4.1: What is Democracy?

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Define democracy.
• Recognize the origins and characteristics of democracies.
• Distinguish between (the) types of democracy.

Introduction

“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…”
— Winston Churchill, November 11th, 1947

Currently, more than half of the governments in existence operate under some variation of democracy. This global trend has prompted some to conclude that democracy is simply the best, or most ideal, form of government. Twenty years later after writing The End of History and the Last Man, and in light of events like the September 11th attacks on the United States, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rise of China, the backsliding of Russia, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the eventual fall of Afghanistan back to authoritarian rule, political scientist Francis Fukuyama has concluded that the world had not accepted democracy as the standard. Instead, he asserts that issues related to political identity threaten the security of geo-political stability. Is democracy the best form of government? What are its advantages and disadvantages?

Origins, Definitions, and Characteristics of Democracy

There is evidence of what anthropologists have designated primitive democracy, wherein small communities have face-to-face discussions in order to make decisions, as far back as 2,500 years ago. However, the first formal application of democratic institutions and processes is generally attributed to ancient Greece. In its simplest terms, democracy is a government system in which the supreme power of government is vested in the people. Democracy comes from the Greek word, dēmokratiā, where “demos” means “people”, and “kratos” means “power” or “rule.”

Prior to the formation of legal reforms, Athens had operated as an aristocracy, a form of government where power is held by nobility or those concerned to be of the highest classes within a society. Aristocracy proved troublesome for Athens, and the people eventually rallied under an Athenian leader named Solon (circa 640 - 560 B.C.E.). In trying to meet the demands of the people, Solon attempted to devise a form of government that satisfied all. To this end, in 594 B.C.E., he created legal reforms and a constitution, which provided the foundations for citizen participation in government affairs, and abolished slavery of Athenian citizens. Adult males who had completed their military training were given the right to vote, and as much as 20% of the population was considered to be active in making laws.

Eventually, democracy in Athens failed, due to both internal and external factors. Internally, there was heavy criticism that the aristocracy was still in force, and able to pervert and manipulate legal outcomes to their own benefit. Further, the works of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were critical of the merits and feasibility of democracy, and tended to value political stability over the potential of “rule of the mob.” Tied to the prospect of political stability, Athens faced frequent challenges to its democracy from the outside (external). The Peloponnesian War, the changes in leadership from King Phillip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great, and finally, the rise of the Roman Empire attributed to the eventual decline of democracy in ancient Greece. After the fall of democracy in Greece, the prospect of democracy did not re-emerge as a feasible, or even desired, option until the early modern era in the 1600s.

Ancient concepts and manifestations of democracy differ greatly from modern conceptualization and application of democracy. One of the key differences is in the way power from the people is channeled.

• A direct democracy enables citizens to vote directly, or participate directly, in the formation of laws, public policy, and government decisions. In this system, citizens personally get involved in all aspects of politics, and are able to change constitutional laws, recommend referendums and make suggestions for laws, and mandate the activities and actions of government officials. To some extent, Athens exercised a direct democracy in that adult male citizens, who had completed their military training, could participate directly in the making of laws. It was not a 'perfect' democracy in that not all citizens, male and female, rich and poor, could participate, but it did have a mechanism for a certain class of citizens participating, i.e. males.
• An indirect democracy channels the power of the people through representation, where citizens elect representatives to make laws and government decisions on their behalf. In this scenario, citizens of the country are granted suffrage, which is the right to vote in political elections and propose referendums. In a healthy democracy, elections are both free and fair.
  • Free elections are those where all citizens are able to vote for the candidate of their choice. The election is free if all citizens who meet the requirements to vote (e.g. are of lawful age and meet the citizenship requirements, if they exist), are not prevented from participating in the election process.
  • Fair elections are those in which all votes carry equal weight, are counted accurately, and the election results are able to be accepted by parties. Ideally, the following standards are met to ensure elections are free and fair:

Before the Election

• Eligible citizens are able to register to vote;
• Voters are given access to reliable information about the ballot and the elections;
• Citizens are able to run for office.

During the Election

• All voters have access to a polling station or some method of casting their vote;
• Voters are able to vote free from intimidation;
• The voting process is free of fraud and tampering.

After the Election

• Ballots are accurately counted and the results are announced;
• The results of the election are accepted / respected / honored.

