Outline of democracy
Encyclopedia
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to democracy:

Democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

– form of government in which all people have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal (and more or less direct) participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law.

Nature of democracy

Main article: Democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...



Democracy can be described as a(n):
  • Institution
    Institution
    An institution is any structure or mechanism of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of individuals within a given human community...

    • Form of government
      Form of government
      A form of government, or form of state governance, refers to the set of political institutions by which a government of a state is organized. Synonyms include "regime type" and "system of government".-Empirical and conceptual problems:...


Types of democracy

  • Agonistic Pluralism – accepts conflict as inevitable and should be channeled in a productive way.
  • Anticipatory democracy
    Anticipatory democracy
    Anticipatory democracy is a theory of civics relying on democratic decision making that takes into account predictions of future events that have some credibility with the electorate...

     – relies on some degree of disciplined and usually market-informed anticipation of the future, to guide major decisions.
  • Bioregional democracy – matches geopolitical divisions to natural ecological regions.
  • Cellular democracy
    Cellular democracy
    As developed by economist Fred E. Foldvary, cellular democracy is a type of democracy based on multi-level bottom-up structure based on either small neighborhood governmental districts or contractual communities.-Councils:...

     – type of democracy
    Democracy
    Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

     developed by economist Fred E. Foldvary
    Fred E. Foldvary
    Fred Emanuel Foldvary is a lecturer in economics at Santa Clara University, California, and a research fellow at The Independent Institute...

    , based on multi-level bottom-up structure based on either small neighborhood governmental districts or contractual communities.
  • Constitutional democracy – democracy governed by a constitution
    Constitution
    A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...

    .
  • Defensive democracy
    Defensive democracy
    Defensive Democracy is the philosophy that members of a democratic society believe it necessary to limit some rights and freedoms, in order to protect the institutions of the democracy.-Israel:...

     – situation in which a democratic society has to limit some rights and freedoms in order to protect the institutions of the democracy.
  • Delegative Democracy
    Delegative Democracy
    Delegate Democracy is a form of democratic control whereby voting power is vested in delegates, rather than representatives. This term is a generic description of either already existing or proposed popular control apparatuses.- The delegative form :...

     –
  • Deliberative democracy
    Deliberative democracy
    Deliberative democracy is a form of democracy in which public deliberation is central to legitimate lawmaking. It adopts elements of both consensus decision-making and majority rule. Deliberative democracy differs from traditional democratic theory in that authentic deliberation, not mere...

     – focuses on hearing out every policy alternative, from every direction, and providing time to research them all.
  • Demarchy
    Demarchy
    Demarchy is a form of government in which the state is governed by randomly selected decision makers who have been selected by sortition from a broadly inclusive pool of eligible citizens...

     – has people randomly selected from the citizenry to either act as representatives, or to make decisions in specific areas of governance (defense, environment, etc.)
  • Democratic centralism
    Democratic centralism
    Democratic centralism is the name given to the principles of internal organization used by Leninist political parties, and the term is sometimes used as a synonym for any Leninist policy inside a political party...

     – organizational method where members of a political party discuss and debate matters of policy and direction and after the decision is made by majority vote, all members are expected to follow that decision in public.
  • Democratic dictatorship (Also known as democratur) –
  • Direct democracy
    Direct democracy
    Direct democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...

     – implementations of democracy in more pure forms; classically termed pure democracy.
    • Athenian democracy
      Athenian democracy
      Athenian democracy developed in the Greek city-state of Athens, comprising the central city-state of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, around 508 BC. Athens is one of the first known democracies. Other Greek cities set up democracies, and even though most followed an Athenian model,...

       (also classical democracy) – developed in ancient times in the Greek city-state of Athens.
    • E-democracy
      E-democracy
      E-democracy refers to the use of information technologies and communication technologies and strategies in political and governance processes...

       – comprises the use of electronic communications technologies, such as the Internet, in enhancing democratic processes within a democratic republic or representative democracy.
  • Economic democracy
    Economic democracy
    Economic democracy is a socioeconomic philosophy that suggests a shift in decision-making power from a small minority of corporate shareholders to a larger majority of public stakeholders...

