Democracy

Democracy

Introduction

Democracy, in Greek, is derived from demokratia, root meanings of which are demos (people) and kratos (rule). Generally, it means the form of government in which, in contradistinction to monarchies and aristocracies, people rule. There is no clear-cut, universal definition of democracy and most definitions of democracy focus on qualities, procedures and institutions. It is perhaps better conceived as two aspects of same thing that cannot be separated with clear lines. First, it is the practice or method of government, the set of forms and procedures. Second, it connects to finishes rather than means, to the perfect or set of perfects.

Democratic Government

Firstly, democracy is the pattern of government in which persons, either exactly or obscurely, takes part in governing. In practice it means following outlook of majority. It is the system involving effective competition between political parties for positions of power. In the democracy, there are regular and fair elections, in which all members of population may take part. Democratic authorities can be split up into distinct kinds, based on the number of different distinctions. One such distinction is that between "direct" and digressive" democracy.

A direct democracy is the political system in which all citizens are allowed to influence policy by means of the direct vote on any particular issue. However it is impracticable except in the very small polity. Even though it was practiced in Athens, it didn't involve all people, only adult male citizens.

Mostly there is no country small enough to find direct democracy practical, so democratic governments develop established procedures and organizations to link public opinion to government policy. Elections, political parties, legislatures, and interest groups are all institutional mechanisms intended to keep governments responsive to people. Indirect democracy is the very wide period describing the means of governance by persons through elected representatives. The more familiar representative democracy is the system in which people elect government officials or the broad policy of the party who then make decisions on their behalf. The original idea of the representative was of the person elected to express or reflect views of his constituents. However, this does not seem possible, representative needs to gather his constituents and get view of them on every issue. Therefore representative chosen is not obliged to mirror ideas of his constituents rather he is elected as the man of good judgment. This is the doctrine often known as Edmund Burke's Principle, which states that representatives should act upon their own conscience in affairs of the representative democracy. Nevertheless in practice, inevitable rise of well disciplined party system has caused representatives to decide under boundaries of party policies. Therefore, Burke's agent behavior becomes also absurdity on majority of issues.

Democracy operates under majority of votes, where those in numerical majority are powerful and they tend to ride over concerns of minority. However one of most important principles for today's democracy is principle that it may not take measures to secure its position in power. For example, by suspending principle of majority rule it or by taking measures which ...