Democracy

Democracy is the name given to a number of forms of government and procedures which are legitimate because the people affected are involved in the decision making process. Historically it can be found in many different places such as ancient Greece, Rome, and South Asia. The principles of democracy emphasize the importance of the individual citizen having a voice in government, either directly through a vote, or indirectly through representation, and by implication personal responsibility for the welfare of his or her group. Today, democratic principles are touted as preferred in many parts of the world. Though the term democracy is typically used in the context of a political state, the principles are also applicable to other groups and organizations.

Both Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas considered democracy to be among the worst forms of government. To avoid degenerating into a battle like brothers fighting over an estate, history has evolved forms of representative democracy and constitutional democracy to protect the rights of minorities and represent the long-term welfare of the state. These indirect forms of democracy, in which representatives and constitutions are put in a parent position above the squabbles of citizens, define the limits of behavior of citizens and leaders which would violate natural law, the common good, and undermine the viability of the government. Such modified democracies are the basis of most successful governments in the modern world.

However, successful democracies also require people capable of them, and the most ideal democratic structure will not survive in the hands of incapable citizens. Modern democracy has therefore benefited from mass education of citizens, with the invention of technologies like the printing press, and from the Protestant Reformation which encouraged personal self-governance.

History

Ancient origins

The word "democracy" derives from the ancient Greek demokratia (δημοκρατία). It combines the elements demos (which means "people") and kratos ("force, power"). Kratos is an unexpectedly brutish word. In the words "monarchy" and "oligarchy", the second element arche means rule, leading, or being first. The Athenian democracy developed in the Greek city-state of Athens (comprising the central city-state of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica). Athens was one of the very first known democracies and probably the most important in ancient times. Other Greek cities set up democracies, most but not all following an Athenian model, but none were as powerful or as stable (or as well-documented) as that of Athens. It remains a unique and intriguing experiment in direct democracy. Every adult male citizen was by right a member of the Assembly and had a duty to participate and vote on legislation and executive bills. The officials of the democracy were elected by lot except generals (strategoi) and financial officials who were elected by the Assembly. Election was seen as less democratic and also corrupt because it would favor the rich (who could buy votes) and the eloquent whereas a lottery gave everyone an equal chance to participate and experience in Aristotle's words, "ruling and being ruled in turn" (Politics 1317b28–30). Participation was by no means open to all inhabitants of Attica, but the in-group of participants was constituted with no reference to economic class and they participated on a scale that was truly phenomenal. Never before had so many people spent so much of their time in governing themselves. However they could only do this because of the huge number of slaves that were the basis of the Athenian economy. Political rights and citizenship, were not granted to women, slaves, or metics (aliens). Of the 250-300,000 inhabitants about one third were from citizen familes and about 30,000 were citizens. Of those 30,000 perhaps 5,000 might regularly attend one or more meetings of the popular Assembly.

Greek democracy was grounded in its philosophy. Aristotle regarded human beings as essentially ‘political animals’ that could only live a perfect and self-sufficient life if they became active citizens, knowing how to rule and be ruled, and thus participating fully in the life of the state. So citizens had the right to take the initiative: to stand to speak in the assembly, to initiate a public law suit (that is, one held to affect the political community as a whole), to propose a law before the lawmakers or to approach the council with suggestions. Unlike officeholders, the citizen initiator was not vetted before taking up office or automatically reviewed after stepping down — it had after all no set tenure and might be an action lasting only a moment. But any stepping forward into the democratic limelight was risky and if someone chose (another citizen initiator) they could be called to account for their actions and punished.

There were many critics of Athenian democracy and twice it suffered coups. For example in 406 B.C.E. the Athenians won a naval victory at Arginusae over the Spartans. After the battle a storm arose and the eight generals in command failed to collect survivors: the Athenians sentenced all of them to death. Technically, it was illegal, as the generals were tried and sentenced together, rather than one by one as Athenian law required. Socrates happened to be the citizen presiding over the assembly that day and refused to cooperate objecting to the idea that the people should be able to do whatever they wanted. A new version of democracy was established from 403 B.C.E. and for the first time a conceptual and procedural distinction was made between laws and decrees. Increasingly, responsibility was shifted from the assembly to the courts, with laws being made by jurors and all assembly decisions becoming reviewable by courts. However it was under a democratic government that Socrates himself was executed.

