Democracy (Greek: δημοκρατία, dēmokratiā, from dēmos 'people' and kratos 'rule')[1] is a form of government in which the people have the authority to choose their governing legislators. The decisions on who is considered part of the people and how authority is shared among or delegated by the people have changed over time and at different speeds in different countries, but they have included more and more of the inhabitants of all countries. Cornerstones include freedom of assembly and speech, inclusiveness and equality, membership, consent, voting, right to life and minority rights.
The notion of democracy has evolved over time considerably,[2] and, generally, the two current types of democracy are direct and representative. In a direct democracy, the people directly deliberate and decide on legislation. In a representative democracy, the people elect representatives to deliberate and decide on legislation, such as in parliamentary or presidential democracy.[3] Liquid democracy combines elements of these two basic types.
Prevalent day-to-day decision making of democracies is the majority rule,[4][5] though other decision making approaches like supermajority and consensus have been equally integral to democracies. 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 the constitution limits the majority and protects the minority, usually through the enjoyment by all of certain individual rights, e.g. freedom of speech, or freedom of association.[6][7] Besides these general types of democracy, there have been a wealth of further types (see below).
Democracy makes all forces struggle repeatedly to realize their interests and devolves power from groups of people to sets of rules.[8] Western democracy, as distinct from that which existed in antiquity, is generally considered to have originated in city-states such as Classical Athens and the Roman Republic, where various schemes and degrees of enfranchisement of the free male population were observed before the form disappeared in the West at the beginning of late antiquity. The English word dates back to the 16th century, from the older Middle French and Middle Latin equivalents.
According to American political scientist Larry Diamond, democracy consists of four key elements: a political system for choosing and replacing the government through free and fair elections; the active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civic life; protection of the human rights of all citizens; and a rule of law, in which the laws and procedures apply equally to all citizens.[9] Todd Landman, nevertheless, draws our attention to the fact that democracy and human rights are two different concepts and that "there must be greater specificity in the conceptualisation and operationalisation of democracy and human rights".[10]
The term appeared in the 5th century BC to denote the political systems then existing in Greek city-states, notably Athens, to mean "rule of the people", in contrast to aristocracy (ἀριστοκρατία, aristokratía), meaning "rule of an elite". While theoretically, these definitions are in opposition, in practice the distinction has been blurred historically.[11] The political system of Classical Athens, for example, granted democratic citizenship to free men and excluded slaves and women from political participation. In virtually all democratic governments throughout ancient and modern history, democratic citizenship consisted of an elite class, until full enfranchisement was won for all adult citizens in most modern democracies through the suffrage movements of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Democracy contrasts with forms of government where power is either held by an individual, as in an absolute monarchy, or where power is held by a small number of individuals, as in an oligarchy. Nevertheless, these oppositions, inherited from Greek philosophy,[12] are now ambiguous because contemporary governments have mixed democratic, oligarchic and monarchic elements. Karl Popper defined democracy in contrast to dictatorship or tyranny, thus focusing on opportunities for the people to control their leaders and to oust them without the need for a revolution.[13]
Charactieristics
No consensus exists on how to define democracy – indeed, one study found that at least 2,234 descriptions of democracy exist in the English language[15] - but legal equality, political freedom and rule of law have been identified as important characteristics.[16][17] These principles are reflected in all eligible citizens being equal before the law and having equal access to legislative processes.[citation needed] For example, in a representative democracy, every vote has equal weight, no unreasonable restrictions can apply to anyone seeking to become a representative,[according to whom?] and the freedom of its eligible citizens is secured by legitimised rights and liberties which are typically protected by a constitution.[18][19] Other uses of "democracy" include that of direct democracy.
One theory holds that democracy requires three fundamental principles: upward control (sovereignty residing at the lowest levels of authority), political equality, and social norms by which individuals and institutions only consider acceptable acts that reflect the first two principles of upward control and political equality.[20]
The term "democracy" is sometimes used as shorthand for liberal democracy, which is a variant of representative democracy that may include elements such as political pluralism; equality before the law; the right to petition elected officials for redress of grievances; due process; civil liberties; human rights; and elements of civil society outside the government.[citation needed] Roger Scruton argues that democracy alone cannot provide personal and political freedom unless the institutions of civil society are also present.[21]
In some countries, notably in the United Kingdom which originated the Westminster system, the dominant principle is that of parliamentary sovereignty, while maintaining judicial independence.[22][23] In India, parliamentary sovereignty is subject to the Constitution of India which includes judicial review.[24] Though the term "democracy" is typically used in the context of a political state, the principles also are applicable to private organisations.
There are many decision-making methods used in democracies, but majority rule is the dominant form. Without compensation, like legal protections of individual or group rights, political minorities can be oppressed by the "tyranny of the majority". Majority rule is a competitive approach, opposed to consensus democracy, creating the need that elections, and generally deliberation, are substantively and procedurally "fair," i.e. just and equitable. In some countries, freedom of political expression, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and internet democracy are considered important to ensure that voters are well informed, enabling them to vote according to their own interests.[25][26]
It has also been suggested that a basic feature of democracy is the capacity of all voters to participate freely and fully in the life of their society.[27] With its emphasis on notions of social contract and the collective will of all the voters, democracy can also be characterised as a form of political collectivism because it is defined as a form of government in which all eligible citizens have an equal say in lawmaking.[28]
Republics, though often associated with democracy because of the shared principle of rule by consent of the governed, are not necessarily democracies, as republicanism does not specify how the people are to rule.[29] Classically the term "republic" encompassed both democracies and aristocracies.[30][31] In a modern sense the republican form of government is a form of government without monarch. Because of this democracies can be republics or constitutional monarchies, such as the United Kingdom.
History
Historically, democracies and republics have been rare.[33] Republican theorists linked democracy to small size: as political units grew in size, the likelihood increased that the government would turn despotic.[33][34] At the same time, small political units were vulnerable to conquest.[33] Montesquieu wrote, "If a republic be small, it is destroyed by a foreign force; if it be large, it is ruined by an internal imperfection."[35] According to Johns Hopkins University political scientist Daniel Deudney, the creation of the United States, with its large size and its system of checks and balances, was a solution to the dual problems of size.[33]
It is commonly claimed that democracy and democratization were important drivers of the expansion of primary education around the world. However, new evidence from historical education trends challenges this assertion. An analysis of historical student enrollment rates for 109 countries from 1820 to 2010 finds no support for the claim that democratization increased access to primary education around the world. It is true that transitions to democracy often coincided with an acceleration in the expansion of primary education, but the same acceleration was observed in countries that remained non-democratic.[36]
Historic origins and proto-democratic societies
Retrospectively different polities, outside of declared democracies, have been described as proto-democratic (see History of democracy).
Origins
The term democracy first appeared in ancient Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-state of Athens during classical antiquity.[37][38] The word comes from dêmos '(common) people' and krátos 'force/might'.[39] Led by Cleisthenes, Athenians established what is generally held as the first democracy in 508–507 BC. Cleisthenes is referred to as "the father of Athenian democracy".[40]
Athenian democracy took the form of a direct democracy, and it had two distinguishing features: the random selection of ordinary citizens to fill the few existing government administrative and judicial offices,[41] and a legislative assembly consisting of all Athenian citizens.[42] All eligible citizens were allowed to speak and vote in the assembly, which set the laws of the city state. However, Athenian citizenship excluded women, slaves, foreigners (μέτοικοι / métoikoi), and men under 20 years of age.[43][44][contradictory] Owning land was not a requirement for citizenship, but it did allow one to purchase land.[45] The exclusion of large parts of the population from the citizen body is closely related to the ancient understanding of citizenship. In most of antiquity the benefit of citizenship was tied to the obligation to fight war campaigns.[46]
Athenian democracy was not only direct in the sense that decisions were made by the assembled people, but also the most direct in the sense that the people through the assembly, boule and courts of law controlled the entire political process and a large proportion of citizens were involved constantly in the public business. Even though the rights of the individual were not secured by the Athenian constitution in the modern sense (the ancient Greeks had no word for "rights"), the Athenians enjoyed their liberties not in opposition to the government but by living in a city that was not subject to another power and by not being subjects themselves to the rule of another person.
Range voting appeared in Sparta as early as 700 BC. The Apella was an assembly of the people, held once a month, in which every male citizen of at least 30 years of age could participate. In the Apella, Spartans elected leaders and cast votes by range voting and shouting (the vote is then decided on how loudly the crowd shouts). Aristotle called this "childish", as compared with the stone voting ballots used by the Athenians. Sparta adopted it because of its simplicity, and to prevent any bias voting, buying, or cheating that was predominant in the early democratic elections.[50][51]
Even though the Roman Republic contributed significantly to many aspects of democracy, only a minority of Romans were citizens with votes in elections for representatives. The votes of the powerful were given more weight through a system of gerrymandering, so most high officials, including members of the Senate, came from a few wealthy and noble families.[52] In addition, the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom was the first case in the Western world of a polity being formed with the explicit purpose of being a republic, although it didn't have much of a democracy. The Roman model of governance inspired many political thinkers over the centuries,[53] and today's modern representative democracies imitate more the Roman than the Greek models because it was a state in which supreme power was held by the people and their elected representatives, and which had an elected or nominated leader.[54]
Vaishali, capital city of the Vajjian Confederacy of (Vrijji mahajanapada), India was also considered[by whom?] one of the first examples of a republic around the 6th century BCE.[55][56][57][failed verification]
Other cultures, such as the Iroquois Nation in the Americas between around 1450 and 1600 AD also developed a form of democratic society before they came in contact with the Europeans. This indicates that forms of democracy may have been invented in other societies around the world.[citation needed]
Middle Ages
While most regions in Europe during the Middle Ages were ruled by clergy or feudal lords, there existed various systems involving elections or assemblies, although often only involving a small part of the population. In Scandinavia, bodies known as things consisted of freemen presided by a lawspeaker. These deliberative bodies were responsible for settling political questions, and variants included the Althing in Iceland and the Løgting in the Faeroe Islands.[58][59] The veche, found in Eastern Europe, was a similar body to the Scandinavian thing. In the Roman Catholic Church, the pope has been elected by a papal conclave composed of cardinals since 1059. The first documented parliamentary body in Europe was the Cortes of León. Established by Alfonso IX in 1188, the Cortes had authority over setting taxation, foreign affairs and legislating, though the exact nature of its role remains disputed.[60] The Republic of Ragusa, established in 1358 and centered around the city of Dubrovnik, provided representation and voting rights to its male aristocracy only. Various Italian city-states and polities had republic forms of government. For instance, the Republic of Florence, established in 1115, was led by the Signoria whose members were chosen by sortition. In 10th–15th century Frisia, a distinctly non-feudal society, the right to vote on local matters and on county officials was based on land size. The Kouroukan Fouga divided the Mali Empire into ruling clans (lineages) that were represented at a great assembly called the Gbara. However, the charter made Mali more similar to a constitutional monarchy than a democratic republic.
The Parliament of England had its roots in the restrictions on the power of kings written into Magna Carta (1215), which explicitly protected certain rights of the King's subjects and implicitly supported what became the English writ of habeas corpus, safeguarding individual freedom against unlawful imprisonment with right to appeal.[61][62] The first representative national assembly in England was Simon de Montfort's Parliament in 1265.[63][64] The emergence of petitioning is some of the earliest evidence of parliament being used as a forum to address the general grievances of ordinary people. However, the power to call parliament remained at the pleasure of the monarch.[65]
Studies have linked the emergence of parliamentary institutions in Europe during the medieval period to urban agglomeration and the creation of new classes, such as artisans,[66] as well as the presence of nobility and religious elites.[67] Scholars have also linked the emergence of representative government to Europe's relative political fragmentation.[68] New York University political scientist David Stasavage links the fragmentation of Europe, and its subsequent democratization, to the manner in which the Roman Empire collapsed: Roman territory was conquered by small fragmented groups of Germanic tribes, thus leading to the creation of small political units where rulers were relatively weak and needed the consent of the governed to ward off foreign threats.[69]
In Poland, noble democracy was characterized by an increase in the activity of the middle nobility, which wanted to increase their share in exercising power at the expense of the magnates. Magnates dominated the most important offices in the state (secular and ecclesiastical) and sat on the royal council, later the senate. The growing importance of the middle nobility had an impact on the establishment of the institution of the land sejmik (local assembly), which subsequently obtained more rights. During the fifteenth and first half of the sixteenth century, sejmiks received more and more powers and became the most important institutions of local power. In 1454, king Casimir IV Jagiellon granted the sejmiks the right to decide on taxes and to convene a mass mobilization in the Nieszawa Statutes. He also pledged not to create new laws without their consent.[70]
Modern era
Early modern period
In 17th century England, there was renewed interest in Magna Carta.[71] The Parliament of England passed the Petition of Right in 1628 which established certain liberties for subjects. The English Civil War (1642–1651) was fought between the King and an oligarchic but elected Parliament,[72][73] during which the idea of a political party took form with groups debating rights to political representation during the Putney Debates of 1647.[74] Subsequently, the Protectorate (1653–59) and the English Restoration (1660) restored more autocratic rule, although Parliament passed the Habeas Corpus Act in 1679 which strengthened the convention that forbade detention lacking sufficient cause or evidence. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the Bill of Rights was enacted in 1689 which codified certain rights and liberties and is still in effect. The Bill set out the requirement for regular elections, rules for freedom of speech in Parliament and limited the power of the monarch, ensuring that, unlike much of Europe at the time, royal absolutism would not prevail.[75][76] Economic historians Douglass North and Barry Weingast have characterized the institutions implemented in the Glorious Revolution as a resounding success in terms of restraining the government and ensuring protection for property rights.[77]
Renewed interest in the Magna Carta, the English Civil War, and the Glorious Revolution in the 17th century prompted the growth of political philosophy on the British Isles. Thomas Hobbes was the first philosopher to articulate a detailed social contract theory. Writing in Leviathan (1651), Hobbes theorized that individuals living in the state of nature led lives that were "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" and constantly waged a war of all against all. In order to prevent the occurrence of an anarchic state of nature, Hobbes reasoned that individuals ceded their rights to a strong, authoritarian government. Later, philosopher and physician John Locke would posit a different interpretation of social contract theory. Writing in his Two Treatises of Government (1689), Locke posited that all individuals possessed the inalienable rights to life, liberty and estate (property).[78] According to Locke, individuals would voluntarily come together to form a state for the purposes of defending their rights. Particularly important for Locke were property rights, whose protection Locke deemed to be a government's primary purpose.[79] Furthermore, Locke asserted that governments were legitimate only if they held the consent of the governed. For Locke, citizens had the right to revolt against a government that acted against their interest or became tyrannical.[80] Although they were not widely read during his lifetime, Locke's works are considered the founding documents of liberal thought and profoundly influenced the leaders of the American Revolution and later the French Revolution.[81] His liberal democratic framework of governance remains the preeminent form of democracy in the world.
