Democracy

For representative democracy, which operates under the principles of liberalism, see Liberal democracy. For other uses, see Democracy (disambiguation) and Democrat (disambiguation).

Nelson Mandela casting his ballot in the 1994 South African general election. In the 1990s, the dissolution of apartheid in favour of universal suffrage allowed tens of millions of South Africans, including Mandela, to vote for the first time.
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Democracy (from Ancient Greek: δημοκρατία, romanized: dēmokratía, dēmos 'people' and kratos 'rule')[1] is a system of government in which state power is vested in the people or the general population of a state.[2][3][4] Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitive elections while more expansive definitions link democracy to guarantees of civil liberties and human rights in addition to competitive elections.[5][6][4]

In a direct democracy, the people have the direct authority to deliberate and decide legislation. In a representative democracy, the people choose governing officials through elections to do so. Who is considered part of "the people" and how authority is shared among or delegated by the people has changed over time and at different rates in different countries. Features of democracy oftentimes include freedom of assembly, association, personal property, freedom of religion and speech, citizenship, consent of the governed, voting rights, freedom from unwarranted governmental deprivation of the right to life and liberty, and minority rights.

The notion of democracy has evolved considerably over time. Throughout history, one can find evidence of direct democracy, in which communities make decisions through popular assembly. Today, the dominant form of democracy is representative democracy, where citizens elect government officials to govern on their behalf such as in a parliamentary or presidential democracy. Most democracies apply in most cases majority rule,[7][8] but in some cases plurality rule, supermajority rule or consensus rule are applied. They serve the crucial purpose of inclusiveness and broader legitimacy on sensitive issues—counterbalancing majoritarianism—and therefore mostly take precedence on a constitutional level. In the common variant of liberal democracy, the powers of the majority are exercised within the framework of a representative democracy, but a constitution and supreme court limit the majority and protect the minority—usually through securing the enjoyment by all of certain individual rights, such as freedom of speech or freedom of association.[9][10]

The term appeared in the 5th century BC in Greek city-states, notably Classical Athens, to mean "rule of the people", in contrast to aristocracy (ἀριστοκρατία, aristokratía), meaning "rule of an elite".[11] Western democracy, as distinct from that which existed in antiquity, is generally considered to have originated in city-states such as those in Classical Athens and the Roman Republic, where various degrees of enfranchisement of the free male population were observed. In virtually all democratic governments throughout ancient and modern history, democratic citizenship was initially restricted to an elite class, which was later extended to all adult citizens. In most modern democracies, this was achieved through the suffrage movements of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Democracy contrasts with forms of government where power is not vested in the general population of a state, such as authoritarian systems. World public opinion strongly favors democratic systems of government.[12] According to the V-Dem Democracy indices and The Economist Democracy Index, less than half the world's population lives in a democracy as of 2022.[13][14]

  1. ^ "Democracy". Oxford University Press. Retrieved 24 February 2021.
  2. ^ Schwartzberg, Melissa (2014). "Democracy". The Encyclopedia of Political Thought: 851–862. doi:10.1002/9781118474396.wbept0248. ISBN 978-1-4051-9129-6.
  3. ^ "Democracy | Definition, History, Meaning, Types, Examples, & Facts". Encyclopædia Britannica. 16 August 2023. Retrieved 17 August 2023.
  4. ^ a b Przeworski, Adam (2024). "Who Decides What Is Democratic?". Journal of Democracy. 35 (3): 5–16. doi:10.1353/jod.2024.a930423. ISSN 1086-3214.
  5. ^ Dahl, Robert A.; Shapiro, Ian; Cheibub, Jose Antonio (2003). The Democracy Sourcebook. MIT Press. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-262-54147-3.
  6. ^ Møller, Jørgen; Skaaning, Svend-Erik (January 2013). "Regime Types and Democratic Sequencing". Journal of Democracy. 24 (1): 142–155. doi:10.1353/jod.2013.0010. ISSN 1045-5736. Archived from the original on 22 February 2024.
  7. ^ "Definition of DEMOCRACY". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
  8. ^ Locke, John. Two Treatises on Government: a Translation into Modern English. Quote: "There is no practical alternative to majority political rule – i.e., to taking the consent of the majority as the act of the whole and binding every individual. It would be next to impossible to obtain the consent of every individual before acting collectively ... No rational people could desire and constitute a society that had to dissolve straightaway because the majority was unable to make the final decision and the society was incapable of acting as one body."There is no practical alternative to majority political rule %E2%80%93 i.e., to taking the consent of the majority as the act of the whole and binding every individual." Google Books.
  9. ^ Oxford English Dictionary: "democracy".
  10. ^ Watkins, Frederick (1970). "Democracy". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (Expo '70 hardcover ed.). William Benton. pp. 215–23. ISBN 978-0-85229-135-1.
  11. ^ Wilson, N.G. (2006). Encyclopedia of ancient Greece. New York: Routledge. p. 511. ISBN 978-0-415-97334-2.
  12. ^ Anderson, Christopher J.; Bol, Damien; Ananda, Aurelia (2021). "Humanity's Attitudes about Democracy and Political Leaders". Public Opinion Quarterly. 85 (4): 957–986. doi:10.1093/poq/nfab056. ISSN 0033-362X. PMC 8754486. PMID 35035302.
  13. ^ V-Dem Institute DEMOCRACY REPORT 2022: Autocratization Changing Nature? pp. 6, 13, 18: "Dictatorships are on the rise and harbor 70% of the world population – 5.4 billion people."
  14. ^ Economic Intelligence Unit Democracy Index, 2022, p. 4: "According to our measure of democracy, less than half (45.7%) of the world's population now live in a democracy of some sort, a significant decline from 2020 (49.4%)."