Other Ancient civilizations entertained various forms of government that could considered democratic. Ancient India, for example had examples of citizen-rule. The democratic Sangha, Gana and Panchayat systems were used in some of these republics; the Panchayat system is still used today in Indian villages. Later during the time of Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C.E., the Greeks wrote about the Sabarcae and Sambastai states in what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan, whose "form of government was democratic and not regal" according to Greek scholars at the time.

The Roman Republic had elections among the wealthy landowning families. Almost all high officials came from a few noble families who made up the Roman Senate. Members of the plebeian class (middle class) who were disenfranchised went on a strike and would not return to work until they were included in government. A group of legal scholars studied Greek forms of government and developed the Twelve Tables, the basis for a constitutional republic. This government was accepted by both the wealthy landholding class and the plebes who were represented by Tribunes. Tribunes had veto power over senatorial legislation and served as a check and balance system between these two classes. Women and slaves did not cast votes.

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. They emphasized consensus among the leaders, not majority rule by voting, when making decisions. 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 community.

Middle Ages

Most regions during the Middle Ages were ruled by clergy or feudal lords. However, the growth of centers of commerce and city states led to great experimentation in non-feudal forms of government. Many cities elected mayors or burghers. There were various systems involving elections or assemblies, although often only involving a minority of the population. Such city states often allowed greater freedom for science and the arts, and the Renaissance blossomed in this environment, bringing Western Europe out of its Dark Ages and helping to create conditions for the emergence of Western Democracy. In Florence, Machiavelli's writings initiated the analysis of political power and its use.

Instances of democracy that have been cited include 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 Slavic countries, Scandinavian Things and the autonomous merchant city of Sakai in the 16th century in Japan. However, participation in many of these post-feudal governments was often restricted to an aristocracy, and so may be better classified as oligarchy.

The Parliament of England had its roots in the restrictions on the power of the king written into the Magna Carta. The first elected parliament was De Montfort's Parliament in England in 1265. However only a small minority of lords actually had a voice; Parliament was elected by only less than 3 percent of the population as late as 1780. The power to call parliament was at the pleasure of the monarch (usually when he or she needed funds). After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the English Bill of Rights was enacted in 1689, which codified certain rights and increased the influence of the Parliament. The franchise was slowly increased and the Parliament gradually gained more power until the monarch became largely a figurehead.

18th and 19th centuries

The first page of the United States Constitution

Modern democracy was born in the eighteenth century. Although not described as a democracy by its founding fathers, the United States has been described as the first liberal democracy on the basis that its founders shared a commitment to the principle of natural freedom and equality. The United States Constitution which set down the framework for government with checks and balances on power to prevent usurpation or abuse of power. Adopted in 1788, it provided for an elected government through representatives, and it protected civil rights and liberties of all except slaves, which grew to haunt the new government.

On the American frontier, democracy became a way of life, with widespread social, economic and political equality. However the frontier did not produce much democracy in Canada, Australia or Russia. By the 1840s almost all property restrictions were ended and nearly all white adult male citizens could vote; and turnout averaged 60–80 percent in frequent elections for local, state and national officials. The system gradually evolved, from Jeffersonian Democracy to Jacksonian Democracy and beyond. Following the American Civil War, in 1868, newly freed slaves, in the case of men, were granted the right to vote under the passage of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Women's suffrage came to fulfillment in the 1920s with the passage of the 19th Amendment.

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

20th Century

The transitions of the 20th century to liberal democracy have come in successive "waves of democracy," variously resulting from wars, revolutions, decolonization, and economic circumstances. World War I and the dissolution of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires resulted in the creation of new nation-states in Europe, most of them nominally and partly democratic. In the 1920s democracy flourished, but the Great Depression brought disenchantment, and most the countries of Europe, Latin America, and Asia turned to authoritarian rule or dictatorships that promised that a strong state could solve problems which democracies could not. Fascism and dictatorships flourished in Nazi Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal, as well as nondemocratic regimes in Poland, the Baltics, the Balkans, Brazil, Cuba, China, and Japan, among others. Together with Stalin's regime in the Soviet Union, these made the 1930s the "Age of Dictators." Even the United States allowed Franklin D. Roosevelt much more power than previous presidents.