In the Cossack republics of Ukraine in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Cossack Hetmanate and Zaporizhian Sich, the holder of the highest post of Hetman was elected by the representatives from the country's districts.
In North America, representative government began in Jamestown, Virginia, with the election of the House of Burgesses (forerunner of the Virginia General Assembly) in 1619. English Puritans who migrated from 1620 established colonies in New England whose local governance was democratic;[82] although these local assemblies had some small amounts of devolved power, the ultimate authority was held by the Crown and the English Parliament. The Puritans (Pilgrim Fathers), Baptists, and Quakers who founded these colonies applied the democratic organisation of their congregations also to the administration of their communities in worldly matters.[83][84][85]
18th and 19th centuries
The first Parliament of Great Britain was established in 1707, after the merger of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland under the Acts of Union. Although the monarch increasingly became a figurehead,[87] Parliament was only elected by male property owners, which amounted to 3% of the population in 1780.[88] The first known British person of African heritage to vote in a general election, Ignatius Sancho, voted in 1774 and 1780.[89] During the Age of Liberty in Sweden (1718–1772), civil rights were expanded and power shifted from the monarch to parliament. The taxed peasantry was represented in parliament, although with little influence, but commoners without taxed property had no suffrage.
The creation of the short-lived Corsican Republic in 1755 marked the first nation in modern history to adopt a democratic constitution (all men and women above age of 25 could vote).[90] This Corsican Constitution was the first based on Enlightenment principles and included female suffrage, something that was not granted in most other democracies until the 20th century.
In the American colonial period before 1776, and for some time after, often only adult white male property owners could vote; enslaved Africans, most free black people and most women were not extended the franchise. This changed state by state, beginning with the republican State of New Connecticut, soon after called Vermont, which, on declaring independence of Great Britain in 1777, adopted a constitution modelled on Pennsylvania's with citizenship and democratic suffrage for males with or without property, and went on to abolish slavery.[91][92] The American Revolution led to the adoption of the United States Constitution in 1787, the oldest surviving, still active, governmental codified constitution. The Constitution provided for an elected government and protected civil rights and liberties for some, but did not end slavery nor extend voting rights in the United States, instead leaving the issue of suffrage to the individual states.[93] Generally, states limited suffrage to white male property owners and taxpayers.[94] At the time of the first Presidential election in 1789, about 6% of the population was eligible to vote.[95] The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited U.S. citizenship to whites only.[96] The Bill of Rights in 1791 set limits on government power to protect personal freedoms but had little impact on judgements by the courts for the first 130 years after ratification.[97]
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 men in 1792.[98] The Polish-Lithuanian Constitution of 3 May 1791 sought to implement a more effective constitutional monarchy, introduced political equality between townspeople and nobility, and placed the peasants under the protection of the government, mitigating the worst abuses of serfdom. In force for less than 19 months, it was declared null and void by the Grodno Sejm that met in 1793.[99][100] Nonetheless, the 1791 Constitution helped keep alive Polish aspirations for the eventual restoration of the country's sovereignty over a century later.
However, in the early 19th century, little of democracy—as theory, practice, or even as word—remained in the North Atlantic world.[101] During this period, slavery remained a social and economic institution in places around the world. This was particularly the case in the United States, where eight serving presidents had owned slaves, and the last fifteen slave states kept slavery legal in the American South until the Civil War.[102] Advocating the movement of black people from the US to locations where they would enjoy greater freedom and equality, in the 1820s the abolitionist members of the ACS established the settlement of Liberia.[103] The United Kingdom's Slave Trade Act 1807 banned the trade across the British Empire, which was enforced internationally by the Royal Navy under treaties Britain negotiated with other nations.[104] In 1833, the UK passed the Slavery Abolition Act which took effect across the British Empire, although slavery was legally allowed to continue in areas controlled by the East India Company, in Ceylon, and in Saint Helena for an additional ten years.[105]
The establishment of
universal male suffrage in France in 1848 was an important milestone in the history of democracy.
In the United States, the 1828 presidential election was the first in which non-property-holding white males could vote in the vast majority of states. Voter turnout soared during the 1830s, reaching about 80% of the adult white male population in the 1840 presidential election.[106] North Carolina was the last state to abolish property qualification in 1856 resulting in a close approximation to universal white male suffrage (however tax-paying requirements remained in five states in 1860 and survived in two states until the 20th century).[107][108][109][nb 1] In the 1860 United States Census, the slave population had grown to four million,[110] and in Reconstruction after the Civil War, three constitutional amendments were passed: the 13th Amendment (1865) that ended slavery; the 14th Amendment (1869) that gave black people citizenship, and the 15th Amendment (1870) that gave black males a nominal right to vote.[111][112] Full enfranchisement of citizens was not secured until after the civil rights movement gained passage by the US Congress of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.[113][114]
The voting franchise in the United Kingdom was expanded and made more uniform in a series of reforms that began with the Reform Act 1832 and continued into the 20th century, notably with the Representation of the People Act 1918 and the Equal Franchise Act 1928. Universal male suffrage was established in France in March 1848 in the wake of the French Revolution of 1848.[115] In 1848, several revolutions broke out in Europe as rulers were confronted with popular demands for liberal constitutions and more democratic government.[116]
In 1876 the Ottoman Empire transitioned from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional one, and held two elections the next year to elect members to her newly formed parliament.[117] Provisional Electoral Regulations were issued, stating that the elected members of the Provincial Administrative Councils would elect members to the first Parliament. Later that year, a new constitution was promulgated, which provided for a bicameral Parliament with a Senate appointed by the Sultan and a popularly elected Chamber of Deputies. Only men above the age of 30 who were competent in Turkish and had full civil rights were allowed to stand for election. Reasons for disqualification included holding dual citizenship, being employed by a foreign government, being bankrupt, employed as a servant, or having "notoriety for ill deeds". Full universal suffrage was achieved in 1934.
In 1893 the self-governing colony New Zealand became the first country in the world (except for the short-lived 18th-century Corsican Republic) to grant active universal suffrage by giving women the right to vote.[118]
20th and 21st centuries
The number of nations 1800–2003 scoring 8 or higher on
Polity IV scale, another widely used measure of democracy
20th-century transitions to liberal democracy have come in successive "waves of democracy", variously resulting from wars, revolutions, decolonisation, and religious and economic circumstances.[119] Global waves of "democratic regression" reversing democratization, have also occurred in the 1920s and 30s, in the 1960s and 1970s, and in the 2010s.[120][121]
World War I and the dissolution of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires resulted in the creation of new nation-states from Europe, most of them at least nominally democratic.
In the 1920s democracy flourished and women's suffrage advanced, but the Great Depression brought disenchantment and most of 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 non-democratic governments in the Baltics, the Balkans, Brazil, Cuba, China, and Japan, among others.[122]
World War II brought a definitive reversal of this trend in western Europe. The democratisation of the American, British, and French sectors of occupied Germany (disputed[123]), Austria, Italy, and the occupied Japan served as a model for the later theory of government change. However, most of Eastern Europe, including the Soviet sector of Germany fell into the non-democratic Soviet bloc.
The war was followed by decolonisation, and again most of the new independent states had nominally democratic constitutions. India emerged as the world's largest democracy and continues to be so.[124] Countries that were once part of the British Empire often adopted the British Westminster system.[125][126]
By 1960, the vast majority of country-states were nominally democracies, although most 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 democratisation brought substantial gains toward true liberal democracy for many nations. Portugal, Spain, and several of the military dictatorships in South America returned to civilian rule in the 1970s and 1980s.[nb 2] This was followed by nations in East and South Asia by the mid-to-late 1980s.
Corazon Aquino taking the Oath of Office, becoming the first female president in Asia
Economic malaise in the 1980s, along with resentment of Soviet oppression, contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the associated end of the Cold War, and the democratisation and liberalisation 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. In 1986, after the toppling of the most prominent Asian dictatorship, the only democratic state of its kind at the time emerged in the Philippines with the rise of Corazon Aquino, who would later be known as the Mother of Asian Democracy.
The liberal trend spread to some nations in Africa in the 1990s, most prominently in South Africa. Some recent examples of attempts of liberalisation 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, the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, and the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia.
Age of democracies at the end of 2015
[127]According to Freedom House, starting in 2005, there have been eleven consecutive years in which declines in political rights and civil liberties throughout the world have outnumbered improvements,[128] as populist and nationalist political forces have gained ground everywhere from Poland (under the Law and Justice Party) to the Philippines (under Rodrigo Duterte).[128][120]
According to Freedom House, in 2007 there were 123 electoral democracies (up from 40 in 1972).[129] According to World Forum on Democracy, electoral democracies now represent 120 of the 192 existing countries and constitute 58.2 percent of the world's population. At the same time liberal democracies i.e. countries Freedom House regards as free and respectful of basic human rights and the rule of law are 85 in number and represent 38 percent of the global population.[130]
Most electoral democracies continue to exclude those younger than 18 from voting.[131] The voting age has been lowered to 16 for national elections in a number of countries, including Brazil, Austria, Cuba, and Nicaragua. In California, a 2004 proposal to permit a quarter vote at 14 and a half vote at 16 was ultimately defeated. In 2008, the German parliament proposed but shelved a bill that would grant the vote to each citizen at birth, to be used by a parent until the child claims it for themselves.
In 2007 the United Nations declared 15 September the International Day of Democracy.[132]
In a Freedom House report released in 2018, Democracy Scores for most countries declined for the 12th consecutive year.[133] The Christian Science Monitor reported that nationalist and populist political ideologies were gaining ground, at the expense of rule of law, in countries like Poland, Turkey and Hungary. For example, in Poland, the President appointed 27 new Supreme Court judges over objections from the European Union. In Turkey, thousands of judges were removed from their positions following a failed coup attempt during a government crackdown .[134]
Republics, though often associated with democracy because of the shared principle of rule by consent of the governed, are not necessarily democracies, as republicanism does not specify how the people are to rule.[29]
Theory
Early theory
Aristotle contrasted rule by the many (democracy/timocracy), with rule by the few (oligarchy/aristocracy), and with rule by a single person (tyranny or today autocracy/absolute monarchy). He also thought that there was a good and a bad variant of each system (he considered democracy to be the degenerate counterpart to timocracy).[135][136]
A common view among early and renaissance Republican theorists was that democracy could only survive in small political communities.[137] Heeding the lessons of the Roman Republic's shift to monarchism as it grew larger or smaller, these Republican theorists held that the expansion of territory and population inevitably led to tyranny.[137] Democracy was therefore highly fragile and rare historically, as it could only survive in small political units, which due to their size were vulnerable to conquest by larger political units.[137] Montesquieu famously said, "if a republic is small, it is destroyed by an outside force; if it is large, it is destroyed by an internal vice."[137] Rousseau asserted, "It is, therefore the natural property of small states to be governed as a republic, of middling ones to be subject to a monarch, and of large empires to be swayed by a despotic prince."[137]
Contemporary theory
Among modern political theorists, there are three contending conceptions of democracy: aggregative democracy, deliberative democracy, and radical democracy.[138]
Aggregative
The theory of aggregative democracy claims that the aim of the democratic processes is to solicit citizens' preferences and 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.
