Democracy

Democracy describes a series of related forms of government. With origins in ancient Greece, Rome and south Asia, democracy has generally grown and expanded throughout history. The principles of democracy emphasize the importance of the individual in the context of government and, today, are a major influence around 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.

Etymology

The word democracy derives from the ancient Greek demokratia (δημοκρατία), formed from the roots demos (δημος), "people, the mob, the many" and kratos (κρατος) "rule."

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

Representative

Representative democracy involves the selection of government officials by a majority of votes by the people being represented. 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. Some representative democracies also incorporate elements of direct democracy, such as referenda. 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.

Liberal Democracy

Liberal democracy is 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. Conversely, an illiberal democracy is one where the protections that form a liberal democracy are either nonexistent, or not enforced.

Direct Democracy

Direct democracy is a political system where the citizens vote on major policy decisions. All direct democracies to date have been weak forms, relatively small communities, usually city-states. However, some see the extensive use of referenda, as in California, as akin to direct democracy in a very large polity with more than 20 million potential voters.

Socialist Democracy

Socialism has several different views on democracy. Social democracy, democratic socialism, Soviet democracy, and the dictatorship of the proletariat are some examples. Many democratic socialists and social democrats believe in a form of participatory democracy and workplace democracy combined with a representative democracy. Marxist-Leninists, Stalinists, Maoists and other "orthodox Marxists" generally believe in soviet democracy and democratic centralism. Libertarian socialists generally believe in direct democracy and Libertarian Marxists often believe in a Consociational state that combines consensus democracy with representative democracy.

Anarchist Democracy

The only form of democracy considered acceptable to anarchists is direct democracy. Some anarchists oppose direct democracy while others favor it. 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. Some anarcho-communists oppose the majoritarian nature of direct democracy, feeling that it can impede individual liberty and opt in favor of a non-majoritarian form of consensus democracy, similar to Proudhon's position on direct democracy.

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.

Tribal Democracy

Certain tribes such as the bushmen organized themselves using different forms of participatory democracy or consensus democracy.

Consensus Democracy

Consensus democracy and deliberative democracy seek consensus among the people.

History

File:Claims Of Demoracy.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.

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

Ancient origins

The word democracy was coined in ancient Greece. 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, and secondarily the assembly of all the citizens. All the Athenian citizens were eligible to speak and vote in the Assembly, which set the laws of the city-state, but neither political rights, nor citizenship, were granted to women, slaves, or metics. 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.

One of the earliest instances of civilizations with democracy, or sometimes disputed as oligarchy, was found in the republics of ancient India, which were established sometime before the 6th century B.C.E., and prior to the birth of Gautama Buddha. These republics were known as Maha Janapadas, and among these states, Vaishali (in what is now Bihar, India) would be the world's first republic. 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 Republic of India is currently the largest democracy in the world.

The Roman Republic had elections but again women, slaves, and the large foreign population were excluded. The votes of the wealthy were given more weight and almost all high officials come from a few noble families.

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. 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.

Middle Ages

During the Middle Ages, there were various systems involving elections or assemblies, although often only involving a minority of the population, such as 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 Slavic countries, Scandinavian Things and the autonomous merchant city of Sakai in the 16th century in Japan. However, participation were often restricted to a minority, and so may be better classified as oligarchy. Most regions during the middle-ages were ruled by clergy or feudal lords.

The Parliament of England had its roots in the restrictions on the power of kings written into Magna Carta. The 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), and the system had problematic features such as rotten boroughs. 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

Although not described as a democracy by the 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, adopted in 1788, provided for an elected government and protected civil rights and liberties. However, in the colonial period before 1776, 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. 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% in frequent elections for local, state and national officials. The system gradually evolved, from Jeffersonian Democracy to Jacksonian Democracy and beyond. In Reconstruction after the Civil War (late 1860s) the newly freed slaves became citizens with (in the case of men) the right to vote.

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 with universal suffrage.