World War II brought a definite reversal of this trend in Western Europe. The dictators had gone to war without regard for the lives of citizens they ruled. The successful democratization of the American, British, and French sectors of occupied Germany, Austria, Italy, and occupied Japan, especially the success of the Marshall Plan, served as a basis for later theory of regime change. However, most of Eastern Europe, including the Soviet sector of Germany was forced into the Soviet bloc. The war was followed by decolonization, and again most of the new independent states had nominally democratic constitutions, but once elected many rulers held their power for 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 that the wealthy could be taxed to help support the poor.

In the 1950s and 1960s, economic growth was high in both the western and Communist countries as industries were developed to provide goods for citizens. However, it later declined in the state-controlled, command economies, where incentives for hard work and innovation were lost. By 1960, the vast majority of nation-states were nominally democracies, although the majority of the world's populations lived in nations that experienced sham elections, and other forms of subterfuge.

A subsequent wave of democratization brought substantial gains toward true liberal democracy for many nations like Spain and Portugal. Several of the military dictatorships in South America became democratic in the late 1970s and early 1980s as they were handed over to the people as dictators were unable to pay the national debts accumulated during their rule due to theft and misuse of loans. This was followed by nations in East and South Asia by the mid- to late 1980s,that were becoming industrial producers.

In 1989 the Soviet Union was bankrupt, ending the Cold War and discrediting government-run economies. The former Eastern bloc countries had some memory of liberal democracy and could reorganize more easily than Russia, which had been communist since 1917. The most successful of the new democracies were those geographically and culturally closest to western Europe, and they quickly became members or candidate members of the European Union. Russia, however, had its reforms impeded by a mafia that crippled new businesses and the old party leaders who took personal ownership of Russia's outdated industries.

The liberal trend spread to some nations in Africa in the 1990s, most prominently in South Africa, where apartheid was disassembled by the efforts of Nelson Mandela and F.W. deKlerk. More recent examples 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.

The Republic of India is currently the largest democracy in the world.

Forms of democracy

Forms of government

Part of the Politics series

List of forms of government Anarchism Aristocracy Authoritarianism Autocracy Communist state Democracy Direct democracy Representative democracy Despotism Dictatorship Fascism Feudalism Hierocracy Kleptocracy Kritarchy Krytocracy Meritocracy Monarchy Absolute monarchy Constitutional monarchy Ochlocracy Oligarchy Plutocracy Republic Mixed government Constitutional republic Parliamentary republic Socialist republic Capitalist republic Single-party state Thalassocracy Theocracy Timocracy Totalitarianism Tyranny

Politics Portal

There are many variations on the forms of government that put ultimate rule in the citizens of a state:

Representative Democracy

Representative democracy involves the selection of government officials by a popular election. Representatives are to act in the interest of those they represent, and are considered to have skills to do so in a more manageable-sized government. They retain the freedom to exercise their own judgment as how best to represent the electorate. The constituency can communicate with the representative on important issues and elect a new representative to next term if they are unsatisfied with the results.

Representatives may be elected by a particular district (or constituency), or represent the electorate as a whole as in many proportional systems, with some using a combination of the two. Another form of representation, used in the Ancient Roman Republic, was voting by class, with the wealthy electing senator and the plebeian class electing tribunes. When the United State was founded, the representatives were elected by citizens, and senators were elected by state legislatures to provide representatives of the long-term interests of society.

Representative democracies might incorporate other forms of democracy, such as referenda, a form of direct democracy, on certain types of issues.

Liberal Democracy

Classical liberal democracy is normally a representative democracy along with the protection of minorities, the rule of law, a separation of powers, and protection of liberties (thus the name liberal) of speech, assembly, religion, and property.