Different variants of aggregative democracy exist. Under minimalism, democracy is a system of government in which citizens have given 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.[139] Contemporary proponents of minimalism include William H. Riker, Adam Przeworski, Richard Posner.
According to the theory of direct democracy, on the other hand, citizens should vote directly, not through their representatives, on legislative proposals. Proponents of direct democracy offer varied reasons to support this view. Political activity can be valuable in itself, it socialises and educates citizens, and popular participation can check powerful elites. Most importantly, citizens do not rule themselves unless they directly decide laws and policies.
Governments will tend to produce laws and policies that are close to the views of the median voter—with half to their left and the other half to their right. This is not a desirable outcome as it represents the action of self-interested and somewhat unaccountable political elites competing for votes. Anthony Downs suggests that ideological political parties are necessary to act as a mediating broker between individual and governments. Downs laid out this view in his 1957 book An Economic Theory of Democracy.[140]
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.[141] Similarly, Ronald Dworkin argues that "democracy is a substantive, not a merely procedural, ideal."[142]
Deliberative
Deliberative democracy is based on the notion that democracy is government by deliberation. Unlike aggregative democracy, deliberative democracy holds that, for a democratic decision to be legitimate, it must be preceded by authentic deliberation, not merely the aggregation of preferences that occurs in voting. Authentic deliberation is deliberation among decision-makers that is free from distortions of unequal political power, such as power a decision-maker obtained through economic wealth or the support of interest groups.[143][144][145] If the decision-makers cannot reach consensus after authentically deliberating on a proposal, then they vote on the proposal using a form of majority rule. Citizens assemblies are considered by many scholars as practical examples of deliberative democracy,[146][147][148] with a recent OECD report identifying citizens assemblies as an increasingly popular mechanism to involve citizens in governmental decision-making.[149]
Radical
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.
Measurement of Decmocracy
Several freedom indices are published by several organisations according to their own various definitions of the term and relying on different types of data:[152]
- Freedom in the World published each year since 1972 by the U.S.-based Freedom House ranks countries by political rights and civil liberties that are derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Countries are assessed as free, partly free, or unfree.[153]
- Worldwide Press Freedom Index is published each year since 2002 (except that 2011 was combined with 2012) by France-based Reporters Without Borders. Countries are assessed as having a good situation, a satisfactory situation, noticeable problems, a difficult situation, or a very serious situation.[154]
- The Index of Freedom in the World is an index measuring classical civil liberties published by Canada's Fraser Institute, Germany's Liberales Institute, and the U.S. Cato Institute.[155] It is not currently included in the table below.
- The CIRI Human Rights Data Project measures a range of human, civil, women's and workers rights.[156] It is now hosted by the University of Connecticut. It was created in 1994.[157] In its 2011 report, the U.S. was ranked 38th in overall human rights.[158]
- The Democracy Index, published by the UK-based Economist Intelligence Unit, is an assessment of countries' democracy. Countries are rated to be either Full Democracies, Flawed Democracies, Hybrid Regimes, or Authoritarian regimes. Full democracies, flawed democracies, and hybrid regimes are considered to be democracies, and the authoritarian nations are considered to be dictatorial. The index is based on 60 indicators grouped in five different categories.[159]
- The U.S.-based Polity data series is a widely used data series in political science research. It contains coded annual information on regime authority characteristics and transitions for all independent states with greater than 500,000 total population and covers the years 1800–2006. Polity's conclusions about a state's level of democracy are based on an evaluation of that state's elections for competitiveness, openness and level of participation. Data from this series is not currently included in the table below. The Polity work is sponsored by the Political Instability Task Force (PITF) which is funded by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. However, the views expressed in the reports are the authors' alone and do not represent the views of the US Government.
- MaxRange, a dataset defining level of democracy and institutional structure(regime-type) on a 100-graded scale where every value represents a unique regime type. Values are sorted from 1–100 based on level of democracy and political accountability. MaxRange defines the value corresponding to all states and every month from 1789 to 2015 and updating. MaxRange is created and developed by Max Range, and is now associated with the university of Halmstad, Sweden.[160]
Dieter Fuchs and Edeltraud Roller suggest that, in order to truly measure the quality of democracy, objective measurements need to be complemented by "subjective measurements based on the perspective of citizens".[161] Similarly, Quinton Mayne and Brigitte Geißel also defend that the quality of democracy does not depend exclusively on the performance of institutions, but also on the citizens' own dispositions and commitment.[162]
Difficulties in measuring democracy
Because democracy is an overarching concept that includes the functioning of diverse institutions which are not easy to measure, strong limitations exist in quantifying and econometrically measuring the potential effects of democracy or its relationship with other phenomena—whether inequality, poverty, education etc.[163] Given the constraints in acquiring reliable data with within-country variation on aspects of democracy, academics have largely studied cross-country variations. Yet variations between democratic institutions are very large across countries which constrains meaningful comparisons using statistical approaches. Since democracy is typically measured aggregately as a macro variable using a single observation for each country and each year, studying democracy faces a range of econometric constraints and is limited to basic correlations. Cross-country comparison of a composite, comprehensive and qualitative concept like democracy may thus not always be, for many purposes, methodologically rigorous or useful.[163]
Classification of countries according to the Freedom House's Freedom in the World 2021 survey, concerning the state of world freedom in 2020.[150] Free Partly Free Not Free
Types of Governmental Decomcracies
Democracy has taken a number of forms, both in theory and practice. Some varieties of democracy provide better representation and more freedom for their citizens than others.[164][165] However, if any democracy is not structured to prohibit the government from excluding the people from the legislative process, or any branch of government from altering the separation of powers in its favour, then a branch of the system can accumulate too much power and destroy the democracy.[166][167][168]
The following kinds of democracy are not exclusive of one another: many specify details of aspects that are independent of one another and can co-exist in a single system.
Basic forms
Several variants of democracy exist, but there are two basic forms, both of which concern how the whole body of all eligible citizens executes its will. One form of democracy is direct democracy, in which all eligible citizens have active participation in the political decision making, for example voting on policy initiatives directly.[169] In most modern democracies, the whole body of eligible citizens remain the sovereign power but political power is exercised indirectly through elected representatives; this is called a representative democracy.
Direct
In
Switzerland, without needing to register, every citizen receives
ballot papers and information brochures for each vote (and can send it back by post). Switzerland has a
direct democracy system and votes (and elections) are organised about four times a year; here, to
Berne's citizen in November 2008 about 5 national, 2 cantonal, 4 municipal referendums, and 2 elections (government and parliament of the City of Berne) to take care of at the same time.
Direct democracy is a political system where the citizens participate in the decision-making personally, contrary to relying on intermediaries or representatives. The use of a lot system, a characteristic of Athenian democracy, is unique to direct democracies. In this system, important governmental and administrative tasks are performed by citizens picked from a lottery.[170] A direct democracy gives the voting population the power to:
- Change constitutional laws,
- Put forth initiatives, referendums and suggestions for laws,
- Give binding orders to elective officials, such as revoking them before the end of their elected term or initiating a lawsuit for breaking a campaign promise.
Within modern-day representative governments, certain electoral tools like referendums, citizens' initiatives and recall elections are referred to as forms of direct democracy.[171] However, some advocates of direct democracy argue for local assemblies of face-to-face discussion. Direct democracy as a government system currently exists in the Swiss cantons of Appenzell Innerrhoden and Glarus,[172] the Rebel Zapatista Autonomous Municipalities,[173] communities affiliated with the CIPO-RFM,[174] the Bolivian city councils of FEJUVE,[175] and Kurdish cantons of Rojava.[176]
Representative
Representative democracy involves the election of government officials by the people being represented. If the head of state is also democratically elected then it is called a democratic republic.[177] The most common mechanisms involve election of the candidate with a majority or a plurality of the votes. Most western countries have representative systems.[172]
Representatives may be elected or become diplomatic representatives by a particular district (or constituency), or represent the entire electorate through proportional systems, with some using a combination of the two. Some representative democracies also incorporate elements of direct democracy, such as referendums. A characteristic of representative democracy is that while the representatives are elected by the people to act in the people's interest, they retain the freedom to exercise their own judgement as how best to do so. Such reasons have driven criticism upon representative democracy,[178][179] pointing out the contradictions of representation mechanisms with democracy[180][181]
Parliamentary
Parliamentary democracy is a representative democracy where government is appointed by, or can be dismissed by, representatives as opposed to a "presidential rule" wherein the president is both head of state and the head of government and is elected by the voters. Under a parliamentary democracy, government is exercised by delegation to an executive ministry and subject to ongoing review, checks and balances by the legislative parliament elected by the people.[182][183][184][185]
Parliamentary systems have the right to dismiss a Prime Minister at any point in time that they feel he or she is not doing their job to the expectations of the legislature. This is done through a Vote of No Confidence where the legislature decides whether or not to remove the Prime Minister from office by a majority support for his or her dismissal.[186] In some countries, the Prime Minister can also call an election whenever he or she so chooses, and typically the Prime Minister will hold an election when he or she knows that they are in good favour with the public as to get re-elected. In other parliamentary democracies, extra elections are virtually never held, a minority government being preferred until the next ordinary elections. An important feature of the parliamentary democracy is the concept of the "loyal opposition". The essence of the concept is that the second largest political party (or coalition) opposes the governing party (or coalition), while still remaining loyal to the state and its democratic principles.
Presidential
Presidential Democracy is a system where the public elects the president through free and fair elections. The president serves as both the head of state and head of government controlling most of the executive powers. The president serves for a specific term and cannot exceed that amount of time. Elections typically have a fixed date and aren't easily changed. The president has direct control over the cabinet, specifically appointing the cabinet members.[186]
The president cannot be easily removed from office by the legislature, but he or she cannot remove members of the legislative branch any more easily. This provides some measure of separation of powers. In consequence, however, the president and the legislature may end up in the control of separate parties, allowing one to block the other and thereby interfere with the orderly operation of the state. This may be the reason why presidential democracy is not very common outside the Americas, Africa, and Central and Southeast Asia.[186]
A semi-presidential system is a system of democracy in which the government includes both a prime minister and a president. The particular powers held by the prime minister and president vary by country.[186]
Hybrid or semi-direct
Some modern democracies that are predominantly representative in nature also heavily rely upon forms of political action that are directly democratic. These democracies, which combine elements of representative democracy and direct democracy, are termed hybrid democracies,[187] semi-direct democracies or participatory democracies. Examples include Switzerland and some U.S. states, where frequent use is made of referendums and initiatives.
The Swiss confederation is a semi-direct democracy.[172] At the federal level, citizens can propose changes to the constitution (federal popular initiative) or ask for a referendum to be held on any law voted by the parliament.[172] Between January 1995 and June 2005, Swiss citizens voted 31 times, to answer 103 questions (during the same period, French citizens participated in only two referendums).[172] Although in the past 120 years less than 250 initiatives have been put to referendum. The populace has been conservative, approving only about 10% of the initiatives put before them; in addition, they have often opted for a version of the initiative rewritten by government.[citation needed]
Examples include the extensive use of referendums in the US state of California, which is a state that has more than 20 million voters.[188]
In New England, Town meetings are often used, especially in rural areas, to manage local government. This creates a hybrid form of government, with a local direct democracy and a representative state government. For example, most Vermont towns hold annual town meetings in March in which town officers are elected, budgets for the town and schools are voted on, and citizens have the opportunity to speak and be heard on political matters.[189]
Variants
Constitutional monarchy
Many countries such as the United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Scandinavian countries, Thailand, Japan and Bhutan turned powerful monarchs into constitutional monarchs with limited or, often gradually, merely symbolic roles. For example, in the predecessor states to the United Kingdom, constitutional monarchy began to emerge and has continued uninterrupted since the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and passage of the Bill of Rights 1689.[22][75]
In other countries, the monarchy was abolished along with the aristocratic system (as in France, China, Russia, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Greece and Egypt). An elected president, with or without significant powers, became the head of state in these countries.
Elite upper houses of legislatures, which often had lifetime or hereditary tenure, were common in many nations. Over time, these either had their powers limited (as with the British House of Lords) or else became elective and remained powerful (as with the Australian Senate).
Republic
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 or appointed head of government such as a prime minister.[190]
The Founding Fathers of the United States rarely praised and often criticised democracy, which in their time tended to specifically mean direct democracy, often without the protection of a constitution enshrining basic rights; James Madison argued, especially in The Federalist No. 10, that what distinguished a direct democracy from a republic was that the former became weaker as it got larger and suffered more violently from the effects of faction, whereas a republic could get stronger as it got larger and combats faction by its very structure.
What was critical to American values, John Adams insisted,[191] was that the government be "bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend." As Benjamin Franklin was exiting after writing the U.S. constitution, Elizabeth Willing Powel[192] asked him "Well, Doctor, what have we got—a republic or a monarchy?". He replied "A republic—if you can keep it."[193]
Liberal democracy
A liberal democracy is a representative democracy in which the ability of the elected representatives to exercise decision-making power is subject to the rule of law, and moderated by a constitution or laws that emphasise the protection of the rights and freedoms of individuals, and which places constraints on the leaders and on the extent to which the will of the majority can be exercised against the rights of minorities (see civil liberties).