The integrity of the election is of paramount importance in democracies. If the process is not free or fair, it violates the core principles of what constitutes a democracy: by the people, for the people.

Today, most democratic countries practice indirect democracy, partly because of logistics and whether voting is always the best option for determining just, equitable or ideal outcomes. (In the U.S., how would every single adult citizen directly participate in the making of laws? Would requiring a vote for every decision be time efficient?). In a representative democracy, citizens, to some extent, outsource the power of lawmaking to those who, ideally, either have expertise in making laws or who may be granted a greater depth of information in order to make decisions. In this sense, not every citizen necessarily wants to be involved in every government decision, but would prefer selecting a representative to do the political work. Further, there are often some mechanisms that align with the characteristics of direct democracy. For instance, the U.S. has a representative democracy, but voters in some states have the ability to put forth initiatives and referendums. To summarize, indirect democracy is when the supreme power of the government is vested in the people, and exercised by the people through a system of representation that includes the continued practice of holding free and fair elections.

Importantly, democracy has a number of characteristics that can be central to understanding the variation in democracies that exist worldwide today. Ancient democracy had no concept or foundations for widespread suffrage or the protection of civil liberties. However, modern accepted democratic themes include (but are not limited to): free, fair, and regular elections (ideally, with the inclusion of more than one viable political party), respect for civil liberties (freedom of religion, speech, the press, peaceful assembly; freedom to criticize the government), as well as the protection of civil rights (freedom from discrimination based on various characteristics deemed important in society). Democracies that facilitate free and fair elections, as well as ensure the protection of civil liberties, are called liberal democracies.

Larry Diamond, an American political sociologist and a scholar of democratic studies, put forth the following four characteristics which make a democracy, a democracy. A democracy must include:

1. A system for choosing and replacing the government through free and fair elections;
2. Active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civic life;
3. The protection of human rights of all citizens;
4. A rule of law in which the laws and procedures apply equally to all citizens. (Diamond 2004)

Karl Popper, an Austrian-British academic and philosopher had a more blunt definition for democracy, “I personally call the type of government which can be removed without violence ‘democracy,’ and the other, ‘tyranny.’ (Popper 2002). In general, Popper emphasized the importance of people having access, availability, and opportunity, through some means, to control their leaders without violence, retribution, or revolution.

Other scholars have noted more rigid qualifications for democracy. Robert Dahl, Ian Shapiro, and Jose Antonio Cheibub assert that every vote in a representative democracy must carry equal weight, and that the rights of citizens must be equally protected by a well-defined and clear “law of the land.” In most cases, the “law of the land” rests with a written constitution. (Dahl, Shapiro, Cheibub, 2003)

Overall, there are hundreds of critiques and frameworks for defining democracies. Indeed, scholars are generally not in full agreement on what constitutes a perfect democracy. Nevertheless, reaching some consensus on the characteristics is important if scholars want to advance the understanding of regime types. The perceptions of democracy can be seen in how some organizations choose to measure democracy across countries. At present, there are at least eight organizations that attempt to quantify the existence and health of democracies worldwide. In Table 4.1, a few of these groups are highlighted based on what they identify as the main characteristics of democracy.

Index	Freedom House	Economist Intelligence Unit	Varieties of Democracy
Components/ Characteristics Measured	-Elections -Participation -Functioning of Government -Free Expression -Organizational Rights -Rule of Law -Individual Rights	-Elections -Participation -Functioning of Government -Political Culture -Civil Liberties	-Elections -Participation -Deliberation -Egalitarianism -Individual Rights

Choosing different areas of emphasis and weight for characteristics of democracy yield different outcomes in terms of identifying whether a country is a democracy, as well as judging its healthiness. For instance, in 2018, the Varieties of Democracies Project found there were 99 democracies and 80 autocracies. (Autocracies are forms of government where countries are ruled either by a single person or group, who/which holds total power and control.) For this same time period, the Polity IV Index attested to 57 full democracies, 28 mixed-regime types, and 13 autocratic regimes. Importantly, the Polity IV Index does not take suffrage into consideration as a meaningful indicator of democracy. Meanwhile, Freedom House asserted that 86 countries are democracies, with 109 non-democracies. Finally, the Economist Intelligence Unit found 20 countries to be fully democratic, and 55 countries have “flawed democracies.”