Since the 1960s the term "liberal" has been used, often perjoratively, towards those legislatures that are liberal with state money and redistribute it to create a welfare state. However, this would be an illiberal democracy is classical terms, because it does not protect the property its citizens acquire.

Direct Democracy

Direct democracy is a political system in which the citizens vote on major policy decisions. Issues are resolved by popular vote. Many people think of direct democracy as the purest form of democracy. Direct democracies, by nature, function better in face-to-face communities or in areas where everyone is self-sufficient and has little need of government, except for military defense.

Some see the extensive use of referenda, as in California, as a form of direct democracy in a very large polity with millions of voters. However, these referenda are conducted within the framework of a constitution which places limits on mob rule.

Socialist Democracy

Socialism, where the state economy is shaped by the government, has some forms that are based on democracy. Social democracy, democratic socialism, and the dictatorship of the proletariat are some examples of names applied to the ideal of a socialist democracy. Many democratic socialists and social democrats believe in a form of welfare state and workplace democracy produced by legislation by a representative democracy.

Marxist-Leninists, Stalinists, Maoists and other "orthodox Marxists" generally promote democratic centralism, but they have never formed actual societies which were not ruled by elites that had acquired government power. Libertarian socialists generally believe in direct democracy and Libertarian Marxists often believe in a consociational state that combines consensus democracy with representative democracy. Such consensus democracy has existed in local-level cell community groups in rural communist China.

Anarchist Democracy

The only form of democracy considered acceptable to many anarchists is direct democracy, which historically discriminates against minorities. Some anarchists oppose 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. However, anarcho-communist Murray Bookchin criticized individualist anarchists for opposing democracy, and says "majority rule" is consistent with anarchism.

Sortition

Sortition (or Allotment) has formed the basis of systems randomly selecting officers from the population. A much noted classical example would be the ancient Athenian democracy. Drawing by lot from a pool of qualified people elected by the citizens, would be a democratic variation on sortition. Such a process would reduce the ability of wealthy contributors or election rigging to guarantee an outcome, and the problems associated with incumbent advantages would be eliminated.

Tribal and consensus democracy

Certain tribes such as the bushmen organized themselves using different forms of participatory democracy or consensus democracy. However, these are generally face-to-face communities and it is difficult to develop consensus in a large impersonal modern bureaucratic state. Consensus democracy and deliberative democracy seek consensus among the people.

File:Claims Of Democracy.png

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 June 2006. It shows the de jure status of democracy in the world. ██ Governments self identified as democratic ██ Governments not self identified as democratic.

This map reflects the findings of Freedom House's survey Freedom in the World 2007, which reports the state of world freedom in 2006. It is one of the most widely used measures of democracy by researchers. Note that although these measures (another is the Polity data described below) are highly correlated, this does not imply interchangeability. ██ Free. Freedom House considers these to be liberal democracies. ██ Partly Free ██ Not Free

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

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

The Economist's Democracy Index offers another measure of democracy. The palest blue countries get a score above 9, while the black countries score below 2.

Theory

Aristotle

Aristotle contrasted rule by the many (democracy/polity), with rule by the few (oligarchy/aristocracy), and with rule by a single person (tyranny/monarchy or today autocracy). 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). He considered that democracy would be best suited to farmers that are self-sufficient and have no interest government, but when competing claims are made on a government good decisions are best made by knowledgeable leaders.

Thomas Jefferson wanted to see an agrarian democracy in the United States, writing to James Madison that he thought the nation would remain virtuous as long as there was plenty of land available in the United States. Alexander Hamilton thought it was more realistic to model the United States on England's system, which was more suited to industry and commerce. He suggested that George Washington become king.

"Democracy" and "Republic"

In 18th century historical usages, especially when considering the works of the Founding Fathers of the United States, the word "democracy" was associated with radical egalitarianism and was often defined to mean what we today call direct democracy. In the same historical context, the word "republic" was used to refer to what we now call representative democracy. For example, James Madison, in Federalist Paper No. 10, advocates a constitutional republic over a democracy to protect the individual from a tyranny of the majority. Madison was distinguishing between a direct democracy and a representative democracy, but his choice to do so using the words "democracy" and "republic" had no basis in prior usage of the words.

