CHARACTERISTICS OF DEMOCRACY

No consensus exists on how to define democracy – indeed, one study found that at least 2,234
descriptions of democracy exist in the English language[11] - but legal equality, political
freedom and rule of law have been identified as important characteristics.[12][13] These principles are
reflected in all eligible citizens being equal before the law and having equal access to legislative
processes.[citation needed] For example, in a representative democracy, every vote has equal weight, no
unreasonable restrictions can apply to anyone seeking to become a representative, [according to whom?] and
the freedom of its eligible citizens is secured by legitimised rights and liberties which are typically
protected by a constitution.[14][15] Other uses of "democracy" include that of direct democracy.
One theory holds that democracy requires three fundamental principles: upward control (sovereignty
residing at the lowest levels of authority), political equality, and social norms by which individuals
and institutions only consider acceptable acts that reflect the first two principles of upward control
and political equality.[16]
The term "democracy" is sometimes used as shorthand for liberal democracy, which is a variant of
representative democracy that may include elements such as political pluralism; equality before the
law; the right to petition elected officials for redress of grievances; due process; civil liberties; human
rights; and elements of civil society outside the government.[citation needed] Roger Scruton argued that
democracy alone cannot provide personal and political freedom unless the institutions of civil
society are also present.[17]
In some countries, notably in the United Kingdom which originated the Westminster system, the
dominant principle is that of parliamentary sovereignty, while maintaining judicial independence.[18]
[19]
 In India, parliamentary sovereignty is subject to the Constitution of India which includes judicial
review.[20] Though the term "democracy" is typically used in the context of a political state, the
principles also are applicable to private organisations.
There are many decision-making methods used in democracies, but majority rule is the dominant
form. Without compensation, like legal protections of individual or group rights, political
minorities can be oppressed by the "tyranny of the majority". Majority rule is a competitive approach,
opposed to consensus democracy, creating the need that elections, and generally deliberation, are
substantively and procedurally "fair," i.e. just and equitable. In some countries, freedom of political
expression, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and internet democracy are considered
important to ensure that voters are well informed, enabling them to vote according to their own
interests.[21][22]
It has also been suggested that a basic feature of democracy is the capacity of all voters to
participate freely and fully in the life of their society.[23] With its emphasis on notions of social
contract and the collective will of all the voters, democracy can also be characterised as a form of
political collectivism because it is defined as a form of government in which all eligible citizens have
an equal say in lawmaking.[24]
Republics, though often associated with democracy because of the shared principle of rule
by consent of the governed, are not necessarily democracies, as republicanism does not
specify how the people are to rule.[25] Classically the term "republic" encompassed both democracies
and aristocracies.[26][27] In a modern sense the republican form of government is a form of government
without monarch. Because of this democracies can be republics or constitutional monarchies, such
as the United Kingdom.

History[edit]
Main article: History of democracy
Nineteenth-century painting by Philipp Foltz depicting the Athenian politician Pericles delivering his
famous funeral oration in front of the Assembly.[28]

Historically, democracies and republics have been rare. [29] Republican theorists linked democracy to
small size: as political units grew in size, the likelihood increased that the government would turn
despotic.[29][30] At the same time, small political units were vulnerable to conquest.
[29]
 Montesquieu wrote, "If a republic be small, it is destroyed by a foreign force; if it be large, it is
ruined by an internal imperfection." [31] According to Johns Hopkins University political scientist Daniel
Deudney, the creation of the United States, with its large size and its system of checks and
balances, was a solution to the dual problems of size.[29]
It is commonly claimed that democracy and democratization were important drivers of the expansion
of primary education around the world. However, new evidence from historical education trends
challenges this assertion. An analysis of historical student enrollment rates for 109 countries from
1820 to 2010 finds no support for the claim that democratization increased access to primary
education around the world. It is true that transitions to democracy often coincided with an
acceleration in the expansion of primary education, but the same acceleration was observed in
countries that remained non-democratic.[32]

Historic origins and proto-democratic societies[edit]