In a liberal democracy, it is possible for some large-scale decisions to emerge from the many individual decisions that citizens are free to make. In other words, citizens can "vote with their feet" or "vote with their dollars", resulting in significant informal government-by-the-masses that exercises many "powers" associated with formal government elsewhere.
Socialist
Socialist thought has several different views on democracy. Social democracy, democratic socialism, and the dictatorship of the proletariat (usually exercised through Soviet democracy) are some examples. Many democratic socialists and social democrats believe in a form of participatory, industrial, economic and/or workplace democracy combined with a representative democracy.
Within Marxist orthodoxy there is a hostility to what is commonly called "liberal democracy", which is simply referred to as parliamentary democracy because of its often centralised nature. Because of orthodox Marxists' desire to eliminate the political elitism they see in capitalism, Marxists, Leninists and Trotskyists believe in direct democracy implemented through a system of communes (which are sometimes called soviets). This system ultimately manifests itself as council democracy and begins with workplace democracy.
Democracy cannot consist solely of elections that are nearly always fictitious and managed by rich landowners and professional politicians.
Anarchist
Anarchists are split in this domain, depending on whether they believe that a majority-rule is tyrannic or not. To many anarchists, the only form of democracy considered acceptable is direct democracy. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon argued that the only acceptable form of direct democracy is one in which it is recognised that majority decisions are not binding on the minority, even when unanimous.[195] However, anarcho-communist Murray Bookchin criticised individualist anarchists for opposing democracy,[196] and says "majority rule" is consistent with anarchism.[197]
Some anarcho-communists oppose the majoritarian nature of direct democracy, feeling that it can impede individual liberty and opt-in favour of a non-majoritarian form of consensus democracy, similar to Proudhon's position on direct democracy.[198] Henry David Thoreau, who did not self-identify as an anarchist but argued for "a better government"[199] and is cited as an inspiration by some anarchists, argued that people should not be in the position of ruling others or being ruled when there is no consent.
Sortition
Sometimes called "democracy without elections", sortition chooses decision makers via a random process. The intention is that those chosen will be representative of the opinions and interests of the people at large, and be more fair and impartial than an elected official. The technique was in widespread use in Athenian Democracy and Renaissance Florence[200] and is still used in modern jury selection.
Consociational
A consociational democracy allows for simultaneous majority votes in two or more ethno-religious constituencies, and policies are enacted only if they gain majority support from both or all of them.
Consensus democracy
A consensus democracy, in contrast, would not be dichotomous. Instead, decisions would be based on a multi-option approach, and policies would be enacted if they gained sufficient support, either in a purely verbal agreement or via a consensus vote—a multi-option preference vote. If the threshold of support were at a sufficiently high level, minorities would be as it were protected automatically. Furthermore, any voting would be ethno-colour blind.
Supranational
Qualified majority voting is designed by the Treaty of Rome to be the principal method of reaching decisions in the European Council of Ministers. This system allocates votes to member states in part according to their population, but heavily weighted in favour of the smaller states. This might be seen as a form of representative democracy, but representatives to the Council might be appointed rather than directly elected.
Inclusive
Inclusive democracy is a political theory and political project that aims for direct democracy in all fields of social life: political democracy in the form of face-to-face assemblies which are confederated, economic democracy in a stateless, moneyless and marketless economy, democracy in the social realm, i.e. self-management in places of work and education, and ecological democracy which aims to reintegrate society and nature. The theoretical project of inclusive democracy emerged from the work of political philosopher Takis Fotopoulos in "Towards An Inclusive Democracy" and was further developed in the journal Democracy & Nature and its successor The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy.Main article: Inclusive democracy
The basic unit of decision making in an inclusive democracy is the demotic assembly, i.e. the assembly of demos, the citizen body in a given geographical area which may encompass a town and the surrounding villages, or even neighbourhoods of large cities. An inclusive democracy today can only take the form of a confederal democracy that is based on a network of administrative councils whose members or delegates are elected from popular face-to-face democratic assemblies in the various demoi. Thus, their role is purely administrative and practical, not one of policy-making like that of representatives in representative democracy.
The citizen body is advised by experts but it is the citizen body which functions as the ultimate decision-taker. Authority can be delegated to a segment of the citizen body to carry out specific duties, for example, to serve as members of popular courts, or of regional and confederal councils. Such delegation is made, in principle, by lot, on a rotation basis, and is always recallable by the citizen body. Delegates to regional and confederal bodies should have specific mandates.
Participatory politics
A Parpolity or Participatory Polity is a theoretical form of democracy that is ruled by a Nested Council structure. The guiding philosophy is that people should have decision making power in proportion to how much they are affected by the decision. Local councils of 25–50 people are completely autonomous on issues that affect only them, and these councils send delegates to higher level councils who are again autonomous regarding issues that affect only the population affected by that council.
A council court of randomly chosen citizens serves as a check on the tyranny of the majority, and rules on which body gets to vote on which issue. Delegates may vote differently from how their sending council might wish but are mandated to communicate the wishes of their sending council. Delegates are recallable at any time. Referendums are possible at any time via votes of most lower-level councils, however, not everything is a referendum as this is most likely a waste of time. A parpolity is meant to work in tandem with a participatory economy.
Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan democracy, also known as Global democracy or World Federalism, is a political system in which democracy is implemented on a global scale, either directly or through representatives. An important justification for this kind of system is that the decisions made in national or regional democracies often affect people outside the constituency who, by definition, cannot vote. By contrast, in a cosmopolitan democracy, the people who are affected by decisions also have a say in them.[201]
According to its supporters, any attempt to solve global problems is undemocratic without some form of cosmopolitan democracy. The general principle of cosmopolitan democracy is to expand some or all of the values and norms of democracy, including the rule of law; the non-violent resolution of conflicts; and equality among citizens, beyond the limits of the state. To be fully implemented, this would require reforming existing international organisations, e.g. the United Nations, as well as the creation of new institutions such as a World Parliament, which ideally would enhance public control over, and accountability in, international politics.
Cosmopolitan Democracy has been promoted, among others, by physicist Albert Einstein,[202] writer Kurt Vonnegut, columnist George Monbiot, and professors David Held and Daniele Archibugi.[203] The creation of the International Criminal Court in 2003 was seen as a major step forward by many supporters of this type of cosmopolitan democracy.
Creative democracy
Creative Democracy is advocated by American philosopher John Dewey. The main idea about Creative Democracy is that democracy encourages individual capacity building and the interaction among the society. Dewey argues that democracy is a way of life in his work of "Creative Democracy: The Task Before Us"[204] and an experience built on faith in human nature, faith in human beings, and faith in working with others. Democracy, in Dewey's view, is a moral ideal requiring actual effort and work by people; it is not an institutional concept that exists outside of ourselves. "The task of democracy", Dewey concludes, "is forever that of creation of a freer and more humane experience in which all share and to which all contribute".
Guided democracy
Guided democracy is a form of democracy which incorporates regular popular elections, but which often carefully "guides" the choices offered to the electorate in a manner which may reduce the ability of the electorate to truly determine the type of government exercised over them. Such democracies typically have only one central authority which is often not subject to meaningful public review by any other governmental authority. Russian-style democracy has often been referred to as a "Guided democracy."[205] Russian politicians have referred to their government as having only one center of power/ authority, as opposed to most other forms of democracy which usually attempt to incorporate two or more naturally competing sources of authority within the same government.[206]
Non-Governmental Democracy
Aside from the public sphere, similar democratic principles and mechanisms of voting and representation have been used to govern other kinds of groups. Many non-governmental organisations decide policy and leadership by voting. Most trade unions and cooperatives are governed by democratic elections. Corporations are controlled by shareholders on the principle of one share, one vote—sometimes supplemented by workplace democracy. Amitai Etzioni has postulated a system that fuses elements of democracy with sharia law, termed islamocracy.[207][citation needed]
Justification
Several justifications for democracy have been postulated.
Legitimacy
Social contract theory argues that the legitimacy of government is based on consent of the governed, i.e. an election, and that political decisions must reflect the general will.
Better decision-making
Condorcet's jury theorem is logical proof that if each decision-maker has a better than chance probability of making the right decision, then having the largest number of decision-makers, i.e. a democracy, will result in the best decisions. This has also been argued by theories of the wisdom of the crowd.
Democratic peace
Democratic peace theory claims that liberal democracies do not go to war against each other.
Economic success
In Why Nations Fail, Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson argue that democracies are more economically successful because undemocratic political systems tend to limit markets and favor monopolies at the expense of the creative destruction which is necessary for sustained economic growth.
Criticism
Arrow's theorem
Arrow's impossibility theorem suggests that democracy is logically incoherent. This is based on a certain set of criteria for democratic decision-making being inherently conflicting.
However, Arrow's formal premises can be considered overly strict, and with their reasonable weakening, the logical incoherence of democracy looks much less critical.[2]
Inefficiencies
Some economists have criticized the efficiency of democracy, citing the premise of the irrational voter, or a voter who makes decisions without all of the facts or necessary information in order to make a truly informed decision. Another argument is that democracy slows down processes because of the amount of input and participation needed in order to go forward with a decision. A common example often quoted to substantiate this point is the high economic development achieved by China (a non-democratic country) as compared to India (a democratic country). According to economists, the lack of democratic participation in countries like China allows for unfettered economic growth.[208]
On the other hand, Socrates believed that democracy without educated masses (educated in the broader sense of being knowledgeable and responsible) would only lead to populism being the criteria to become an elected leader and not competence. This would ultimately lead to a demise of the nation. This was quoted by Plato in book 10 of The Republic, in Socrates' conversation with Adimantus.[209] Socrates was of the opinion that the right to vote must not be an indiscriminate right (for example by birth or citizenship), but must be given only to people who thought sufficiently of their choice.
Popular rule as a façade
The 20th-century Italian thinkers Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca (independently) argued that democracy was illusory, and served only to mask the reality of elite rule. Indeed, they argued that elite oligarchy is the unbendable law of human nature, due largely to the apathy and division of the masses (as opposed to the drive, initiative and unity of the elites), and that democratic institutions would do no more than shift the exercise of power from oppression to manipulation.[210] As Louis Brandeis once professed, "We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."[clarification needed].[211] British writer Ivo Mosley, grandson of blackshirt Oswald Mosley describes in In the Name of the People: Pseudo-Democracy and the Spoiling of Our World, how and why current forms of electoral governance are destined to fall short of their promise.[212] A study led by Princeton professor Martin Gilens of 1,779 U.S. government decisions concluded that "elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."[213]
Mob rule
Plato's The Republic presents a critical view of democracy through the narration of Socrates: "Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequaled alike."[214] In his work, Plato lists 5 forms of government from best to worst. Assuming that the Republic was intended to be a serious critique of the political thought in Athens, Plato argues that only Kallipolis, an aristocracy led by the unwilling philosopher-kings (the wisest men), is a just form of government.[215]
James Madison critiqued direct democracy (which he referred to simply as "democracy") in Federalist No. 10, arguing that representative democracy—which he described using the term "republic"—is a preferable form of government, saying: "... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." Madison offered that republics were superior to democracies because republics safeguarded against tyranny of the majority, stating in Federalist No. 10: "the same advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling the effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic".
Political instability
More recently, democracy is criticised for not offering enough political stability. As governments are frequently elected on and off there tends to be frequent changes in the policies of democratic countries both domestically and internationally. Even if a political party maintains power, vociferous, headline-grabbing protests and harsh criticism from the popular media are often enough to force sudden, unexpected political change. Frequent policy changes with regard to business and immigration are likely to deter investment and so hinder economic growth. For this reason, many people have put forward the idea that democracy is undesirable for a developing country in which economic growth and the reduction of poverty are top priorities.[216]
This opportunist alliance not only has the handicap of having to cater to too many ideologically opposing factions, but it is usually short-lived since any perceived or actual imbalance in the treatment of coalition partners, or changes to leadership in the coalition partners themselves, can very easily result in the coalition partner withdrawing its support from the government.
Biased media has been accused of causing political instability, resulting in the obstruction of democracy, rather than its promotion.[217]
Fraudulent elections
In representative democracies, it may not benefit incumbents to conduct fair elections. A study showed that incumbents who rig elections stay in office 2.5 times as long as those who permit fair elections.[218] Democracies in countries with high per capita income have been found to be less prone to violence, but in countries with low incomes the tendency is the reverse.[218] Election misconduct is more likely in countries with low per capita incomes, small populations, rich in natural resources, and a lack of institutional checks and balances. Sub-Saharan countries, as well as Afghanistan, all tend to fall into that category.[218]
Governments that have frequent elections tend to have significantly more stable economic policies than those governments who have infrequent elections. However, this trend does not apply to governments where fraudulent elections are common.[218]
Opposition
Democracy in modern times has almost always faced opposition from the previously existing government, and many times it has faced opposition from social elites. The implementation of a democratic government within a non-democratic state is typically brought about by democratic revolution.
