B.C.E.), it is likely referring to DIRECT DEMOCRACY.

kings or queens

Most of the world's democracies are in the Eastern Hemisphere, such as the majority of European nations, several African and Middle Eastern nations, India, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and Mongolia.

It depends on how the word "largest" is read.

If it refers to population, India is the most populous democracy with over 800 million individuals of voting age. In the recent election which made Narendra Modi the Prime Minister of India, over 300 million Indians turned out to vote.

If it refers to land-area, Canada is the largest democracy by territory. Only Russia, which is an illiberal democracy is a larger country.

Democracy is a political government either carried out directly by the people or by means of elected representatives of the people. "Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time". Winston Churchill.

by fulfilling their civic responsibilities like voting and paying taxes

france,U.S.A,madagascar,holland,nepal,india,pakistan,iraq,palestine,germany,new zealand,republic of china,japan,republic of ireland,czech republic,sweden

After the expulsion of the tyrants in 510 BCE, there was a tussle between the aristocratic party which dominated through the Council on the Areopagus, and a populist movement led by Cleisthenes, which the later won, giving political control to an assembly of all landowning citizens.

This lasted for a couple of decades, until the Persian invasion 480-479 BCE when the aristocrats led the resistance and held onto dominance in the ongoing warfare after the invasion was repelled. In 460 BCE Ephialtes led another democratic coup and eliminated the Council's power. The aristocracy assassinated Ephialtes for this, but his sidekick Pericles took over ad embedded the democracy.

In a direct democracy power is retained by all voting members of the population. However, since it is practically untenable to have a government made up entirely of lay citizens, those areas under direct democracy, like several Swiss cantons, still have representatives who formulate the proposals to be voted on in referendums and manage negotiations with other governments.

On paper, Mexico is a democracy with a "federal representative republic" as form of government. In practice however, there is a high degree of corruption among public officials which translates into undemocratic practices such as nepotism, buying and selling of votes and "acarreados", who are people that show at public demonstrations in exchange of money or other kind of support, such as food and household items.

Democracy means "rule by the people". Republic means "rule by elected officials". Since the officials in a republic are elected, it is a form of democracy.

Not all democracies are republics (direct democracy is not), and not all "republics" are actually democracies ("Islamic republics", for example).

The United States is a republic and representational democracy.

The US has a representative democracy because, at the time the Constitution was framed, it was impracticable to have a direct democracy. Additionally, the Founding Fathers were generally skeptical of democracies (since they understood it differently than we did) and feared the tyranny of the majority. They believed a representative democracy would temper the passions of the masses.

In order for a democracy to work, it is important that the people have knowledge about the definition of democracy and how it works. Thus, it is highly important for a country to have an educated population in order for the democratic system to work. This is important because uneducated people tend to lean towards radical ideologies as these ideologies might seem to have a sufficient solution to the problems of the society, however what people usually fail to see or even ignore is that these solution are based on suppression of other groups in society which usually doesn't affect the majority.

Another important point in educating the people about the definition of democracy is that they usually tend to understand the word wrong. An example of that is that many people tend to regard democracy as a system where everything literally is allowed, this often lead to a complete chaos that devastates the order of the society rather than improving it and in that way, it leads to the opposite effect of the aims of democracy.

The Role of the People

The key role of citizens in a democracy is to participate in public life.

Citizens have an obligation to become informed about public issues, to watch carefully how their political leaders and representatives use their powers, and to express their own opinions and interests.

Voting in elections is another important civic duty of all citizens.

But to vote wisely, each citizen should listen to the views of the different parties and candidates, and then make his or her own decision on whom to support.

Participation can also involve campaigning for a political party or candidate, standing as a candidate for political office, debating public issues, attending community meetings, civic meetings, petitioning the government, and even protesting.

A vital form of participation comes through active membership in independent, non-governmental organizations, what we call "civil society."

These organizations represent a variety of interests and beliefs: farmers, workers, doctors, teachers, business owners, religious believers, women, students, human rights activists.

"DEMOCRACY: Government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system."

Democracy does not mean that the majority rules, it more often means that the political group wit the most votes wins, which means that out of a choise of five candidates 21% pecent of the vote can secure contol.

It is important because it gives us(the public) choice. Hope this helped >.< M-day, out. Peace.