     – theory of democracy involving people having access to subsistence, or equity in living standards.
  • Emergent democracy
    Emergent democracy
    Emergent democracy refers to the rise of political structures and behaviors without central planning and by the action of many individual participants, especially when mediated by the Internet...

     – social system in which blogging undermines mainstream media.
  • Grassroots democracy
    Grassroots democracy
    Grassroots democracy is a tendency towards designing political processes where as much decision-making authority as practical is shifted to the organization's lowest geographic level of organization: principle of subsidiarity....

     – emphasizes trust in small decentralized units at the municipal government level, possibly using urban secession to establish the formal legal authority to make decisions made at this local level binding.
  • Illiberal democracy
    Illiberal democracy
    An illiberal democracy, also called a pseudo democracy, partial democracy, low intensity democracy, empty democracy, hybrid regime or delegative democracy, is a governing system in which, although elections take place, citizens are cut off from knowledge about the activities of those who exercise...

     – has weak or no limits on the power of the elected representatives to rule as they please.
  • Interactive Democracy
    Interactive Democracy
    Interactive democracy advocates the use of information technology to develop current democratic systems of government in order to give the electorate greater involvement. It is in part a development of the ePetition systems that are operating at various levels of government Interactive democracy...

     – proposed form of democracy utilising information technology to allow citizens to propose new policies, "second" proposals and vote on the resulting laws (that are refined by Parliament) in a referendum.
  • Intra-Party Democracy – democratic process within a one party state government. This debated among scholars if the Chinese Communist Party resemble this process during leadership transitions.
  • Jeffersonian democracy
    Jeffersonian democracy
    Jeffersonian Democracy, so named after its leading advocate Thomas Jefferson, is a term used to describe one of two dominant political outlooks and movements in the United States from the 1790s to the 1820s. The term was commonly used to refer to the Democratic-Republican Party which Jefferson...

     – named after American statesman Thomas Jefferson.
  • Liberal democracy
    Liberal democracy
    Liberal democracy, also known as constitutional democracy, is a common form of representative democracy. According to the principles of liberal democracy, elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive...

     – representative democracy with protection for individual liberty and property by rule of law.
  • Market democracy – another name for democratic capitalism
    Democratic capitalism
    Democratic capitalism, also known as capitalist democracy, is a political, economic, and social system and ideology based on a tripartite arrangement of a market-based economy based predominantly on a democratic polity, economic incentives through free markets, fiscal responsibility and a liberal...

    , an economic ideology based on a tripartite arrangement of a market-based economy based predominantly on economic incentives through free markets, a democratic polity and a liberal moral-cultural system which encourages pluralism.
  • Multiparty democracy – two-party system requires voters to align themselves in large blocs, sometimes so large that they cannot agree on any overarching principles.
  • New Democracy
    New Democracy
    New Democracy or the New Democratic Revolution is a Maoist concept based on Mao Zedong's "Bloc of Four Social Classes" theory during post-revolutionary China which argues that democracy in China will take a decisively distinct path from either the liberal capitalist and/or parliamentary democratic...

     – Maoist concept based on Mao Zedong
    Mao Zedong
    Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...

    's "Bloc of Four Classes" theory in post-revolutionary China.
  • Non-partisan democracy
    Non-partisan democracy
    Nonpartisan democracy is a system of representative government or organization such that universal and periodic elections take place without reference to political parties.-Overview:...

     – system of representative government or organization such that universal and periodic elections (by secret ballot) take place without reference to political parties.
  • Open Democratic – sytem where the public decides how they should be governed and having power to continuously improving the system.
  • Participatory democracy
    Participatory democracy
    Participatory Democracy, also known as Deliberative Democracy, Direct Democracy and Real Democracy , is a process where political decisions are made directly by regular people...

     – involves consent or consensus decision making and offers greater political representation, e.g., wider control of proxies others trust them with, to those who get directly involved and actually participate.
  • Popular democracy
    Popular democracy
    Popular democracy is a notion of direct democracy based on referendums and other devices of empowerment and concretization of popular will. The concept evolved out of the political philosophy of Populism, as a fully democratic version of this popular empowerment ideology, but since it has become...