Development
Banner in Hong Kong asking for democracy, August 2019
Several philosophers and researchers have outlined historical and social factors seen as supporting the evolution of democracy.
Other commentators have mentioned the influence of economic development.[219] In a related theory, Ronald Inglehart suggests that improved living-standards in modern developed countries can convince people that they can take their basic survival for granted, leading to increased emphasis on self-expression values, which correlates closely with democracy.[220][221]
Douglas M. Gibler and Andrew Owsiak in their study argued about the importance of peace and stable borders for the development of democracy. It has often been assumed that democracy causes peace, but this study shows that, historically, peace has almost always predated the establishment of democracy.[222]
Carroll Quigley concludes that the characteristics of weapons are the main predictor of democracy:[223][224] Democracy—this scenario—tends to emerge only when the best weapons available are easy for individuals to obtain and use.[225] By the 1800s, guns were the best personal weapons available, and in the United States of America (already nominally democratic), almost everyone could afford to buy a gun, and could learn how to use it fairly easily. Governments couldn't do any better: it became the age of mass armies of citizen soldiers with guns.[225] Similarly, Periclean Greece was an age of the citizen soldier and democracy.[226]
Other theories stressed the relevance of education and of human capital—and within them of cognitive ability to increasing tolerance, rationality, political literacy and participation. Two effects of education and cognitive ability are distinguished:[227][need quotation to verify][228][229]
- a cognitive effect (competence to make rational choices, better information-processing)
- an ethical effect (support of democratic values, freedom, human rights etc.), which itself depends on intelligence.
Evidence consistent with conventional theories of why democracy emerges and is sustained has been hard to come by. Statistical analyses have challenged modernisation theory by demonstrating that there is no reliable evidence for the claim that democracy is more likely to emerge when countries become wealthier, more educated, or less unequal.[230] In fact, empirical evidence shows that economic growth and education may not lead to increased demand for democratization as modernization theory suggests: historically, most countries attained high levels of access to primary education well before transitioning to democracy.[36] Rather than acting as a catalyst for democratization, in some situations education provision may instead be used by non-democratic regimes to indoctrinate their subjects and strengthen their power.[36]
The assumed link between education and economic growth is called into question when analyzing empirical evidence. Across different countries, the correlation between education attainment and math test scores is very weak (.07). A similarly weak relationship exists between per-pupil expenditures and math competency (.26). Additionally, historical evidence suggests that average human capital (measured using literacy rates) of the masses does not explain the onset of industrialization in France from 1750–1850 despite arguments to the contrary.[231] Together, these findings show that education does not always promote human capital and economic growth as is generally argued to be the case. Instead, the evidence implies that education provision often falls short of its expressed goals, or, alternatively, that political actors use education to promote goals other than economic growth and development.
Neither is there convincing evidence that increased reliance on oil revenues prevents democratisation, despite a vast theoretical literature on "the Resource Curse" that asserts that oil revenues sever the link between citizen taxation and government accountability, seen as the key to representative democracy.[232] The lack of evidence for these conventional theories of democratisation have led researchers to search for the "deep" determinants of contemporary political institutions, be they geographical or demographic.[233][234] More inclusive institutions lead to democracy because as people gain more power, they are able to demand more from the elites, who in turn have to concede more things to keep their position.[citation needed] This virtuous circle may end up in democracy.
An example of this is the disease environment. Places with different mortality rates had different populations and productivity levels around the world. For example, in Africa, the tsetse fly—which afflicts humans and livestock—reduced the ability of Africans to plow the land. This made Africa less settled. As a consequence, political power was less concentrated.[235] This also affected the colonial institutions European countries established in Africa.[236] Whether colonial settlers could live or not in a place made them develop different institutions which led to different economic and social paths. This also affected the distribution of power and the collective actions people could take. As a result, some African countries ended up having democracies and others autocracies.
An example of geographical determinants for democracy is having access to coastal areas and rivers. This natural endowment has a positive relation with economic development thanks to the benefits of trade.[237] Trade brought economic development, which in turn, broadened power. Rulers wanting to increase revenues had to protect property-rights to create incentives for people to invest. As more people had more power, more concessions had to be made by the ruler and in many[quantify] places this process lead to democracy. These determinants defined the structure of the society moving the balance of political power.[238]
In the 21st century, democracy has become such a popular method of reaching decisions that its application beyond politics to other areas such as entertainment, food and fashion, consumerism, urban planning, education, art, literature, science and theology has been criticised as "the reigning dogma of our time".[239] The argument suggests that applying a populist or market-driven approach to art and literature (for example), means that innovative creative work goes unpublished or unproduced. In education, the argument is that essential but more difficult studies are not undertaken. Science, as a truth-based discipline, is particularly corrupted by the idea that the correct conclusion can be arrived at by popular vote. However, more recently, theorists[which?] have also advanced the concept epistemic democracy to assert that democracy actually does a good job tracking the truth.
Robert Michels asserts that although democracy can never be fully realised, democracy may be developed automatically in the act of striving for democracy:
The peasant in the fable, when on his death-bed, tells his sons that a treasure is buried in the field. After the old man's death the sons dig everywhere in order to discover the treasure. They do not find it. But their indefatigable labor improves the soil and secures for them a comparative well-being. The treasure in the fable may well symbolise democracy.[240]
Dr. Harald Wydra, in his book Communism and The Emergence of Democracy (2007), maintains that the development of democracy should not be viewed as a purely procedural or as a static concept but rather as an ongoing "process of meaning formation".[241] Drawing on Claude Lefort's idea of the empty place of power, that "power emanates from the people [...] but is the power of nobody", he remarks that democracy is reverence to a symbolic mythical authority—as in reality, there is no such thing as the people or demos. Democratic political figures are not supreme rulers but rather temporary guardians of an empty place. Any claim to substance such as the collective good, the public interest or the will of the nation is subject to the competitive struggle and times of for[clarification needed] gaining the authority of office and government. The essence of the democratic system is an empty place, void of real people, which can only be temporarily filled and never be appropriated. The seat of power is there but remains open to constant change. As such, people's definitions of "democracy" or of "democratic" progress throughout history as a continual and potentially never-ending process of social construction.[242]
See also
- ^ The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1868 altered the way each state is represented in the House of Representatives. It counted all residents for apportionment including slaves, overriding the three-fifths compromise, and reduced a state's apportionment if it wrongfully denied males over the age of 21 the right to vote; however, this was not enforced in practice. Some poor white men remained excluded at least until passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. For state elections, it was not until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966) that all state poll taxes were unconstitutional as violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This removed a burden on the poor.
- ^ Portugal in 1974, Spain in 1975, Argentina in 1983, Bolivia, Uruguay in 1984, Brazil in 1985, and Chile in the early 1990s.
References
- ^ "Democracy". Oxford University Press. Retrieved 24 February 2021.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Tangian, Andranik (2020). Analytical theory of democracy. Vol. 1. Studies in Choice and Welfare. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-39691-6. ISBN 978-3-030-39690-9.
- ^ Boyd, James Penny (1884). Building and Ruling the Republic. Bradley, Garretson & Company. pp. 12–13.
- ^ "Definition of DEMOCRACY". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
- ^ 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."Google Books.
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary: "democracy".
- ^ Watkins, Frederick (1970). "Democracy". Encyclopædia Britannica. 7(Expo '70 hardcover ed.). William Benton. pp. 215–23. ISBN 978-0-85229-135-1.
- ^ Przeworski, Adam (1991). Democracy and the Market. Cambridge University Press. pp. 10–14.
- ^ Diamond, L., Lecture at Hilla University for Humanistic Studies 21 January 2004: "What is Democracy"; Diamond, L. and Morlino, L., The quality of democracy (2016). In Diamond, L., In Search of Democracy. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-78128-2.
- ^ Landman, Todd (2018). "Democracy and Human Rights: Concepts, Measures, and Relationships". Politics and Governance. 6 (1): 48. doi:10.17645/pag.v6i1.1186.
- ^ Wilson, N.G. (2006). Encyclopedia of ancient Greece. New York: Routledge. p. 511. ISBN 0-415-97334-1.
- ^ Barker, Ernest (1906). The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle. Chapter VII, Section 2: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
- ^ Jarvie, 2006, pp. 218–19
- ^ "Democracy Index 2017 – Economist Intelligence Unit" (PDF). EIU.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 February 2018. Retrieved 17 February 2018.
- ^ Gagnon, Jean-Paul (1 June 2018). "2,234 Descriptions of Democracy". Democratic Theory. 5 (1): 92–113. doi:10.3167/dt.2018.050107. ISSN 2332-8894.
- ^ Staff writer (22 August 2007). "Liberty and justice for some". The Economist. Economist Group.
- ^ Diamond, Larry; Morlino, Leonardo (25 November 2005). Assessing the Quality of Democracy. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-8287-6 – via Google Books.
- ^ Dahl, Robert A.; Shapiro, Ian; Cheibub, José Antônio (2003). The democracy sourcebook. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-54147-3. Details.
- ^ Hénaff, Marcel; Strong, Tracy B. (2001). Public space and democracy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-8166-3388-3.
- ^ Kimber, Richard (September 1989). "On democracy". Scandinavian Political Studies. 12 (3): 201, 199–219. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9477.1989.tb00090.x. Full text.
- ^ Scruton, Roger (9 August 2013). "A Point of View: Is democracy overrated?". BBC News. BBC.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Kopstein, Jeffrey; Lichbach, Mark; Hanson, Stephen E., eds. (2014). Comparative Politics: Interests, Identities, and Institutions in a Changing Global Order (4, revised ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 37–39. ISBN 978-1-139-99138-4.
- ^ "Parliamentary sovereignty". UK Parliament. Retrieved 18 August2014; "Independence". Courts and Tribunals Judiciary. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
- ^ Daily Express News (2 August 2013). "All-party meet vows to uphold Parliament supremacy". The New Indian Express. Express Publications (Madurai) Limited. Retrieved 18 August 2013.
- ^ Barak, Aharon (2 November 2006). The Judge in a Democracy. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-12017-1 – via Google Books.
- ^ Kelsen, Hans (October 1955). "Foundations of democracy". Ethics. 66(1): 1–101. doi:10.1086/291036. JSTOR 2378551. S2CID 144699481.
- ^ Nussbaum, Martha (2000). Women and human development: the capabilities approach. Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-00385-8.
- ^ Snyder, Richard; Samuels, David (2006), "Devaluing the vote in Latin America", in Diamond, Larry; Plattner, Marc F. (eds.), Electoral systems and democracy, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 168, ISBN 978-0-8018-8475-7.
- ^ Jump up to:a b R. R. Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolution: Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800 (1959)
- ^ Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, Bk. II, ch. 2–3.
- ^ Everdell, William R. (2000) [1983]. The end of kings: a history of republics and republicans (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-22482-4.
- ^ "Pericles' Funeral Oration". the-athenaeum.org.
- ^ Jump up to:a b c d Deudney, Daniel (9 November 2008). Bounding Power. ISBN 978-0-691-13830-5.
- ^ Thorhallsson, Baldur; Steinsson, Sverrir (2017), "Small State Foreign Policy", Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.484, ISBN 978-0-19-022863-7
- ^ "Montesquieu: The Spirit of Laws: Book 9". www.constitution.org. Retrieved 22 December 2019.
- ^ Jump up to:a b c Paglayan, Agustina S. (February 2021). "The Non-Democratic Roots of Mass Education: Evidence from 200 Years". American Political Science Review. 115 (1): 179–198. doi:10.1017/S0003055420000647. ISSN 0003-0554.
- ^ John Dunn, Democracy: the unfinished journey 508 BC – 1993 AD, Oxford University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-19-827934-5
- ^ Raaflaub, Ober & Wallace 2007, p. [page needed].
- ^ Luciano Canfora, La democrazias:Storia di un'ideologia, Laterza (2004) 2018 pp.12-13
- ^ R. Po-chia Hsia, Lynn Hunt, Thomas R. Martin, Barbara H. Rosenwein, and Bonnie G. Smith, The Making of the West, Peoples and Cultures, A Concise History, Volume I: To 1740 (Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007), 44.
- ^ Aristotle Book 6
- ^ Grinin, Leonid E. (2004). The Early State, Its Alternatives and Analogues. Uchitel' Publishing House.
- ^ Davies, John K. (1977). "Athenian Citizenship: The Descent Group and the Alternatives". The Classical Journal. 73 (2): 105–121. ISSN 0009-8353. JSTOR 3296866.
- ^ "Women and Family in Athenian Law". www.stoa.org. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
- ^ Manville, Philip Brook (14 July 2014). The Origins of Citizenship in Ancient Athens. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-6083-8.
- ^ Susan Lape, Reproducing Athens: Menander's Comedy, Democratic Culture, and the Hellenistic City, Princeton University Press, 2009, p. 4, ISBN 1-4008-2591-1
- ^ "Full historical description of the Spartan government". Rangevoting.org. Retrieved 28 September 2013.