20th Century

20th century transitions 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 democratic. In the 1920s democracy flourished, but the Great Depression brought disenchantment, and most 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 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."

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, 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. 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 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 (particularly in Communist nations and the former colonies.)

A subsequent wave of democratization brought substantial gains toward true liberal democracy for many nations. Spain, Portugal, and several of the military dictatorships in South America became democratic in the late 1970s and early 1980s. 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. The liberal trend spread to some nations in Africa in the 1990s, most prominently in South Africa. Some 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 number of liberal democracies currently stands at an all-time high and has been growing without interruption for some time. 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" theory.

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).

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. 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.
  • 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.

"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 equalitarianism 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 the majority. Madison was seeking to distinguish 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. Therefore, today the term is used by states which are quite different from the earlier use of the term, such as the former German Democratic Republic and the USSR.

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 US constitution states that the power comes from the people "We the people..." However, some argue that unlike a pure democracy, in a constitutional republic, citizens in the US are not governed by the majority of the people but 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."

• Cooperatives are enterprises owned and democratically controlled by their customers or workers.

See also

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

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Allswang, John M. The Initiative and Referendum in California, 1898-1998. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2000.
• Appleby, Joyce. Liberalism and Republicanism in the Historical Imagination. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992.
• Benhabib, Seyla, ed. Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.
• Billington, Ray Allen. America's Frontier Heritage. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1974.
• Blattberg, Charles. From Pluralist to Patriotic Politics: Putting Practice First. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-19-829688-6
• Bookchin, Murray. Anarchism, Marxism and the Future of the Left: Interviews and Essays, 1993-1998. San Francisco: AK Press, 1999.
• Bookchin, Murray. Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm San Francisco: AK Press, 1995. http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bookchin/soclife.html. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Cartledge, Paul. BBC - History - The Democratic Experiment. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/greeks/greekdemocracy_01.shtml. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Casper, Gretchen, and Claudiu Tufis. "Correlation Versus Interchangeability: the Limited Robustness of Empirical Finding on Democracy Using Highly Correlated Data Sets." Politicial Analysis 11 (2003): 196-203.
• Castiglione, Dario. "Republicanism and its Legacy." European Journal of Political Theory 4, no. 4 (2005): 453-65. http://www.huss.ex.ac.uk/politics/research/readingroom/CastiglioneRepublicanism.pdf#search=%22republicanism%20historiography%22. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Copp, David, Jean Hampton, and John E. Roemer, eds. The Idea of Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
• Dahl, Robert A. Democracy and its Critics. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. ISBN 0300049382
• Dahl, Robert A. On Democracy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. ISBN 0300084552
• Dahl, Robert A., Ian Shapiro, and Jose Antonio Cheibub, eds. The Democracy Sourcebook. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003. ISBN 0262541475
• Dahl, Robert A. A Preface to Democratic Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956. ISBN 0226134345
• Davenport, Christian. State Repression and the Domestic Democratic Peace. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN 0521864909
• Diamond, Larry, and Marc Plattner, eds. The Global Resurgence of Democracy. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
• Diamond, Larry, and Richard Gunther, eds. Political Parties and Democracy. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2001. ISBN 0801868637
• Diamond, Larry, and Leonardo Morlino, eds. Assessing the Quality of Democracy. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2005. ISBN 0801882877
• Diamond, Larry, Marc F. Plattner, and Philip J. Costopoulos, eds. World Religions and Democracy. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2005. ISBN 0801880807
• Diamond, Larry, Marc F. Plattner, and Daniel Brumberg, eds. Islam and Democracy in the Middle East. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2003. ISBN 0801878470
• DiCola, Charles. Age of Dictators:Totalitarianism in the Interwar Period. http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:jCe2MTKLhzAJ:www.snl.depaul.edu/contents/current/syllabi/HC_314.doc+Stalin+1930%27s+%22Age+of+Dictators%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&lr=lang_en. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Downs, Anthoony. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper Collins, 1957.
• Edmund, Morgan S. Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1989. ISBN 0393306232
