2.S: Summary

People often assume that they are familiar with the concept of democracy; however, there are different types of democracies.

The first part of the word "democracy" comes from the Greek word "demos," meaning "for the people." However, we understand the word as "government by or for the people." The way that democracy is practiced might vary from direct democracy, representative democracy, or illiberal democracy, which is not truly a form of democracy. Why would some refer to illiberal democracy as democracy, when it is not a democracy?

Democracy is not easy, and direct democracy in its purest form has not existed. While the Greek direct democracy is viewed as the germinal example, it was fraught with problems. Women, slaves, and non-Athenian born men could not vote and were not considered citizens. Thus, only a small portion of the population was able to participate in direct democracy. Direct democracy works well with smaller numbers of people. Today, we are more likely to see attributes of direct democracy at the municipal level.

In a democracy, the people should have fundamental rights protected and understood by the government. The health of the democracy affects how a government defines fundamental rights. A strong democracy will protect free speech, a free press, and the right to assemble. It will also hold regular, free, and open elections.

Democratic ideals were discussed at length via a wide array of political philosophers during the Enlightenment era during the eighteenth century. For further reading on some of the original work or responses to the Enlightenment ideals, see Jean Jacque Rousseau, Mary Wollstonecraft, John Locke, Iris Marion Young, Carole Pateman, James Tully, and Charles Mills.

Democracy is often referred to as one of the better forms of government thanks to its focus on protecting the legal rights of the people. We have witnessed the growth of democracies during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

In a representative democracy, the electorate votes for people to represent their needs in the government. Representative democracies can vary; however, typically there would be fair, frequent elections, a free press, freedom of speech, a judiciary, equal protection under the law, as well as a means for the public to give feedback to their elected representatives. This list is not exhaustive. A good exercise is to do an online search for "representative democracy" and review the findings.

A strong, healthy democracy will balance majority rule with protecting minority rights. Likewise, it is common to see the protection of rights vary over time based on the government and the political culture.

The United States’ Declaration of Independence starts off noting that the people have rights. The peoples’ inalienable rights are noted at the start, so that they are declaring that their rights were not protected while under British rule and therefore they are separating from the government.