In contemporary western usage, the term "democracy" usually refers to a government chosen by the people, whether it is direct or representative. 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 head of government such as a Prime Minister. Using the term "democracy" to refer solely to direct democracy, or to representative democracy without checks on the power of elected officials, retains some popularity in United States conservative and libertarian circles.

Note that the U.S. Constitution states that the power comes from the people "We the people..." However, unlike a pure democracy, in a constitutional republic, citizens in the US are only governed by the majority of the people within the limits prescribed by the rule of law. Constitutional Republics are a deliberate attempt to diminish the threat of mobocracy thereby protecting minority groups from the tyranny of the majority by placing checks on the power of the majority of the population. Thomas Jefferson stated that majority rights cannot exist if individual rights do not. The power of the majority of the people is checked by limiting that power to electing representatives who govern within limits of overarching constitutional law rather than the popular vote or government having power to deny any inalienable right. Moreover, the power of elected representatives is also checked by prohibitions against any single individual having legislative, judicial, and executive powers so that basic constitutional law is extremely difficult to change. John Adams defined a constitutional republic as "a government of laws, and not of men."

The framers carefully created the institutions within the Constitution and the United States Bill of Rights. They kept what they believed were the best elements of previous forms of government. But they were mitigated by a constitution with protections for individual liberty, a separation of powers, and a layered federal structure. Inalienable rights refers to a set of human rights that are not awarded by human power, and cannot be surrendered.

Thomas Jefferson wanted to further protect the rights of citizens in a bill of rights by eliminating the ability of monopoly, banking, and other economic powers from infringing on citizen rights. Benjamin Rush petitioned for rights against the medical profession.

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 (such as Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Scandinavian countries and Japan) 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 the U.S., 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 senates lost power (as in Britain) or else became elective and remained powerful (as in the United States).

In framing the U.S. Constitution, Benjamin Franklin and General Pinkney desired checks and balances on the upper and lower houses of government. They considered a Senate like Rome, where the wealthy class was represented, or where State legislatures would send delegates representing the long-term interests of the states. The lower house would be represented by the general populace. This would produce a system in which bills would only be passed when they were in the interest of both the upper and lower classes, or the short-term and long-term interests of the citizens. The first proposal failed by a vote five states for it and six states against it. The latter measure was chosen, with each state appointing two senators while representatives were elected from the masses. The Seventeenth Amendment, proposed by the 62nd Congress in 1912, undid this check by having senators elected by the same voters as representatives, undoing the check which the founders had established and making the purposes for the two houses somewhat redundant. One end result of this was a two party political system, in which one party (Republicans) represents low taxes and minimal welfare support and the other party (Democrats) represents many dependent on government payments. Neither party represents the entire population, as they would have to if legislation passed through two houses, one represented by the wealthy and one represented by the general population.

Other suggestions

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. Contemporary proponents of minimalism include William H. Riker, Adam Przeworski, Richard Posner.
  • Government should 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. Anthony Downs laid out this view in his 1957 book An Economic Theory of Democracy.
  • 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. Some see a problem with the wealthy having more influence and therefore argue for reforms like campaign finance reform. Some 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.

Beyond the public level

This article has discussed democracy as it relates to systems of public government. This generally involves nations and subnational levels of government, although the European Parliament, whose members are democratically directly elected on the basis of universal suffrage, may be seen as an example of a supranational democratic institution.

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.
• In business, corporations elect their boards by votes weighed by the number of shares held by each owner.
• Trade unions sometimes choose their leadership through democratic elections. In the U.S. democratic elections were rare before Congress required them in the 1950s.
• Cooperatives are enterprises owned and democratically controlled by their customers or workers.