- ^ Terrence A. Boring, Literacy in Ancient Sparta, Leiden Netherlands (1979). ISBN 90-04-05971-7
- ^ "Ancient Rome from the earliest times down to 476 A.D". Annourbis.com. Retrieved 22 August 2010.
- ^ Livy & De Sélincourt 2002, p. 34
- ^ Watson 2005, p. 271
- ^ Bindloss, Joe; Sarina Singh (2007). India: Lonely planet Guide. Lonely Planet. p. 556. ISBN 978-1-74104-308-2.
- ^ Hoiberg, Dale; Indu Ramchandani (2000). Students' Britannica India, Volumes 1-5. Popular Prakashan. p. 208. ISBN 0-85229-760-2.
- ^ Kulke, Hermann; Dietmar Rothermund (2004). A history of India. Routledge. p. 57. ISBN 0-415-32919-1.
- ^ Dahl, Robert A. (1 October 2008). On Democracy: Second Edition. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-23332-2.
- ^ Fladmark, J. M.; Heyerdahl, Thor (17 November 2015). Heritage and Identity: Shaping the Nations of the North. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-74224-1.
- ^ O'Callaghan, Joseph F. (1989). "The Cortes and Taxation". The Cortes of Castile-Leon, 1188–1350: 130–151. doi:10.9783/9781512819571. ISBN 9781512819571. JSTOR j.ctv513b8x.12.
- ^ "Magna Carta: an introduction". The British Library. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
Magna Carta is sometimes regarded as the foundation of democracy in England. ...Revised versions of Magna Carta were issued by King Henry III (in 1216, 1217 and 1225), and the text of the 1225 version was entered onto the statute roll in 1297. ...The 1225 version of Magna Carta had been granted explicitly in return for a payment of tax by the whole kingdom, and this paved the way for the first summons of Parliament in 1265, to approve the granting of taxation.
- ^ "Citizen or Subject?". The National Archives. Retrieved 17 November2013.
- ^ Jobson, Adrian (2012). The First English Revolution: Simon de Montfort, Henry III and the Barons' War. Bloomsbury. pp. 173–74. ISBN 978-1-84725-226-5.
- ^ "Simon de Montfort: The turning point for democracy that gets overlooked". BBC. 19 January 2015. Retrieved 19 January 2015; "The January Parliament and how it defined Britain". The Telegraph. 20 January 2015. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
- ^ "Origins and growth of Parliament". The National Archives. Retrieved 17 November 2013.
- ^ Abramson, Scott F.; Boix, Carles (2019). "Endogenous Parliaments: The Domestic and International Roots of Long-Term Economic Growth and Executive Constraints in Europe". International Organization. 73 (4): 793–837. doi:10.1017/S0020818319000286. ISSN 0020-8183.
- ^ Møller, Jørgen (2014). "Why Europe Avoided Hegemony: A Historical Perspective on the Balance of Power". International Studies Quarterly. 58(4): 660–670. doi:10.1111/isqu.12153.
- ^ Cox, Gary W. (2017). "Political Institutions, Economic Liberty, and the Great Divergence". The Journal of Economic History. 77 (3): 724–755. doi:10.1017/S0022050717000729. ISSN 0022-0507.
- ^ Stasavage, David (11 May 2016). "Representation and Consent: Why They Arose in Europe and Not Elsewhere". Annual Review of Political Science. 19 (1): 145–162. doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-043014-105648. ISSN 1094-2939. S2CID 14393625.
- ^ Lukowski, Jerzy; Zawadzki, Hubert (January 2019). A Concise History of Poland (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108333993.
- ^ "From legal document to public myth: Magna Carta in the 17th century". The British Library. Retrieved 16 October 2017; "Magna Carta: Magna Carta in the 17th Century". The Society of Antiquaries of London. Archived from the original on 25 September 2018. Retrieved 16 October2017.
- ^ "Origins and growth of Parliament". The National Archives. Retrieved 7 April 2015.
- ^ "Rise of Parliament". The National Archives. Retrieved 7 April 2015.
- ^ "Putney debates". The British Library. Retrieved 22 December 2016.
- ^ Jump up to:a b "Britain's unwritten constitution". British Library. Retrieved 27 November 2015.
The key landmark is the Bill of Rights (1689), which established the supremacy of Parliament over the Crown.... The Bill of Rights (1689) then settled the primacy of Parliament over the monarch’s prerogatives, providing for the regular meeting of Parliament, free elections to the Commons, free speech in parliamentary debates, and some basic human rights, most famously freedom from ‘cruel or unusual punishment’.
- ^ "Constitutionalism: America & Beyond". Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP), U.S. Department of State. Archived from the original on 24 October 2014. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
The earliest, and perhaps greatest, victory for liberalism was achieved in England. The rising commercial class that had supported the Tudor monarchy in the 16th century led the revolutionary battle in the 17th and succeeded in establishing the supremacy of Parliament and, eventually, of the House of Commons. What emerged as the distinctive feature of modern constitutionalism was not the insistence on the idea that the king is subject to law (although this concept is an essential attribute of all constitutionalism). This notion was already well established in the Middle Ages. What was distinctive was the establishment of effective means of political control whereby the rule of law might be enforced. Modern constitutionalism was born with the political requirement that representative government depended upon the consent of citizen subjects... However, as can be seen through provisions in the 1689 Bill of Rights, the English Revolution was fought not just to protect the rights of property (in the narrow sense) but to establish those liberties which liberals believed essential to human dignity and moral worth. The "rights of man" enumerated in the English Bill of Rights gradually were proclaimed beyond the boundaries of England, notably in the American Declaration of Independence of 1776 and in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789.
- ^ North, Douglass C.; Weingast, Barry R. (1989). "Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England". The Journal of Economic History. 49 (4): 803–832. doi:10.1017/S0022050700009451. ISSN 1471-6372.
- ^ Locke, John (1988) [1689]. Laslett, Peter (ed.). Two Treatises of Government. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press. Sec. 87, 123, 209, 222. ISBN 0-521-35448-X.
- ^ Locke, John. Two Treatises on Government: a Translation into Modern English. Quote: "Government has no other end, but the preservation of property. Google Books.
- ^ Powell, Jim (1 August 1996). "John Locke: Natural Rights to Life, Liberty, and Property". In The Freemann. Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington, New York, US.
- ^ Curte, Merle (1937). "The Great Mr. Locke: America's Philosopher, 1783–1861". The Huntington Library Bulletin (11): 107–151. doi:10.2307/3818115. ISSN 1935-0708. JSTOR 3818115.
- ^ Tocqueville, Alexis de (2003). Democracy in America. Barnes & Noble. pp. 11, 18–19. ISBN 0-7607-5230-3.
- ^ Allen Weinstein and David Rubel (2002), The Story of America: Freedom and Crisis from Settlement to Superpower, DK Publishing, Inc., New York, ISBN 0-7894-8903-1, p. 61
- ^ Clifton E. Olmstead (1960), History of Religion in the United States, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, pp. 63–65, 74–75, 102–05, 114–15
- ^ Christopher Fennell (1998), Plymouth Colony Legal Structure
- ^ Deacy, Susan (2008). Athena. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 145–49. ISBN 978-0-415-30066-7.
- ^ "Citizenship 1625–1789". The National Archives. Retrieved 17 November 2013.
- ^ "Getting the vote". The National Archives. Retrieved 22 August 2010.
- ^ "Record of Ignatius Sancho's vote in the general election, October 1774". British Library. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
- ^ Gregory, Desmond (1985). The ungovernable rock: a history of the Anglo-Corsican Kingdom and its role in Britain's Mediterranean strategy during the Revolutionary War, 1793–1797. London: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-8386-3225-3.
- ^ "Voting in Early America". Colonial Williamsburg. Spring 2007. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
- ^ Dinkin, Robert (1982). Voting in Revolutionary America: A Study of Elections in the Original Thirteen States, 1776–1789. USA: Greenwood Publishing. pp. 37–42. ISBN 978-0-313-23091-2.
- ^ Ratcliffe, Donald (Summer 2013). "The Right to Vote and the Rise of Democracy, 1787–1828" (PDF). Journal of the Early Republic. 33 (2): 231. doi:10.1353/jer.2013.0033. S2CID 145135025.
- ^ Ratcliffe, Donald (Summer 2013). "The Right to Vote and the Rise of Democracy, 1787-1828" (PDF). Journal of the Early Republic. 33 (2): 225–229. doi:10.1353/jer.2013.0033. S2CID 145135025.
- ^ "Expansion of Rights and Liberties - The Right of Suffrage". Online Exhibit: The Charters of Freedom. National Archives. Archived from the original on 6 July 2016. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
- ^ Schultz, Jeffrey D. (2002). Encyclopedia of Minorities in American Politics: African Americans and Asian Americans. p. 284. ISBN 978-1-57356-148-8. Retrieved 8 October 2015.
- ^ "The Bill Of Rights: A Brief History". ACLU. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
- ^ "The French Revolution II". Mars.wnec.edu. Archived from the original on 27 August 2008. Retrieved 22 August 2010.
- ^ Norman Davies (15 May 1991). The Third of May 1791 (PDF). Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 September 2019. Retrieved 5 September2019.
- ^ Jan Ligeza (2017). Preambuła Prawa [The Preamble of Law] (in Polish). Polish Scientific Publishers PWN. p. 12. ISBN 978-83-945455-0-5.
- ^ Michael Denning (2004). Culture in the Age of Three Worlds. Verso. p. 212. ISBN 978-1-85984-449-6. Retrieved 10 July 2013.
- ^ Calore, Paul (2008). The Causes of the Civil War: The Political, Cultural, Economic and Territorial Disputes between North and South. McFarland. p. 10.
- ^ "Background on conflict in Liberia" Archived 14 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine, Friends Committee on National Legislation, 30 July 2003
- ^ Lovejoy, Paul E. (2000). Transformations in slavery: a history of slavery in Africa (2nd ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 290. ISBN 978-0-521-78012-4.
- ^ "1834: The End of Slavery? | Historic England". historicengland.org.uk.
- ^ William G. Shade, "The Second Party System". in Paul Kleppner, et al. Evolution of American Electoral Systems (1983) pp 77–111
- ^ Engerman, Stanley L.; Sokoloff, Kenneth L. (2005). "The Evolution of Suffrage Institutions in the New World" (PDF): 14–16.
- ^ Scher, Richard K. (2015). The Politics of Disenfranchisement: Why is it So Hard to Vote in America?. Routledge. p. viii–ix. ISBN 978-1-317-45536-3.
- ^ "Civil Rights in America: Racial Voting Rights" (PDF). A National Historic Landmarks Theme Study. 2009.
- ^ "Introduction – Social Aspects of the Civil War". Itd.nps.gov. Archived from the original on 14 July 2007. Retrieved 22 August 2010.
- ^ Gillette, William (1986). "Fifteenth Amendment: Framing and ratification". Encyclopedia of the American Constitution. – via HighBeam Research (subscription required). Archived from the original on 10 June 2014. Retrieved 23 June 2013.
- ^ "Black voting rights, 15th Amendment still challenged after 150 years". USA Today. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
- ^ Transcript of Voting Rights Act (1965) U.S. National Archives.
- ^ The Constitution: The 24th Amendment Time.
- ^ French National Assembly. "1848 " Désormais le bulletin de vote doit remplacer le fusil "". Retrieved 26 September 2009.
- ^ "Movement toward greater democracy in Europe Archived 4 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine". Indiana University Northwest.
- ^ Hasan Kayalı (1995) "Elections and the Electoral Process in the Ottoman Empire, 1876–1919" International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp 265–286
- ^ Nohlen, Dieter (2001). Elections in Asia and the Pacific: South East Asia, East Asia, and the South Pacific. Oxford University Press. p. 14.
- ^ Diamond, Larry (15 September 2015). "Timeline: Democracy in Recession". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Kurlantzick, Joshua (11 May 2017). "Mini-Trumps Are Running for Election All Over the World". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 16 May 2017.
- ^ Mounk, Yascha (January 2017). "The Signs of Deconsolidation". Journal of Democracy. Retrieved 16 May 2017.
- ^ "Age of Dictators: Totalitarianism in the inter-war period". Archived from the original on 7 September 2006. Retrieved 7 September 2006.
- ^ "Did the United States Create Democracy in Germany?: The Independent Review: The Independent Institute". Independent.org. Retrieved 22 August 2010.
- ^ "World | South Asia | Country profiles | Country profile: India". BBC News. 7 June 2010. Retrieved 22 August 2010.
- ^ Julian Go (2007). "A Globalizing Constitutionalism?, Views from the Postcolony, 1945–2000". In Arjomand, Saïd Amir (ed.). Constitutionalism and political reconstruction. Brill. pp. 92–94. ISBN 978-90-04-15174-1.
- ^ "How the Westminster Parliamentary System was exported around the World". University of Cambridge. 2 December 2013. Retrieved 16 December 2013.
- ^ "Age of democracies at the end of 2015". Our World in Data. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
- ^ Jump up to:a b "Freedom in the Word 2017". freedomhouse.org. 2016. Retrieved 16 May 2017.
