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Democracy
Democracy is a type of government characterized by a "rule of the people." In most democracies, citizens are equal and have the ability to vote for their political leaders.
1,484 Questions
Franklin delano roosevelt lol haha
What is a democracy or what do you think democracy means?
Although democracy sounds fair and reasonable, it has the danger that the majority can persecute the minority. In order to make democracy a good thing, guarantees of human rights must be an added restriction to what the majority can vote in. The majority rules, but it can never take away these basic human rights.
Who made United States a democracy?
It was a gradual process, starting even before the United States was an independent country.
Look up the "Virginia House of Burgesses" to find out more about colonial-era democracy.
At the time that the Constitution was drafted and approved, (1789) "democracy" applied only to some white adult males. To vote, one had to own a certain amount of property; an even greater amount of property was needed in order to be elected to office.
Look up "Andrew Jackson" and "Jacksonian Democracy" to find out more about the gradual removal of these property requirements.
A major defect to democracy in the States was slavery, which was legal in most of the original 13 states. This issue was addressed internally in the northern states (e.g. New York state outlawed slavery via "post nati emancipation"), but the southern states, with some minor exceptions, (look up "1832 Virginia slavery debate") voted to keep slavery.
The Civil War, 1861-1865, and the 13th amendment to the Constitution, finally ended slavery.
In 1920, the last major barrier to full democracy was removed when women were enfranchised at the federal level. They had already been given the vote in many states before this time. The native American Indians were the last group to be given the vote.
In the period from the 1930's to the 1970's, African-Americans fought for the actual, practical right to vote. Technically, they were enfranchised, but many official and unofficial rules prevented them from voting. The American Civil Rights movement, lead by Dr. Martin Luther King, advanced voting rights and other rights for American blacks.
Today, democracy is still being tested and making advances as well as sometimes going backwards. The "signing statements" used by the current U.S. president are viewed by some legal scholars as threatening the legislative and judicial branches of government. The Patriot Act and other legal initiatives after "9/11" may have a negative impact on "democracy" -- but we will be able to see this more clearly only after the historical dust has settled, in twenty or thirty years.
"Democracy" is very much a "work in progress" -- as founding father Benjamin Franklin answered a woman who asked what kind of a government had been designed in the Constitution:
"A democracy, madam, if you can keep it."
What countries live under democracy?
Answer 1
First off, in modern political-science parlance, a "democracy" is defined as a government form where citizens can participate in government via voting in open, free elections where the election provides a meaningful choice to the citizen. It does NOT mean that the citizen has to directly participate in the government themselves.
Most modern democracies are organized as a representative republic (some are constitutional monarchies), where citizens vote in contested elections (i.e. where two more more meaningfully different persons in the contest) for representatives, who have actual powers to alter current laws in the country and bring about reforms (either more liberal or more conservative).
Given that there are no democracies in pure sense existing in the world today (hippie communes excepted), the following is a list of Republics and Kingdoms that are primarily governed by the criteria mentioned above and are typically classified as Liberal Democracies: (This list is not exhaustive)
Argentina, Australia, Barbados, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cape Verde, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guyana, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Kiribati, South Korea, Lesotho, Lithuania, Mali, Mexico, Micronesia, Mongolia, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Palau, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sao Tome & Principe, Senegal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Suriname, Sweden, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia (if the recent election is indicative), Turkey, Tuvalu, United Kingdom, United States of America, and Uruguay
In addition there are what are termed Illiberal Democracies, which are places that operate like Liberal Democracies on their face, but are plagued with one or more of the following problems: Powerful Non-Elected Elite Have a Strong Say in Government, Voter Fraud, Election Non-Recognition, Extra-Constitutional Authorities, Prevalent Coups d'Etat, and Insignificant Differences between Candidates or lack of Advertisement for Most Candidates. A list of such countries would include:
Mexico, Venezuela, Ukraine, Russia, Iran, Most of Sub-Saharan Africa, Thailand, Italy, Lebanon, and Egypt.
Answer 2
Well, because democracy gives citizens the right to vote for who they believe should rule several countries practice it such as Australia, America, Europe and has began to spread across the globe.
Answer 3
Many countries around the world are democracies. In form they may be congressional federal republics like the US, Colombia and Brazil; parliamentary federal republics like India, Germany and South Africa; unitary congressional republics like Uruguay, Chile and Costa Rica; unitary parliamentary republics like Finland, Italy and Singapore; federal parliamentary monarchies like Australia, Canada and Malaysia; or unitary parliamentary monarchies like Sweden, New Zealand, Spain, Japan and the UK.