The future of democracy

The number of liberal democracies currently stands at an all-time high and has been growing without interruption for several decades. 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 formed the core of Francis Fukuyama's "End of History" theory. Moreover, the foreign policy of the United States was articulated by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rica as "transformational diplomacy": "...to work with our many partners around the world, to build and sustain democratic, well-governed states [emphasis added] that will respond to the needs of their people and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system." The George W. Bush administration has cast its 2003 invasion of Iraq, in part, as an effort to spread democracy in the Middle East, a region whose only democracy is Israel.

As human society evolves, knowledge of the successes and failures of previous governments will likely create new constitutions that learn from present and past systems. The United States founding fathers had the opportunity to to look at the best of the ancient systems of government and "create a more perfect union" based on the understanding of power and concepts of human nature that developed from the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries. Future societies will add to this knowledge that has been learned about problems that the U.S. Constitution did not adequately address.

Finally, any form of government requires the ability of the rulers to rule; and it has been argued that democracies can only be as good as the citizens that compose it. Constitutions and structures can help to prevent problems of the past from reoccurring, but cannot prevent future problems from developing. To address such developments in a democracy, the citizens themselves must have an adequate understanding of the processes of government to elect representatives that have real skills in meeting new challenges and not simply provide the best rhetoric in their promises.

See also

• Representative democracy
• Direct democracy
• Participatory democracy
• Deliberative democracy
• Democratic Peace Theory
• List of types of democracy
• Poll
• Media democracy
• Islamic democracy
• Sociocracy
• Democratization

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

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• Heideking, Juergen, and James A. Henretta, eds. Republicanism and Liberalism in America and the German States, 1750-1850. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN 0521800668
• Held, David. Models of Democracy. Polity Press, 2006. ISBN 9780745631479
• Inglehart, Ronald. Modernization and Post-modernization. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1997. ISBN 9780691011806
• Inoguchi, Takashi, Edward Newman, and John Keane. The Changing Nature of Democracy. Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1998. ISBN 9789280810059
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• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

External links

• Journal of Democracy Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Open Directory at Open Directory Project Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Democracy at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Democracy Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Democracy Watch (International)—Worldwide democracy monitoring organization. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• IFES—supporting the building of democratic societies around the world Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Democracy at large magazine—a quarterly magazine designed for professionals interested in democracy development worldwide Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• dgGovernance—Collection of resources on key issues of democracy and nation-building Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• the site of the Association for the School of Democracy a university-level research and training pluri- and transdisciplinary school of democracy Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• "Islam and the Challenge of Democracy" by UCLA law professor Khaled Abou El Fadl in the April/May 2003 issue of Boston Review Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• New York Times argument against the "Development first, democracy later" idea Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• The Rise of Illiberal Democracy by Fareed Zakaria Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• openDemocracy—Global democracy network using information, participation and debate to empower citizens. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Cosmopolitan democracy Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Technologies of Measuring Democracy Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• The Danger of Democratic Self-Destruction, Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• A New Nation Votes: American Elections Returns 1787-1825 Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Locate textbooks for children of age group 14 to 16 on DemocracyYou can download the soft versions of these books from this site by Selecting Class CLASS IX Selecting Subject Political Science Selecting Book title Political Science Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Global Social Change reports includes reports about global political change, in democracy and related political trends. Retrieved August 17, 2007.

Critique

• The Democratic State - A Critique of Bourgeois Sovereignty Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Riff-Raff—Democracy as the Community of Capital - A Provisional Critique of Democracy Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• The Crisis of Representative Democracy. Frankfurt a. M./Bern/New York: Peter Lang, 1987. Ed. by Hans Köchler. ISBN 3-8204-8843-X Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Democracy, Liberty, Equality What is the relation between democracy and liberalism? (A Dialogue) Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Why democracy is wrong Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Democracy, The God That Failed by Hans-Hermann Hoppe Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Liberty or Equality by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Churchill on Democracy Revisited by J.K. Baltzersen Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• The INTERNATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY, progressive scholarship, critiques of democracy. Retrieved August 17, 2007.

Alternatives and improvements

• Republic Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Democratic Manifesto Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Conducting new experiments with democracy, Ethics & Democracy Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Democratic Deficit Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• simpol.org—Plan to limit global competition and facilitate the emergence of a sustainable, sane global civilization. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Students for Global Democracy Retrieved August 17, 2007.

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