Origins[edit]
See also: Athenian democracy
The term democracy first appeared in ancient Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-
state of Athens during classical antiquity.[33][34] The word comes from dêmos '(common) people'
and krátos 'force/might'.[35] Under Cleisthenes, what is generally held as the first example of a type of
democracy in 508–507 BC was established in Athens. Cleisthenes is referred to as "the father
of Athenian democracy".[36]
Athenian democracy took the form of a direct democracy, and it had two distinguishing features:
the random selection of ordinary citizens to fill the few existing government administrative and
judicial offices,[37] and a legislative assembly consisting of all Athenian citizens.[38] All eligible citizens
were allowed to speak and vote in the assembly, which set the laws of the city state. However,
Athenian citizenship excluded women, slaves, foreigners (μέτοικοι / métoikoi), and youths below the
age of military service.[39][40][contradictory] Effectively, only 1 in 4 residents in Athens qualified as citizens.
Owning land was not a requirement for citizenship. [41] The exclusion of large parts of the population
from the citizen body is closely related to the ancient understanding of citizenship. In most of
antiquity the benefit of citizenship was tied to the obligation to fight war campaigns. [42]
Athenian democracy was not only direct in the sense that decisions were made by the assembled
people, but also the most direct in the sense that the people through the assembly, boule and courts
of law controlled the entire political process and a large proportion of citizens were involved
constantly in the public business.[43] Even though the rights of the individual were not secured by the
Athenian constitution in the modern sense (the ancient Greeks had no word for "rights" [44]), those who
were citizens of Athens enjoyed their liberties not in opposition to the government but by living in a
city that was not subject to another power and by not being subjects themselves to the rule of
another person.[45]
Range voting appeared in Sparta as early as 700 BC. The Apella was an assembly of the people,
held once a month, in which every male citizen of at least 30 years of age could participate. In the
Apella, Spartans elected leaders and cast votes by range voting and shouting (the vote is then
decided on how loudly the crowd shouts). Aristotle called this "childish", as compared with the stone
voting ballots used by the Athenian citizenry. Sparta adopted it because of its simplicity, and to
prevent any biased voting, buying, or cheating that was predominant in the early democratic
elections.[46][47]
Even though the Roman Republic contributed significantly to many aspects of democracy, only a
minority of Romans were citizens with votes in elections for representatives. The votes of the
powerful were given more weight through a system of gerrymandering, so most high officials,
including members of the Senate, came from a few wealthy and noble families. [48] In addition,
the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom was the first case in the Western world of a polity being
formed with the explicit purpose of being a republic, although it didn't have much of a democracy.
The Roman model of governance inspired many political thinkers over the centuries, [49] and today's
modern representative democracies imitate more the Roman than the Greek models because it was
a state in which supreme power was held by the people and their elected representatives, and which
had an elected or nominated leader. [50]
Vaishali, capital city of the Vajjian Confederacy of (Vrijji mahajanapada), India was also considered
one of the first examples of a republic around the 6th century BCE.[51][52][53]
Other cultures, such as the Iroquois Nation in the Americas between around 1450 and 1600 AD also
developed a form of democratic society before they came in contact with the Europeans. This
indicates that forms of democracy may have been invented in other societies around the world. [54]

Middle Ages[edit]
While most regions in Europe during the Middle Ages were ruled by clergy or feudal lords, there
existed various systems involving elections or assemblies, although often only involving a small part
of the population. In Scandinavia, bodies known as things consisted of freemen presided by
a lawspeaker. These deliberative bodies were responsible for settling political questions, and
variants included the Althing in Iceland and the Løgting in the Faeroe Islands.[55][56] The veche, found
in Eastern Europe, was a similar body to the Scandinavian thing. In the Roman Catholic Church,
the pope has been elected by a papal conclave composed of cardinals since 1059. The first
documented parliamentary body in Europe was the Cortes of León. Established by Alfonso IX in
1188, the Cortes had authority over setting taxation, foreign affairs and legislating, though the exact
nature of its role remains disputed. [57] The Republic of Ragusa, established in 1358 and centered
around the city of Dubrovnik, provided representation and voting rights to its male aristocracy only.
Various Italian city-states and polities had republic forms of government. For instance, the Republic
of Florence, established in 1115, was led by the Signoria whose members were chosen by sortition.
In 10th–15th century Frisia, a distinctly non-feudal society, the right to vote on local matters and on
county officials was based on land size. The Kouroukan Fouga divided the Mali Empire into ruling
clans (lineages) that were represented at a great assembly called the Gbara. However, the charter
made Mali more similar to a constitutional monarchy than a democratic republic.
Magna Carta, 1215, England

The Parliament of England had its roots in the restrictions on the power of kings written into Magna
Carta (1215), which explicitly protected certain rights of the King's subjects and implicitly supported
what became the English writ of habeas corpus, safeguarding individual freedom against unlawful
imprisonment with right to appeal. [58][59] The first representative national assembly
in England was Simon de Montfort's Parliament in 1265.[60][61] The emergence of petitioning is some of
the earliest evidence of parliament being used as a forum to address the general grievances of
ordinary people. However, the power to call parliament remained at the pleasure of the monarch. [62]
Studies have linked the emergence of parliamentary institutions in Europe during the medieval
period to urban agglomeration and the creation of new classes, such as artisans, [63] as well as the
presence of nobility and religious elites.[64] Scholars have also linked the emergence of representative
government to Europe's relative political fragmentation. [65] New York University political scientist
David Stasavage links the fragmentation of Europe, and its subsequent democratization, to the
manner in which the Roman Empire collapsed: Roman territory was conquered by small fragmented
groups of Germanic tribes, thus leading to the creation of small political units where rulers were
relatively weak and needed the consent of the governed to ward off foreign threats. [66]
In Poland, noble democracy was characterized by an increase in the activity of the middle nobility,
which wanted to increase their share in exercising power at the expense of the magnates. Magnates
dominated the most important offices in the state (secular and ecclesiastical) and sat on the royal
council, later the senate. The growing importance of the middle nobility had an impact on the
establishment of the institution of the land sejmik (local assembly), which subsequently obtained
more rights. During the fifteenth and first half of the sixteenth century, sejmiks received more and
more powers and became the most important institutions of local power. In 1454, Casimir IV
Jagiellon granted the sejmiks the right to decide on taxes and to convene a mass mobilization in
the Nieszawa Statutes. He also pledged not to create new laws without their consent. [67]