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Definition: democracy from Collins English Dictionary

n pl -cies

1 government by the people or their elected representatives

2 a political or social unit governed ultimately by all its members

3 the practice or spirit of social equality

4 a social condition of classlessness and equality

5 the common people, esp as a political force

[C16: from French démocratie, from Late Latin dēmocratia, from Greek dēmokratia government by the people; see demo-, -cracy]


Democracy

From Encyclopedia of Political Theory
Democracy is a form of collective decision making that presupposes some form of equality among the participants. The term is used empirically and normatively, often simultaneously. It is often used to describe or distinguish one kind of political regime from another. A democratic system, for example, is one in which there are procedures and institutions for capturing the views of citizens and translating them into binding decisions. At the same time, however, these empirical descriptions often contain within them normative claims about the way institutions ought to be structured or behave. Thus, it can be said that one society (whether now or in the past) is more (or less) democratic than another. The ideal of equality is particularly important to the normative evaluation of democracy. A democratic political system, on this view, is one that manifests in its institutions and procedures a conception of its members as free and equal and thus owed equal respect. If we look to the Greek…
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Full text Article Parliament

From Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Political Thought
A term often used for institutions of consultative government, but here discussed as the name of the institution of government by bicameral representation in the UK, which has evolved continuously since the eleventh century and which has been taken as a model by many other states ( see Westminster…
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Full text Article democracy

From Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology
Derived from the Greek terms demos (the people) and kratos (power), democracy usually describes a form of political rule that is justified and exercised by the people for the benefit of the people. Democracy is a model of government that can apply to different types of political communities and…
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Full text Article Democracy

From World of Sociology, Gale
The U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C.,...
Democracy in sociological usage refers most broadly to a regime of popular rule and is generally contrasted with authoritarian systems or regimes. Unlike political science, sociology never developed a particular sub-area exclusively focused on the study of democracy. Rather, the study of democracy…
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Full text Article democracy

From Political Philosophy A-Z
Democracy is a system of government in which the people (Greek ‘demos’) rule. Its origins lie in fifth-century Athens, the first democracy, where decisions were taken by a variety of democratic methods, including assemblies and the drawing of lots. A number of different models of democracy can be…
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Full text Article democracy

From The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology
In ancient Greek society, democracy meant rule by the citizens as opposed to rule by a tyrant or aristocracy. In modern democracies, citizens do not rule directly, but typically elect representatives to a parliament by means of a competitive political party system. Democracy in this sense is often…
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Full text Article democracy

From Philip's Encyclopedia
(Gk. demos kratia , 'people authority') Rule of the people, as opposed to rule by one (autocracy) or a few (oligarchy). Ancient Greece is regarded as the birthplace of democracy, in particular Athens (5th century BC). Small Greek city-states enabled direct political participation, but only among its…
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Democracy means literally ‘government by the populace at large’. It comes via Old French democratie and medieval Latin dēmocraţia from Greek dēmokratíā , a compound formed from demos ‘people’ and -kratíā ‘rule’, a derivative of the noun krátos ‘power, authority’, which has contributed a number of…
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Full text Article democracy

From Encyclopedia of American Government and Civics
In the modern age, the word democracy has become so universally honorific a term that it has, for the most part, become almost devoid of meaning. If virtually all governments claim to be democratic or based on democratic principles, then what does democracy mean and what can it mean? In becoming a…
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Full text Article democracy

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
[Gr.,=rule of the people], term originating in ancient Greece to designate a government where the people share in directing the activities of the state, as distinct from governments controlled by a single class, select group, or autocrat. The definition of democracy has been expanded, however, to…
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Full text Article Democracy

From Encyclopedia of American Studies
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Susan...
Although the United States proclaims itself a democracy, the concept has had a contentious history in America. In the colonial era it had distinctly negative connotations. The Boston Puritan minister John Cotton, firmly d... …
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