What Is Democracy?
Democracy is one of the world’s most popular forms of government. A concept that can seem abstract, it’s also an ideal that has been embodied by leaders across the globe and has inspired movements as varied as the Greek democracy of the 5th century bc to the Russian revolution led by Vladimir Ulyinov Lenin in 1917. Despite its popularity, however, democracy remains difficult to achieve and maintain in practice.
Founded on the principle that citizens should govern themselves and be treated with equal respect and dignity, democracy requires compromise and understanding to thrive. It demands that society and its institutions deliver services and demonstrate trustworthiness. It calls for participation in politics and the economy as well as a commitment to human rights, including freedom of speech and assembly. It requires the holding of periodic and genuine elections by universal suffrage. It requires the separation of powers into parliament, governance and justice, with a constitution to provide checks and balances on power.
While a democratic state may have all these attributes, there is no single definition or criteria for what constitutes a democracy. The term was originally coined in the mid-5th century bc by the Athenians as a combination of the two Greek words demos (people) and kratos (“rule”). Today, democracy means any system of government that is ruled by the people with full and equal political rights and the right to participate in public affairs freely and without discrimination or harassment.
But the concept is often misunderstood and misused, and democracy as an idea is a subject of profound controversy, from debates about whether it’s possible to have both capitalism and a welfare state to whether the United States can continue to be a global leader in democratic freedoms in the face of economic change. As the current generation struggles to find its way in a democracy that many see as less democratic than it once was, this documentary offers an interdisciplinary journey through millennia and continents to ask the question: What is democracy?
Although several different approaches exist for classifying the extent to which a state is a democracy, most of them face challenges when it comes to measuring how democratic a country is. This is because they are based on the judgement of experts, and their assessments can be subjective. Furthermore, the underlying characteristics of a democracy are complex and difficult to assess, as they include various dimensions like the rule of law, political representation, civil liberties, and electoral transparency. Moreover, these indices differ in terms of their methodologies and the extent to which they consider all the aspects of democracy simultaneously. Nevertheless, a number of indices, such as Polity, Freedom House and V-Dem, are highly respected. They almost always release the data and describe how and why they classify a country as a democracy, as well as how each of its underlying characteristics are coded. They also explain why they weigh and add these codings together.
Democracy is one of the world’s most popular forms of government. A concept that can seem abstract, it’s also an ideal that has been embodied by leaders across the globe and has inspired movements as varied as the Greek democracy of the 5th century bc to the Russian revolution led by Vladimir Ulyinov Lenin in 1917. Despite its popularity, however, democracy remains difficult to achieve and maintain in practice. Founded on the principle that citizens should govern themselves and be treated with equal respect and dignity, democracy requires compromise and understanding to thrive. It demands that society and its institutions deliver services and demonstrate trustworthiness. It calls for participation in politics and the economy as well as a commitment to human rights, including freedom of speech and assembly. It requires the holding of periodic and genuine elections by universal suffrage. It requires the separation of powers into parliament, governance and justice, with a constitution to provide checks and balances on power. While a democratic state may have all these attributes, there is no single definition or criteria for what constitutes a democracy. The term was originally coined in the mid-5th century bc by the Athenians as a combination of the two Greek words demos (people) and kratos (“rule”). Today, democracy means any system of government that is ruled by the people with full and equal political rights and the right to participate in public affairs freely and without discrimination or harassment. But the concept is often misunderstood and misused, and democracy as an idea is a subject of profound controversy, from debates about whether it’s possible to have both capitalism and a welfare state to whether the United States can continue to be a global leader in democratic freedoms in the face of economic change. As the current generation struggles to find its way in a democracy that many see as less democratic than it once was, this documentary offers an interdisciplinary journey through millennia and continents to ask the question: What is democracy? Although several different approaches exist for classifying the extent to which a state is a democracy, most of them face challenges when it comes to measuring how democratic a country is. This is because they are based on the judgement of experts, and their assessments can be subjective. Furthermore, the underlying characteristics of a democracy are complex and difficult to assess, as they include various dimensions like the rule of law, political representation, civil liberties, and electoral transparency. Moreover, these indices differ in terms of their methodologies and the extent to which they consider all the aspects of democracy simultaneously. Nevertheless, a number of indices, such as Polity, Freedom House and V-Dem, are highly respected. They almost always release the data and describe how and why they classify a country as a democracy, as well as how each of its underlying characteristics are coded. They also explain why they weigh and add these codings together.