What they all have in common is a balance of internal power where the voting electorate (the People) has the final say in who governs the country and the electorate is made up of the whole of the adult citizenry, with no special group either with more power, or excluded from power.
The difference between a congressional system and a parliamentary system is that the congressional system has one head who is both Head of State and Head of Government, whereas a parliamentary system has a separate Head of State (either a president or a monarch) and a Prime Minister who is Head of Government.
The separation of powers in a congressional system is typically divided three ways between Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches.
In a Parliamentary system the separation it is normally between the Parliament (legislative and most of the executive powers), the Head of State (a small part of the executive powers and a tiny part of the judicial powers) and an independent judiciary (virtually all of the judicial powers). The answer to that is the US, Mexico, and some parts of Africa
What is the main feature of tribal social structure?
According to Oxford Dictionary "A tribe is a group of people in a primitive or barbarious stage of development acknowledging the authority of a chief and usually regarding themselves as having a common ancestor.
D.N Majumdar defines tribe as a social group with territorial affiliation, endogamous with no specialization of functions ruled by tribal officers hereditary or otherwise, united in language or dialect recognizing social distance with other tribes or castes. According to Ralph Linton tribe is a group of bands occupying a contiguous territory or territories and having a feeling of unity deriving from numerous similarities in a culture, frequent contacts and a certain community of interests.
L.M Lewis believes that tribal societies are small in scale are restricted in the spatial and temporal range of their social, legal and political relations and possess a morality, a religion and world view of corresponding dimensions. Characteristically too tribal languages are unwritten and hence the extent of communication both in time and space is inevitably narrow. At the same time tribal societies exhibit a remarkable economy of design and have a compactness and self-sufficiency lacking in modern society.
What Arab countries are the most democratic?
If current Tunisia continues to behave the way it did in the previous election by the time the next election comes, the Arab World will have added "Modern Functional Democracy" to its list of various regime types. However, up to the present day there are no Arab States that are Liberal Democracies.
There are numerous Illiberal Democracies in the Arab World, though. In those cases, the Arab Nations were Liberal Democracies on paper with guaranteed voting rights, freedoms of speech and religion, constitutions that bind the authority of the Executive. However, in nearly every Arab regime that this describes (like Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Mubarak's Egypt, ben Ali's Tunisia) these paper rights and limitations did not exist. These rulers used an apparent mechanism of democracy to perpetuate a dictatorship.
What people would be able to participate in the Athenian form of democracy?
Free land-owning males were the only ones who could participate. Ended up being about 10% of the population.
Does democracy criticize the majority?
A properly functioning democracy IS the majority - the people - majority rule, minority rights.
While there is always room for criticism, it should be constructive, not constant carping by the self-interested or the unrealistically idealistic or those seeking indirect power over the majority. Vocal minorities seek to overthrow democracy - the will of the majority - to implement their own minority agenda over the majority. Such a system of rule by the minority over the majority is Oligarchy, not Democracy.
What is parliamentary democracy?
Parliamentary democracy is:
A democracy is a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them, or even run the country themselves (as in the ancient Greek democracies).
The "Parliamentary" part refers to a political system based around parliament. That is, the executive and legislative parts of the government are connected- typically, the Prime Minister (or Chancellor, President, Premier, etc) is selected from the political party that controls the parliament, and he (and his cabinet) is responsible directly to the legislature. There is also typically a separate "head of state" who is considered the person who represents the country as a single person, but does not actually run the government in any meaningful way (an example is the Queen of the United Kingdom, or the President of Germany).
The Parliamentary system is contrasted with the Presidential system (used in, for example, the US) where the executive (President) is the head of state and is totally separate from the legislative (Congress). There is also a "Semi-Presidential" system (used mainly in France and Russia) which functions a lot like a Parliamentary, but the Head of State (usually a President) also helps run the government. In France, for example, the President handles foreign and military policy while the Prime Minister and the cabinet handles pretty much everything else.
Can the president choose to get rid of the democracy?
He would have to refuse the validity of an election, disband congress and the senate and command total authority.
In the USA democracy is a key belief and simply cannot be dissolved.
The beginnings of democracy were seen in Athens a little more than 400 B.C.?
It began in 508 BCE under the leadership of Cleisthenes.
What do Christianity and democracy have in common?
They have nothing in common. Christianity is a religious idea while democracy is a form of government. A democracy needs to be secular in nature because it needs to allow for the freedom of religion from all sources.