- ^ "Tables and Charts". Freedomhouse.org. 10 May 2004. Archived from the original on 13 July 2009. Retrieved 22 August 2010.
- ^ "List of Electoral Democracies". World Forum on Democracy. Archived from the original on 16 October 2013.
- ^ Wall, John (October 2014). "Democratising democracy: the road from women's to children's suffrage" (PDF). The International Journal of Human Rights. 18:6 (6): 646–59. doi:10.1080/13642987.2014.944807. S2CID 144895426 – via Rutgers University.
- ^ "General Assembly declares 15 September International Day of Democracy; Also elects 18 Members to Economic and Social Council". Un.org. Retrieved 22 August 2010.
- ^ "Freedom House: Democracy Scores for Most Countries Decline for 12th Consecutive Year", VOA News, 16 January 2018. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
- ^ "As populism rises, fragile democracies move to weaken their courts". Christian Science Monitor. 13 November 2018. ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved 14 November 2018.
- ^ "Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII, Chapter 10 (1160a.31-1161a.9)". Internet Classics Archive. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
- ^ "Aristotle". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Deudney, D.: Bounding Power: Republican Security Theory from the Polis to the Global Village. (eBook and Paperback). press.princeton.edu. 9 November 2008. ISBN 978-0-691-13830-5. Retrieved 14 March 2017.
- ^ Springer, Simon (2011). "Public Space as Emancipation: Meditations on Anarchism, Radical Democracy, Neoliberalism and Violence". Antipode. 43 (2): 525–62. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8330.2010.00827.x.
- ^ Joseph Schumpeter, (1950). Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. Harper Perennial. ISBN 0-06-133008-6.
- ^ Anthony Downs, (1957). An Economic Theory of Democracy. Harper Collins College. ISBN 0-06-041750-1.
- ^ Dahl, Robert, (1989). Democracy and its Critics. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-04938-2
- ^ Dworkin, Ronald (2006). Is Democracy Possible Here? Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-13872-5, p. 134.
- ^ Gutmann, Amy, and Dennis Thompson (2002). Why Deliberative Democracy? Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-12019-5
- ^ Joshua Cohen, "Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy" in Essays on Reason and Politics: Deliberative Democracy Ed. James Bohman and William Rehg (The MIT Press: Cambridge) 1997, 72–73.
- ^ Ethan J. "Can Direct Democracy Be Made Deliberative?", Buffalo Law Review, Vol. 54, 2006
- ^ Warren, Mark E.; Pearse, Hilary (2008). Designing Deliberative Democracy: The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly. Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Suiter, Jane; Farrell, David M; O’Malley, Eoin (1 March 2016). "When do deliberative citizens change their opinions? Evidence from the Irish Citizens' Assembly". International Political Science Review. 37 (2): 198–212. doi:10.1177/0192512114544068. ISSN 0192-5121. S2CID 155953192.
- ^ Smith, Graham (2009). Democratic Innovations: Designing Institutions for Citizen Participation. Theories of Institutional Design. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-51477-4.
- ^ "Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions: Catching the Deliberative Wave | en | OECD". www.oecd.org. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
- ^ "Freedom in the World Countries | Freedom House". freedomhouse.org. Retrieved 2 April 2021.
- ^ List of Electoral Democracies FIW21 (.XLSX), by Freedom House
- ^ Skaaning, Svend-Erik (2018). "Different Types of Data and the Validity of Democracy Measures". Politics and Governance. 6 (1): 105. doi:10.17645/pag.v6i1.1183.
- ^ "Freedom in the World 2021 Methodology". freedomhouse.org. Freedom House. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
- ^ "Press Freedom Index 2014" Archived 14 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Reporters Without Borders, 11 May 2014
- ^ " World Freedom Index 2013: Canadian Fraser Institute Ranks Countries ", Ryan Craggs, Huffington Post, 14 January 2013
- ^ "CIRI Human Rights Data Project", website. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
- ^ Michael Kirk (10 December 2010). "Annual International Human Rights Ratings Announced". University of Connecticut.
- ^ "Human Rights in 2011: The CIRI Report". CIRI Human Rights Data Project. 29 August 2013.
- ^ "Democracy index 2012: Democracy at a standstill". Economist Intelligence Unit. 14 March 2013. Retrieved 24 March 2013.
- ^ "MaxRange". Archived from the original on 17 August 2018. Retrieved 28 April 2015.
- ^ Fuchs, Dieter; Roller, Edeltraud (2018). "Conceptualizing and Measuring the Quality of Democracy: The Citizens' Perspective". Politics and Governance. 6 (1): 22. doi:10.17645/pag.v6i1.1188.
- ^ Mayne, Quinton; Geißel, Brigitte (2018). "Don't Good Democracies Need "Good" Citizens? Citizen Dispositions and the Study of Democratic Quality". Politics and Governance. 6 (1): 33. doi:10.17645/pag.v6i1.1216.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Alexander Krauss, 2016. The scientific limits of understanding the (potential) relationship between complex social phenomena: the case of democracy and inequality. Vol. 23(1). Journal of Economic Methodology.
- ^ G.F. Gaus, C. Kukathas, Handbook of Political Theory, SAGE, 2004, pp. 143–45, ISBN 0-7619-6787-7, Google Books link
- ^ The Judge in a Democracy, Princeton University Press, 2006, p. 26, ISBN 0-691-12017-X, Google Books link
- ^ A. Barak, The Judge in a Democracy, Princeton University Press, 2006, p. 40, ISBN 0-691-12017-X, Google Books link
- ^ T.R. Williamson, Problems in American Democracy, Kessinger Publishing, 2004, p. 36, ISBN 1-4191-4316-6, Google Books link
- ^ U.K. Preuss, "Perspectives of Democracy and the Rule of Law." Journal of Law and Society, 18:3 (1991). pp. 353–64
- ^ Budge, Ian (2001). "Direct democracy". In Clarke, Paul A.B.; Foweraker, Joe (eds.). Encyclopedia of Political Thought. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-415-19396-2.
- ^ Manin, Bernard (1997). "Principles of Representative Government". Choice Reviews Online. Cambridge University Press. 35 (6): 8–11. doi:10.5860/choice.35-3567. S2CID 153766786.
- ^ Beramendi, Virginia, and Jennifer Somalie. Angeyo. Direct Democracy: The International Idea Handbook. Stockholm, Sweden: International IDEA, 2008. Print.
- ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Vincent Golay and Mix et Remix, Swiss political institutions, Éditions loisirs et pédagogie, 2008. ISBN 978-2-606-01295-3.
- ^ Niels Barmeyer, Developing Zapatista Autonomy, Chapter Three: Who is Running the Show? The Workings of Zapatista Government.
- ^ Denham, Diana (2008). Teaching Rebellion: Stories from the Grassroots Mobilization in Oaxaca.
- ^ Zibechi, Raul (2013). Dispersing Power: Social Movements as Anti-State Forces in Latin America.
- ^ "A Very Different Ideology in the Middle East". Rudaw.
- ^ "Radical Revolution – The Thermidorean Reaction". Wsu.edu. 6 June 1999. Archived from the original on 3 February 1999. Retrieved 22 August 2010.
- ^ Köchler, Hans (1987). The Crisis of Representative Democracy. Frankfurt/M., Bern, New York. ISBN 978-3-8204-8843-2.
- ^ Urbinati, Nadia (1 October 2008). "2". Representative Democracy: Principles and Genealogy. ISBN 978-0-226-84279-0.
- ^ Fenichel Pitkin, Hanna (September 2004). "Representation and democracy: uneasy alliance". Scandinavian Political Studies. 27 (3): 335–42. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9477.2004.00109.x. S2CID 154048078.
- ^ Aristotle. "Ch. 9". Politics. Book 4.
- ^ Keen, Benjamin, A History of Latin America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980.
- ^ Kuykendall, Ralph, Hawaii: A History. New York: Prentice Hall, 1948.
- ^ Brown, Charles H., The Correspondents' War. New York: Charles Scribners' Sons, 1967.
- ^ Taussig, Capt. J.K., "Experiences during the Boxer Rebellion," in Quarterdeck and Fo'c'sle. Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1963
- ^ Jump up to:a b c d O'Neil, Patrick H. Essentials of Comparative Politics. 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton 2010. Print
- ^ Garret, Elizabeth (13 October 2005). "The Promise and Perils of Hybrid Democracy" (PDF). The Henry Lecture, University of Oklahoma Law School. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 October 2017. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
- ^ "Article on direct democracy by Imraan Buccus". Themercury.co.za. Archived from the original on 17 January 2010. Retrieved 22 August2010.
- ^ "A Citizen's Guide To Vermont Town Meeting". July 2008. Archived from the original on 5 August 2012. Retrieved 12 October 2012.
- ^ "Republic – Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary". M-W.com. 25 April 2007. Retrieved 22 August 2010.
- ^ Novanglus, no. 7. 6 March 1775
- ^ Brockell, Gillian (19 December 2019). "'A republic, if you can keep it': Did Ben Franklin really say Impeachment Day's favorite quote?". The Washington Post. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
- ^ "The Founders' Constitution: Volume 1, Chapter 18, Introduction, "Epilogue: Securing the Republic"". Press-pubs.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 22 August 2010.
- ^ "Economics Cannot be Separated from Politics" speech by Che Guevara to the ministerial meeting of the Inter-American Economic and Social Council (CIES), in Punta del Este, Uruguay on August 8, 1961
- ^ Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. General Idea of the Revolution See also commentary by Graham, Robert. The General Idea of Proudhon's Revolution
- ^ Bookchin, Murray. Communalism: The Democratic Dimensions of Social Anarchism. Anarchism, Marxism and the Future of the Left: Interviews and Essays, 1993–1998, AK Press 1999, p. 155
- ^ Bookchin, Murray. Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm
- ^ Graeber, David and Grubacic, Andrej. Anarchism, Or The Revolutionary Movement Of The Twenty-first Century
- ^ Thoreau, H.D. On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
- ^ Dowlen, Oliver (2008). The Political Potential of Sortition: A study of the random selection of citizens for public office. Imprint Academic.
- ^ "Article on Cosmopolitan democracy by Daniele Archibugi" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 July 2011. Retrieved 22 August2010.
- ^ "letter by Einstein – "To the General Assembly of the United Nations"". Archived from the original on 10 May 2013. Retrieved 2 July 2013., first published in United Nations World New York, Oct 1947, pp. 13–14
- ^ Daniele Archibugi & David Held, eds., Cosmopolitan Democracy. An Agenda for a New World Order, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1995; David Held, Democracy and the Global Order, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1995, Daniele Archibugi, The Global Commonwealth of Citizens. Toward Cosmopolitan Democracy, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2008
- ^ "Creative Democracy – The Task Before Us" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 February 2015. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
- ^ Ten Years After the Soviet Breakup: From Democratization to "Guided Democracy" Journal of Democracy. By Archie Brown. Oct. 2001. Downloaded 28 April 2017.
- ^ Putin’s Rule: Its Main Features and the Current Diarchy Johnson's Russia List. By Peter Reddaway. 18 February 2009. Downloaded 28 April 2017.
- ^ Compare: Tibi, Bassam (2013). The Sharia State: Arab Spring and Democratization. p. 161. ISBN 978-1-135-92468-3.
- ^ "Is Democracy a Pre-Condition in Economic Growth? A Perspective from the Rise of Modern China". UN Chronicle. Archived from the originalon 16 March 2017. Retrieved 24 January 2017.
- ^ Conversation of Socrates, Plato; H, Translated by Spens. The Republic of Plato – Book ten – A conversation between Socrates and Admimantus.
- ^ Femia, Joseph V. (2001). Against the masses : varieties of anti-democratic thought since the French Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-828063-7. OCLC 46641885.
- ^ Dilliard, Irving (1941). Mr. Justice Brandeis, great American;press opinion and public appraisal. Saint Louis. hdl:2027/mdp.39015009170443.
- ^ "Book Review, In the Name of the People". Publishers Weekly. 3 April 2013.
- ^ "Testing theories of American politics: Elites, interest groups, and average citizens", M. Gilens and B. I. Page (2014), Perspectives on politics 12, 564–581, [1]
- ^ Plato, the Republic of Plato (London: J.M Dent & Sons LTD.; New York: E.P. Dutton & Co. Inc.), 558-C.
- ^ The contrast between Plato's theory of philosopher-kings, arresting change, and Aristotle's embrace of change is the historical tension espoused by Karl Raimund Popper in his WWII treatise, The Open Society and its Enemies (1943).
- ^ "Head to head: African democracy". BBC News. 16 October 2008. Retrieved 1 April 2010.
- ^ The Review of Policy Research, Volume 22, Issues 1–3, Policy Studies Organization, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. Blackwell Publishing, 2005. p. 28
- ^ Jump up to:a b c d Paul Collier (8 November 2009). "5 myths about the beauty of the ballot box". Washington Post. p. B2.
- ^ For example: Lipset, Seymour Martin. (1959). "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy". American Political Science Review. 53 (1): 69–105. doi:10.2307/1951731. JSTOR 1951731. S2CID 53686238.