     –
  • Radical democracy
    Radical democracy
    Radical democracy as an ideology was articulated by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe in their book Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, written in 1985. They argue that social movements which attempt to create social and political change need a strategy which...

     – type of democracy that focuses on the importance of nurturing and tolerating difference and dissent in decision-making processes.
  • Religious democracy
    Religious democracy
    Religious democracy is a form of government where the values of a particular religion have an effect on the laws and rules, often when most of the population is a member of the religion...

     – values of religion play a role in the public arena in a society populated by religious people.
  • Representative democracy
    Representative democracy
    Representative democracy is a form of government founded on the principle of elected individuals representing the people, as opposed to autocracy and direct democracy...

     – indirect democracy where sovereignty is held by the people's representatives.
    • Dominant-party system
      Dominant-party system
      A dominant-party system, or one-party dominant system, is a system where there is "a category of parties/political organizations that have successively won election victories and whose future defeat cannot be envisaged or is unlikely for the foreseeable future." A wide range of parties have been...

       – democratic party system where only one political party can realistically become the government, by itself or in a coalition government.
    • Parliamentary democracy
      Parliamentary system
      A parliamentary system is a system of government in which the ministers of the executive branch get their democratic legitimacy from the legislature and are accountable to that body, such that the executive and legislative branches are intertwined....

       – democratic system of government where the executive branch of a parliamentary government is typically a cabinet, and headed by a prime minister who is considered the head of government.
      • Westminster democracy – parliamentary system of government modeled after that of the United Kingdom system.
    • Republican democracy
      Republican democracy
      A republican democracy is a republic which has democratic forms of government. One of the key principles is free and open debate prior to casting a vote. A republic in the modern understanding is a nation or state where the people are sovereign. It is not a monarchy, where the king or queen is the...

       – republic
      Republic
      A republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people. In modern times, a common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of...

       which has democracy through elected representatives
      • Jacksonian democracy
        Jacksonian democracy
        Jacksonian democracy is the political movement toward greater democracy for the common man typified by American politician Andrew Jackson and his supporters. Jackson's policies followed the era of Jeffersonian democracy which dominated the previous political era. The Democratic-Republican Party of...

         – form of democracy popularized by President Andrew Jackson promoted the strength of the executive branch and the Presidency at the expense of Congressional power.
    • Soviet democracy
      Soviet democracy
      Soviet democracy or sometimes council democracy is a form of democracy in which workers' councils called "soviets" , consisting of worker-elected delegates, form organs of power possessing both legislative and executive power. The soviets begin at the local level and onto a national parliament-like...

       or Council democracy – form of democracy where the workers of a locality elect recallable representatives into organs of power called soviets (councils.) The local soviets elect the members of regional soviets who go on to elect higher soviets.
    • Totalitarian democracy
      Totalitarian democracy
      Totalitarian democracy is a term made famous by Israeli historian J. L. Talmon to refer to a system of government in which lawfully elected representatives maintain the integrity of a nation state whose citizens, while granted the right to vote, have little or no participation in the...

       – system of government in which lawfully elected representatives maintain the integrity of a nation state whose citizens, while granted the right to vote, have little or no participation in the decision-making process of the government.
  • Social democracy
    Social democracy
    Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...

     – political philosophy that calls upon government to be for the people. In contrast to Socialists, modern Social Democrats do not believe in nationalizing industry
  • Sociocracy
    Sociocracy
    Sociocracy is a system of governance, using consent-based decision making among equivalent individuals and an organizational structure based on cybernetic principles...

     – democratic system of governance based on consent decision making, circle organization, and double-linked representation.
  • Sortition
    Sortition
    In politics, sortition is the selection of decision makers by lottery. The decision-makers are chosen as a random sample from a larger pool of candidates....

     – democratic method of choosing political and administrative officials, advocated by Aristotle, and used in classical Athens and Venice, which is based on the drawing of lots as opposed to election by vote.

Elections

  • Allotment
    Sortition
    In politics, sortition is the selection of decision makers by lottery. The decision-makers are chosen as a random sample from a larger pool of candidates....