• Elliott, Michael. "India Awakens." Time, June 18, 2006. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1205374,00.html. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Elster, Jon, ed. Deliberative Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. ISBN 0521596963
• Fadden, John Kahionhes. The Six Nations Confederacy was and is likened to a longhouse. http://law.cua.edu/ComparativeLaw/Iroquois/. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Freedom House. Methodology. http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=35&year=2005. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• The French Revolution. http://mars.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/wc2/lectures/rev892.html. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Gabardi, Wayne. "Contemporary Models of Democracy." Polity 33, no. 4 (2001): 547+.
• Gutmann, Amy, and Dennis Thompson. Why Deliberative Democracy?. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/7869.html. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• 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. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1996.
• Inglehart, Ronald. Modernization and Postmodernization. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1997.
• Inoguchi, Takashi, Edward Newman, and John Keane. The Changing Nature of Democracy. Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1998.
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.): General Introduction. http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/aristotl.htm. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Jefferson, Thomas. Letter to James Madison, 1789. In The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Lipscomb and Bergh, 7:455. Washington, D.C.: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1903-04.
• Jefferson, Thomas. Letter to James Monroe, 1797. In The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Lipscomb and Bergh, 9:422. Washington, D.C.: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1903-04.
• Khan, L. Ali. A Theory of Universal Democracy: Beyond the End of History. Frederick: Kluwer Law Internationial, 2001. ISBN 9041120033
• Kilcullen, R.J. Aristotle, The Politics. http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/y6704.html. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Levinson, Sanford. Constitutional Faith. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.
• Lijphart, Arend. Patterns of Democracy. Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countriess. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999. ISBN 0300078935
• Lipset, Seymour Martin. "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy." American Political Science Review 53, no. 1 (1959): 69-105. http://www.jstor.org. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Macpherson, C. B. The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.
• Madison, James. "The Same Subject Continued: The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection." Daily Advertiser, November 22, 1787. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers/No._10. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Merriam-Webster. Definition of democracy. http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/democracy. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Muhlberger, Steve. Democracy in Ancient India. http://www.nipissingu.ca/department/history/MUHLBERGER/HISTDEM/INDIADEM.HTM. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• The National Archives. Citizeship - The Stuggle for Democracy. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/citizenship/struggle_democracy/getting_vote.htm. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• The National Archives. Citizenship - Rise of Parlimeny. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/citizenship/rise_parliament/making_history_rise.htm. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Newmyer, Jacqueline. "Present from the start: John Adams and America." Oxonian Review of Books 4, no. 2 (2005). http://www.oxonianreview.org/issues/2-2/2-2-6.htm. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Plattner, Marc F., and Aleksander Smolar, eds. Globalization, Power, and Democracy. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2000. ISBN 0801865689
• Plattner, Marc F., and João Carlos Espada, eds. The Democratic Invention. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2000.
• Putnam, Robert. Making Democracy Work. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. ISBN 0691037388
• Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph. General Idea of the Revolution. http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/ANARCHIST_ARCHIVES/proudhon/grahamproudhon.html. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Raaflaub, Kurt A., Josiah Ober, amd Robert W. Wallace. Origins of democracy in ancient Greece. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. ISBN 0520245628
• Riker, William H. The Theory of Political Coalitions. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962.
• Schumpeter, Joseph. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. New York: Harper Perennial: 1950.
• Sen, Amartya K. "Democracy as a Universal Value." Journal of Democracy 10, no. 3 (1999): 3-17.
• Weingast, Barry. "The Political Foundations of the Rule of Law and Democracy." American Political Science Review 91, no. 2 (1997): 245-263. http://www.jsstor.org. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
• Whitehead, Laurence, ed. Emerging Market Democracies: East Asia and Latin America. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2002. ISBN 080187217
• Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Vintage, 1993. ISBN 0679736883
• 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 Projet 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.

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• Democracy  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "Democracy"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.