- ^ Inglehart, Ronald. Welzel, Christian Modernisation, Cultural Change and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence, 2005. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- ^ Inglehart, Ronald F. (2018). Cultural Evolution: People's Motivations Are Changing, and Reshaping the World. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108613880. ISBN 978-1-108-61388-0.
- ^ Gibler, Douglas M.; Owsiak, Andrew (2017). "Democracy and the Settlement of International Borders, 1919–2001". Journal of Conflict Resolution. 62 (9): 1847–75. doi:10.1177/0022002717708599. S2CID 158036471.
- ^ Foreword, written by historian Harry J Hogan Archived 1 September 2013 at the Wayback Machine in 1982, to Quigley's Weapons Systems and Political Stability
- ^ see also Chester G Starr, Review of Weapons Systems and Political Stability, American Historical Review, Feb 1984, p. 98, available at carrollquigley.net
- ^ Jump up to:a b Carroll Quigley (1983). Weapons systems and political stability: a history. University Press of America. pp. 38–39. ISBN 978-0-8191-2947-5. Retrieved 20 May 2013.
- ^ Carroll Quigley (1983). Weapons systems and political stability: a history. University Press of America. p. 307. ISBN 978-0-8191-2947-5. Retrieved 20 May 2013.
- ^ Glaeser, E.; Ponzetto, G.; Shleifer, A. (2007). "Why does democracy need education?". Journal of Economic Growth. 12 (2): 77–99. doi:10.1007/s10887-007-9015-1. Retrieved 3 July 2017.
- ^ Deary, I.J.; Batty, G.D.; Gale, C.R. (2008). "Bright children become enlightened adults" (PDF). Psychological Science. 19 (1): 1–6. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02036.x. PMID 18181782. S2CID 21297949.
- ^ Compare: Rindermann, H (2008). "Relevance of education and intelligence for the political development of nations: Democracy, rule of law and political liberty". Intelligence. 36 (4): 306–22. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2007.09.003.
Political theory has described a positive linkage between education, cognitive ability and democracy. This assumption is confirmed by positive correlations between education, cognitive ability, and positively valued political conditions (N = 183–130). [...] It is shown that in the second half of the 20th century, education and intelligence had a strong positive impact on democracy, rule of law and political liberty independent from wealth (GDP) and chosen country sample. One possible mediator of these relationships is the attainment of higher stages of moral judgment fostered by cognitive ability, which is necessary for the function of democratic rules in society. The other mediators for citizens as well as for leaders could be the increased competence and willingness to process and seek information necessary for political decisions due to greater cognitive ability. There are also weaker and less stable reverse effects of the rule of law and political freedom on cognitive ability.
- ^ Albertus, Michael; Menaldo, Victor (2012). "Coercive Capacity and the Prospects for Democratisation". Comparative Politics. 44 (2): 151–69. doi:10.5129/001041512798838003. S2CID 153949862.
- ^ Squicciarini, Mara and Voigtländer, Nico, Knowledge Elites and Modernization: Evidence from Revolutionary France (October 2016). NBER Working Paper No. w22779, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2861711
- ^ "The Resource Curse: Does the Emperor Have no Clothes?".
- ^ Acemoglu, Daron; Robinson, James A. (2006). Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-85526-6.
- ^ "Rainfall and Democracy".
- ^ Alsan, Marcella (2015). "The Effect of the TseTse Fly on African Development" (PDF). American Economic Review. 105 (1): 382–410. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.1010.2955. doi:10.1257/aer.20130604.
- ^ Acemoglu, Daron; Johnson, Simon; Robinson, James (2005). "Institutions as a fundamental cause of long-run growth". Handbook of Economic Growth. Handbook of Economic Growth. 1. pp. 385–472, Sections 1 to 4. doi:10.1016/S1574-0684(05)01006-3. ISBN 978-0-444-52041-8.
- ^ Mellinger, Andrew D., Jeffrey Sachs, and John L. Gallup. (1999). "Climate, Water Navigability, and Economic Development". Working Paper.
- ^ Acemoglu, Daron; Johnson, Simon; Robinson, James (2005). "Institutions as a fundamental cause of long-run growth". Handbook of Economic Growth. Handbook of Economic Growth. 1. pp. 385–472, Sections 5 to 10. doi:10.1016/S1574-0684(05)01006-3. ISBN 978-0-444-52041-8.
- ^ Farrelly, Elizabeth (15 September 2011). "Deafened by the roar of the crowd". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 30 December 2011. Retrieved 17 September 2011.
- ^ Robert Michels (1999) [1962 by Crowell-Collier]. Political Parties. Transaction Publishers. p. 243. ISBN 978-1-4128-3116-1. Retrieved 5 June2013.
- ^ Harald Wydra, Communism and the Emergence of Democracy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 22–27.
- ^ Compare: Wydra, Harald (2007). "Democracy as a process of meaning-formation". Communism and the Emergence of Democracy. Cambridge University Press. pp. 244–68. ISBN 978-1-139-46218-1. Retrieved 11 August 2018.
Works cited
- Clarke, P.; Foweraker, J. (2001). Encyclopedia of Democratic Thought. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0-415-19396-6.
- Livy; De Sélincourt, A.; Ogilvie, R. M.; Oakley, S. P. (2002). The early history of Rome: books I-V of The history of Rome from its foundations. Penguin Classics. ISBN 0-14-044809-8.
- Ober, J.; Hedrick, C.W. (1996). Dēmokratia: a conversation on democracies, ancient and modern. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-01108-0.
- Raaflaub, Kurt A.; Ober, Josiah; Wallace, Robert W (2007). Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-24562-4.
Further reading
- Abbott, Lewis. (2006). British Democracy: Its Restoration and Extension. ISR/Google Books.
- Appleby, Joyce. (1992). Liberalism and Republicanism in the Historical Imagination. Harvard University Press.
- Archibugi, Daniele, The Global Commonwealth of Citizens. Toward Cosmopolitan Democracy, Princeton University Press ISBN 978-0-691-13490-1
- Becker, Peter, Heideking, Juergen, & Henretta, James A. (2002). Republicanism and Liberalism in America and the German States, 1750–1850. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-80066-2
- Benhabib, Seyla. (1996). Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-04478-1
- Blattberg, Charles. (2000). From Pluralist to Patriotic Politics: Putting Practice First, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-829688-1.
- Birch, Anthony H. (1993). The Concepts and Theories of Modern Democracy. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-41463-0
- Castiglione, Dario. (2005). "Republicanism and its Legacy." European Journal of Political Theory. pp. 453–65.
- Copp, David, Jean Hampton, & John E. Roemer. (1993). The Idea of Democracy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-43254-2
- Caputo, Nicholas. (2005). America's Bible of Democracy: Returning to the Constitution. SterlingHouse Publisher, Inc. ISBN 978-1-58501-092-9
- Dahl, Robert A. (1991). Democracy and its Critics. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-04938-1
- Dahl, Robert A. (2000). On Democracy. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-08455-9
- Dahl, Robert A. Ian Shapiro & Jose Antonio Cheibub. (2003). The Democracy Sourcebook. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-54147-3
- Dahl, Robert A. (1963). A Preface to Democratic Theory. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-13426-0
- Davenport, Christian. (2007). State Repression and the Domestic Democratic Peace. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-86490-9
- Diamond, Larry & Marc Plattner. (1996). The Global Resurgence of Democracy. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-5304-3
- Diamond, Larry & Richard Gunther. (2001). Political Parties and Democracy. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-6863-4
- Diamond, Larry & Leonardo Morlino. (2005). Assessing the Quality of Democracy. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-8287-6
- Diamond, Larry, Marc F. Plattner & Philip J. Costopoulos. (2005). World Religions and Democracy. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-8080-3
- Diamond, Larry, Marc F. Plattner & Daniel Brumberg. (2003). Islam and Democracy in the Middle East. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-7847-3
- Elster, Jon. (1998). Deliberative Democracy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-59696-1
- Emerson, Peter (2007) "Designing an All-Inclusive Democracy." Springer. ISBN 978-3-540-33163-6
- Emerson, Peter (2012) "Defining Democracy." Springer. ISBN 978-3-642-20903-1
- Everdell, William R. (2003) The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-22482-1.
- Fuller, Roslyn (2015). Beasts and Gods: How Democracy Changed Its Meaning and Lost its Purpose. United Kingdom: Zed Books. p. 371. ISBN 978-1-78360-542-2.
- Gabardi, Wayne. (2001). Contemporary Models of Democracy. Polity.
- Gutmann, Amy, and Dennis Thompson. (1996). Democracy and Disagreement. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-19766-4
- Gutmann, Amy, and Dennis Thompson. (2002). Why Deliberative Democracy?Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-12019-5
- Haldane, Robert Burdone (1918). The future of democracy . London: Headley Bros. Publishers Ltd.
- Halperin, M.H., Siegle, J.T. & Weinstein, M.M. (2005). The Democracy Advantage: How Democracies Promote Prosperity and Peace. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-95052-7
- Henderson, G. C. (1920). Democracy: theoretical and practical . Adelaide: G. Hassell & Son.
- Hansen, Mogens Herman. (1991). The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-18017-3
- Held, David. (2006). Models of Democracy. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-5472-9
- Inglehart, Ronald. (1997). Modernisation and Postmodernisation. Cultural, Economic, and Political Change in 43 Societies. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-01180-6
- Isakhan, Ben and Stockwell, Stephen (co-editors). (2011) The Secret History of Democracy. Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-0-230-24421-4
- Jarvie, I.C.; Milford, K. (2006). Karl Popper: Life and time, and values in a world of facts Volume 1 of Karl Popper: A Centenary Assessment. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 978-0-7546-5375-2.
- Khan, L. Ali. (2003). A Theory of Universal Democracy: Beyond the End of History. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. ISBN 978-90-411-2003-8
- Köchler, Hans. (1987). The Crisis of Representative Democracy. Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-8204-8843-2
- Lijphart, Arend. (1999). Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-07893-0
- Lipset, Seymour Martin (1959). "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy". American Political Science Review. 53 (1): 69–105. doi:10.2307/1951731. JSTOR 1951731. S2CID 53686238.
- Macpherson, C.B. (1977). The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-289106-8
- Morgan, Edmund. (1989). Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-30623-1
- Mosley, Ivo (2003). Democracy, Fascism, and the New World Order. Imprint Academic. ISBN 978-0-907845-64-5.
- Mosley, Ivo (2013). In The Name Of The People. Imprint Academic. ISBN 978-1-84540-262-4.
- Plattner, Marc F. & Aleksander Smolar. (2000). Globalisation, Power, and Democracy. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-6568-8
- Plattner, Marc F. & João Carlos Espada. (2000). The Democratic Invention. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-6419-3
- Putnam, Robert. (2001). Making Democracy Work. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-5-551-09103-5
- Riker, William H.. (1962). The Theory of Political Coalitions. Yale University Press.
- Sen, Amartya K. (1999). "Democracy as a Universal Value". Journal of Democracy. 10 (3): 3–17. doi:10.1353/jod.1999.0055. S2CID 54556373.
- Tannsjo, Torbjorn. (2008). Global Democracy: The Case for a World Government. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-3499-6. Argues that not only is world government necessary if we want to deal successfully with global problems it is also, pace Kant and Rawls, desirable in its own right.
- Thompson, Dennis (1970). The Democratic Citizen: Social Science and Democratic Theory in the 20th Century. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-13173-5
- Tooze, Adam, "Democracy and Its Discontents", The New York Review of Books, vol. LXVI, no. 10 (6 June 2019), pp. 52–53, 56–57. "Democracy has no clear answer for the mindless operation of bureaucratic and technological power. We may indeed be witnessing its extension in the form of artificial intelligence and robotics. Likewise, after decades of dire warning, the environmental problem remains fundamentally unaddressed.... Bureaucratic overreach and environmental catastrophe are precisely the kinds of slow-moving existential challenges that democracies deal with very badly.... Finally, there is the threat du jour: corporations and the technologies they promote." (pp. 56–57.)
- Vinje, Victor Condorcet (2014). The Versatile Farmers of the North; The Struggle of Norwegian Yeomen for Economic Reforms and Political Power, 1750–1814. Nisus Publications.
- Volk, Kyle G. (2014). Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Weingast, Barry. (1997). "The Political Foundations of the Rule of Law and Democracy". American Political Science Review. 91 (2): 245–63. doi:10.2307/2952354. JSTOR 2952354.
- Weatherford, Jack. (1990). Indian Givers: How the Indians Transformed the World. New York: Fawcett Columbine. ISBN 978-0-449-90496-1
- Whitehead, Laurence. (2002). Emerging Market Democracies: East Asia and Latin America. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-7219-8
- Willard, Charles Arthur. (1996). Liberalism and the Problem of Knowledge: A New Rhetoric for Modern Democracy. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-89845-2
- Wood, E. M. (1995). Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing historical materialism. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-47682-9
- Wood, Gordon S. (1991). The Radicalism of the American Revolution. Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-679-73688-2 examines democratic dimensions of republicanism
External links
.jpg)
.jpg)