  • By-election
    By-election
    A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....

  • Electoral fraud
    Electoral fraud
    Electoral fraud is illegal interference with the process of an election. Acts of fraud affect vote counts to bring about an election result, whether by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates or both...

    • Show election
      Show election
      A show election, also known as a sham election or rubber stamp election, is an election that is held purely for show, that is, without any significant political purpose...

  • Elective rights
    Elective rights
    Two central issues for democracies are the right to candidate, and suffrage or the franchise—that is, the decision as to who is entitled to vote. For example, Athenian democracy limited the vote to male citizens, while slaves, foreigners, and women of any status were excluded. Requirements...

  • Referendum
    Referendum
    A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...

  • Gerrymandering
    Gerrymandering
    In the process of setting electoral districts, gerrymandering is a practice that attempts to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating geographic boundaries to create partisan, incumbent-protected districts...

  • Redistricting
    Redistricting
    Redistricting is the process of drawing United States electoral district boundaries, often in response to population changes determined by the results of the decennial census. In 36 states, the state legislature has primary responsibility for creating a redistricting plan, in many cases subject to...

  • Types of elections
    • Fixed-term election
      Fixed-term election
      A Fixed-term election is an election that occurs on a set date, and cannot be changed by the incumbent politician.Fixed-term elections are common for most mayors and for directly elected governors and presidents, but less common for prime ministers and parliaments in a parliamentary system of...

    • General election
      General election
      In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...

    • Indirect election
      Indirect election
      Indirect election is a process in which voters in an election don't actually choose between candidates for an office but rather elect persons who will then make the choice. It is one of the oldest form of elections and is still used today for many upper houses and presidents...

    • Local election
      Local election
      Local elections vary widely across jurisdictions. In electoral systems that roughly follow the Westminster model, a terminology has evolved with roles such as Mayor or Warden to describe the executive of a city, town or region, although the actual means of elections vary...

  • Voting
    Voting
    Voting is a method for a group such as a meeting or an electorate to make a decision or express an opinion—often following discussions, debates, or election campaigns. It is often found in democracies and republics.- Reasons for voting :...

    • Crossover voting
      Crossover voting
      In open primary elections in the United States, crossover voting refers to a behavior in which voters who normally participate in the primary of one party instead vote in the primary of another party...

    • One vote one value
      One vote one value
      In Australia, one vote one value is a legislative principle of democracy whereby each electorate has the same population within a specified percentage of variance. In the case of the Commonwealth, the maximum variance for the House of Representatives is 10% above or below the mean...

    • Right of foreigners to vote
      Right of foreigners to vote
      Suffrage, the right to vote in a particular country, generally derives from citizenship. In most countries, the right to vote is reserved to those who possess the citizenship of the country in question. Some countries, however, have extended suffrage rights to non-citizens...

    • Suffrage
      Suffrage
      Suffrage, political franchise, or simply the franchise, distinct from mere voting rights, is the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process...

      • Universal suffrage
        Universal suffrage
        Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...

    • Voting system
      Voting system
      A voting system or electoral system is a method by which voters make a choice between options, often in an election or on a policy referendum....

      s
      • Proxy voting
        Proxy voting
        Proxy voting has two forms: delegable voting and delegated voting, which are procedures for the delegation to another member of a voting body of that member's power to vote in his absence, and/or for the selection of additional representatives, as in the case with transitive proxies...

      • Secret ballot
        Secret ballot
        The secret ballot is a voting method in which a voter's choices in an election or a referendum are anonymous. The key aim is to ensure the voter records a sincere choice by forestalling attempts to influence the voter by intimidation or bribery. The system is one means of achieving the goal of...

  • Elections by country
    Elections by country
    Elections by country gives information on elections. For each de jure and de facto sovereign state and dependent territory an article on elections in that entity has been included and information on the way the head of state and the parliament or legislature is elected. The articles include the...

  • Elections by date

Democratic concepts

  • Accountability
    Accountability
    Accountability is a concept in ethics and governance with several meanings. It is often used synonymously with such concepts as responsibility, answerability, blameworthiness, liability, and other terms associated with the expectation of account-giving...

