What Is Democracy?
Democracy involves the direct participation of the members of a society in making laws and policy decisions, either directly or through freely chosen representatives. It can take many forms, but a central feature is the idea that every individual has equal rights and opportunities for political decision-making. Democracy is often associated with other concepts, such as human rights and freedom. People who believe in these concepts tend to support democracy. The democratic process is seen as a way to ensure that all members of a society have an equal opportunity to participate in the governance of their country and to be treated fairly.
The most basic definition of democracy is that it is a form of government in which citizens elect their own representatives. This definition does not, however, settle any normative questions about whether democracy is a desirable state of government or not. Nor does it exclude other types of government, such as monarchy and aristocracy, from being democratic.
While there is consensus that democracy is a good thing, people disagree on how best to measure it and how it should be evaluated. Some scholars have tried to measure democracy by attaching an objective or standardized quantitative value to a country’s level of democracy. Others have looked at different ways to measure democracy, including using observational data, judgement-based data, and data from representative surveys. No one method is better than another in all respects, but there are tradeoffs between concept-measure consistency and coverage.
There are also a variety of different moral justifications for democracy. These arguments usually try to show that democracy is a better choice than other forms of government because it promotes more ethical behavior by allowing individuals to exercise more control over their own lives, it produces better laws and policies because of the diverse input from citizens, or it simply makes people more satisfied with their own lives because they are able to participate in the political process and see their views represented in the law.
In addition, many people endorse democracy because they think it cultivates citizens with active characters rather than passive ones. For example, Mill and Rousseau argue that democracy encourages self-advocacy because it forces individuals to stand up for their own beliefs if they want to have their opinions heard. Helene Landemore has argued that democracy fosters autonomy by requiring citizens to take the lead in making their own decisions.
Most of the world’s democracies are not perfect, and there are some serious problems in the US. For example, despite the rhetoric of “America is the shining city upon the hill” that Americans are so proud of, most American allies view the US as a shattered, washed-up has-been. Moreover, recent events such as the shooting of Black Lives Matter protestors have revealed widespread disillusionment with the political system in America and pessimism about its future. This has led to growing calls for reforms to make the US a more functional democracy.
Democracy involves the direct participation of the members of a society in making laws and policy decisions, either directly or through freely chosen representatives. It can take many forms, but a central feature is the idea that every individual has equal rights and opportunities for political decision-making. Democracy is often associated with other concepts, such as human rights and freedom. People who believe in these concepts tend to support democracy. The democratic process is seen as a way to ensure that all members of a society have an equal opportunity to participate in the governance of their country and to be treated fairly. The most basic definition of democracy is that it is a form of government in which citizens elect their own representatives. This definition does not, however, settle any normative questions about whether democracy is a desirable state of government or not. Nor does it exclude other types of government, such as monarchy and aristocracy, from being democratic. While there is consensus that democracy is a good thing, people disagree on how best to measure it and how it should be evaluated. Some scholars have tried to measure democracy by attaching an objective or standardized quantitative value to a country’s level of democracy. Others have looked at different ways to measure democracy, including using observational data, judgement-based data, and data from representative surveys. No one method is better than another in all respects, but there are tradeoffs between concept-measure consistency and coverage. There are also a variety of different moral justifications for democracy. These arguments usually try to show that democracy is a better choice than other forms of government because it promotes more ethical behavior by allowing individuals to exercise more control over their own lives, it produces better laws and policies because of the diverse input from citizens, or it simply makes people more satisfied with their own lives because they are able to participate in the political process and see their views represented in the law. In addition, many people endorse democracy because they think it cultivates citizens with active characters rather than passive ones. For example, Mill and Rousseau argue that democracy encourages self-advocacy because it forces individuals to stand up for their own beliefs if they want to have their opinions heard. Helene Landemore has argued that democracy fosters autonomy by requiring citizens to take the lead in making their own decisions. Most of the world’s democracies are not perfect, and there are some serious problems in the US. For example, despite the rhetoric of “America is the shining city upon the hill” that Americans are so proud of, most American allies view the US as a shattered, washed-up has-been. Moreover, recent events such as the shooting of Black Lives Matter protestors have revealed widespread disillusionment with the political system in America and pessimism about its future. This has led to growing calls for reforms to make the US a more functional democracy.