Karl Popper says that the "classical" view of democracy is simply, "in brief, the theory that democracy is the rule of the people, and that the people have a right to rule." Kofi Annan states that "there are as many different forms of democracy as there are democratic nations in the world." One study identified 2,234 adjectives used to describe democracy in the English language. ĭemocracy's de jure status in the world as of 2022 only Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Brunei, Afghanistan, and the Vatican do not claim to be a democracy.Īlthough democracy is generally understood to be defined by voting, no consensus exists on a precise definition of democracy. Democratic backsliding with a rise in hybrid regimes has exceeded democratization since the early to mid 2010s. According to the V-Dem Democracy indices and The Economist Democracy Index, less than half the world's population lives in a democracy as of 2021. World public opinion strongly favors democratic systems of government. Karl Popper defined democracy in contrast to dictatorship or tyranny, focusing on opportunities for the people to control their leaders and to oust them without the need for a revolution. In most modern democracies, this was achieved through the suffrage movements of the 19th and 20th centuries.ĭemocracy contrasts with forms of government where power is either held by an individual, as in autocratic systems like absolute monarchy, or where power is held by a small number of individuals, as in an oligarchy-oppositions inherited from ancient Greek philosophy. In virtually all democratic governments throughout ancient and modern history, democratic citizenship was initially restricted to an elite class, which was later extended to all adult citizens. Western democracy, as distinct from that which existed in antiquity, is generally considered to have originated in city-states such as those in Classical Athens and the Roman Republic, where various 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 term appeared in the 5th century BC in Greek city-states, notably Classical Athens, to mean "rule of the people", in contrast to aristocracy ( ἀριστοκρατία, aristokratía), meaning "rule of an elite". freedom of speech or freedom of association. In the common variant of liberal democracy, the powers of the majority are exercised within the framework of a representative democracy, but the constitution and a supreme court limit the majority and protect the minority-usually through securing the enjoyment by all of certain individual rights, e.g. They serve the crucial purpose of inclusiveness and broader legitimacy on sensitive issues-counterbalancing majoritarianism-and therefore mostly take precedence on a constitutional level. Prevalent day-to-day decision making of democracies is the majority rule, though other decision making approaches like supermajority and consensus have also been integral to democracies. Today, the dominant form of democracy is representative democracy, where citizens elect government officials to govern on their behalf such as in a parliamentary or presidential democracy. Throughout history, one can find evidence of direct democracy, in which communities make decisions through popular assembly. The notion of democracy has evolved over time considerably. Features of democracy often include freedom of assembly, association, property rights, freedom of religion and speech, citizenship, consent of the governed, voting rights, freedom from unwarranted governmental deprivation of the right to life and liberty, and minority rights. Who is considered part of "the people" and how authority is shared among or delegated by the people has changed over time and at different rates in different countries. Democracy (from Ancient Greek: δημοκρατία, romanized: dēmokratía, dēmos 'people' and kratos 'rule' ) is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose governing officials to do so (" representative democracy").
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