  • Anticipatory exclusion
    Anticipatory exclusion
    Anticipatory exclusion refers to a citizen's decision not to attend a discussion due to the anticipation of being excluded. The citizen would never take part in a discussion because he/she believes that his/her views and perspectives wouldn’t be given equal time or consideration, when compared to...

  • Compositing (democracy)
    Compositing (democracy)
    In deliberative procedure, compositing is the process of combining several motions into one composite motion.The process of compositing motions may be desirable for two reasons. First, it can save the time of an assembly by avoiding presenting two or more similar motions...

  • Democratic capitalism
    Democratic capitalism
    Democratic capitalism, also known as capitalist democracy, is a political, economic, and social system and ideology based on a tripartite arrangement of a market-based economy based predominantly on a democratic polity, economic incentives through free markets, fiscal responsibility and a liberal...

  • Democratic education
    Democratic education
    Democratic education is a theory of learning and school governance in which students and staff participate freely and equally in a school democracy...

  • Democratic consolidation
    Democratic consolidation
    Democratic consolidation is the process by which a new democracy matures, in a way that means it is unlikely to revert to authoritarianism without an external shock...

  • Democratic deficit
    Democratic deficit
    A democratic deficit is considered to be occurring when ostensibly democratic organizations or institutions are seen to be falling short of fulfilling the principles of the parliamentary democracy in their practices or operation where representative and linked parliamentary integrity becomes...

  • Democratic ideals
    Democratic Ideals
    Democratic Ideals is a rhetorical phrase used to denote either personal qualities or standards of government behavior that are felt to be essential for the continuation of a democratic policy...

  • Democratic structuring
    Democratic structuring
    The principles of democratic structuring were defined by Jo Freeman in "The Tyranny of Structurelessness", first delivered as a talk in 1970, later published in the Berkeley Journal of Sociology in 1972. They were influential in power network theories, especially those challenging a single command...

  • Democratization
    Democratization
    Democratization is the transition to a more democratic political regime. It may be the transition from an authoritarian regime to a full democracy, a transition from an authoritarian political system to a semi-democracy or transition from a semi-authoritarian political system to a democratic...

  • Deviation from proportionality
    Deviation from proportionality
    The main function of deviation from proportionality is to denote the proportion of malapointment in a democratic process. The idea is basically a mathematical relationship between the percentage of votes obtained by a political party and the percentage of parliamentary seats allocated to it.To...

  • Direct representation
    Direct representation
    Direct representation or proxy representation is a proposed form of representative democracy where each representative's vote is weighted in proportion to the number of citizens who have chosen that candidate to represent them...

  • E-participation
    E-participation
    e-participation is the generally accepted term referring to "ICT-supported participation in processes involved in government and governance". Processes may concern administration, service delivery, decision making and policy making...

  • Tyranny of the majority
    Tyranny of the majority
    The phrase "tyranny of the majority" , used in discussing systems of democracy and majority rule, is a criticism of the scenario in which decisions made by a majority under that system would place that majority's interests so far above a dissenting individual's interest that the individual would be...

  • Virtual representation
    Virtual representation
    In the early stages of the American Revolution, colonists in the Thirteen Colonies rejected legislation imposed upon them by the British Parliament because the colonies were not represented in Parliament. According to the British constitution, colonists argued, taxes could only be levied on British...


History of democracy

Main article: History of democracy
History of democracy
The history of democracy traces back to Athens to its re-emergence and rise from the 17th century to the present day. According to one definition, democracy is a political system in which all the members of the society have an equal share of formal political power...


  • Federalist Papers
    Federalist Papers
    The Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles or essays promoting the ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between October 1787 and August 1788...

  • Potsdam Declaration
    Potsdam Declaration
    The Potsdam Declaration or the Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender is a statement calling for the Surrender of Japan in World War II. On July 26, 1945, United States President Harry S...

  • Third Wave Democracy
    Third Wave Democracy
    In political science, Third Wave Democracy, also known as Democracy's Third Wave, refers to the third major surge of democracy in history. The term was coined by Samuel P...

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