On democracy

We talk a lot about it, but what is it, exactly?

Democracy, by Midjourney.

These days there is a large volume of writings, podcasts, and what not being put out concerning the general concept of democracy, particularly in the United States, where it is (allegedly) in peril. Perhaps we need to step back a little and briefly explore what democracy is, how it evolved over time, and how it is practiced today, on the assumption that it’s always a good idea to gain some knowledge concerning whatever we are talking about before we step on our soapbox and start making more or less grand pronouncements.

What it is

To begin with, then, democracy is a system of government where political power ultimately derives from the people, who participate in decision-making either directly or through elected representatives. The core principle, then, is popular sovereignty—the idea that legitimate authority comes from the consent of the governed rather than from divine right, hereditary privilege, or force. In democratic countries, citizens have the right to participate in choosing their leaders and influencing policy decisions.

Thus understood, democracy is characterized by a number of key elements, which usually include the notion of political equality, whereby all citizens have equal voting rights and opportunities to participate, regardless of wealth, social status, or other characteristics. Often, but not always, majority rule is accompanied by minority rights, meaning that decisions are made based on what most people want, but certain fundamental rights of minorities are protected from the potential tyranny of the majority.

A democracy cannot be functional unless there are competitive elections, that is regular, free, and fair elections where multiple candidates or parties can compete for power. In the United States, for instance, the problem is that the Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that essentially unlimited amount of money can flow from private interest to election campaigns, thus severely undermining the notion of fair elections in the country and opening the floodgates to further corruption of the arguably already severely corrupted American electoral system.

It also makes no sense to talk about democracy unless there is a rule of law, so that everyone—including leaders—is subject to it. Again, the US has recently taken a turn for the worse, because the Supreme Court in 2024 did away with the “including leaders” clause as far as the President of the nation is concerned, thus undermining a major component of American democracy. (See timeline at the end of the article for more specifics concerning the US.)

A modern democracy typically also guarantees a certain number of civil liberties, including protection of basic freedoms like speech, assembly, and press, that enable meaningful political participation. Of course, what additional liberties are to be protected has been controversial in a number of countries, and this kind of discussion is very much central to the vitality and future of any democracy.

A bit of history

Democracy is largely, though not exclusively, a western concept, so there you have it, another thing to either blame or praise “the West” for. A quick historical survey shows that the earliest democracies in the world where the Roman Republic (founded in 509 BCE) and the Athenian one (founded a year later, in 508 BCE).

The two systems had fundamentally different approaches to democratic governance. Athens practiced direct democracy, where eligible citizens participated directly in the Assembly (Ecclesia), voting on laws and policies themselves. However, citizenship was notoriously limited—only free adult males born in Athens qualified, excluding women, slaves, and foreigners, who together made up most of the population. Rome, by contrast, was a representative republic where citizens elected officials to govern on their behalf. Roman citizenship was broader and more flexible, eventually extending to conquered peoples and allies, though it had different tiers with varying rights.

Although we often hear that democracy was born in Athens, this is not exactly the case either temporally or, more importantly, in terms of structure, since modern democratic states resemble the Roman Republic much more than ancient Athens. Moreover, the Athenian democracy was relatively short-lived (roughly 508-322 BCE) and geographically limited to the city-state of Athens and its immediate territory, while the Roman Republic lasted much longer (509-27 BCE) and applied to a vast territory, requiring more sophisticated administrative systems and accommodating diverse populations.

I’m not a historian, and certainly not an expert on the evolution of democracy, so take the following with a grain of salt. After the Roman and Athenian experiments, history does register a number of others. In rough chronological order we begin with the Venetian Republic (697-1797 CE), which had an elaborate electoral system for selecting the Doge (leader) and council members, though voting was limited to certain patrician families. The Icelandic Althing was established in 930 CE and is considered one of the world’s oldest parliamentary bodies, featuring a representative assembly of chieftains and free men. The Republic of Novgorod (Russia, 12th-15th centuries) developed a system where citizens elected officials and participated in a public assembly at about the same time that Medieval Swiss cantons (from the 13th century) established direct democratic systems with citizen assemblies making decisions through public voting. Also, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569-1795) featured a parliament with noble representatives and elected kings, though participation was limited to the nobility.

More recently, the Corsican Republic (1755-1769) adopted a democratic constitution with universal male suffrage before being annexed by France. After that, we enter into decidedly modern territory, beginning with the foundation of the United States of America in 1776, followed by the flourishing of a number of western democracies during the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as further expansion to Asian countries (where the countries ranking highest by democracy index are Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea), Central and South America (top countries by democracy index: Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Uruguay, and Jamaica), and Africa (top countries by democracy index: Cape Verde, Seychelles, and South Africa).

What about outside the western world before of the spread of western style democracies? One example was the Iroquois Confederacy (1450-1600) in North America, which established a sophisticated democratic system with elected chiefs, separation of powers, and processes for impeachment, while governance among the Pueblo peoples of the north American Southwest featured community councils and consensual decision-making processes.

The above should of course not be assumed to be anywhere near an exhaustive list, but should be enough to provide us with a sense of the history and cultural variety of democratic systems of government.

How it works

How do democracies function (when they do)? Here too there is an assortment of models. As we have seen, the original Athenian experiment was one in direct democracy, which involves each eligible citizen voting on laws and policies rather than electing representatives. Modern examples include referendums, ballot initiatives, and town hall meetings where everyone participates in decision-making. The downside of this is that, you know, you can easily condemn a Socrates to death that way.

More seriously, one issue with direct democracy is that it is next to impossible for uncoordinated groups of individuals to think strategically about the complexities of government and consequently articulate coherent long-term policies. California is a good example. It’s system of ballot initiatives is one modern application of direct democracy, but over the years it has resulted in a policy and economic mess. Why? Because people vote on individual measures without considering the broader context, which often means they vote to both reduce taxes and increase benefits. The two are in obvious tension and the cumulation of initiatives has constrained that state’s legislature, making it increasingly difficult to govern in a sensible manner.

One often hears of the Swiss system as a viable contemporary example of direct democracy, but things are a bit complicated. First of all, the system is actually a hybrid of direct and representative democracy—parliament and government still function, but major decisions face potential citizen override. Other than issues of low participation (around 40-50% turnout) and the potential for wealthy interests to influence outcomes through expensive campaigns, there are concerns—again—about the tyranny of the majority, as minority rights have sometimes been threatened, for instance in the cases of minaret construction by members of the Muslim minority and laws restricting immigration. Again, that’s because the complexity of most issues often exceeds what average citizens can reasonably evaluate. Moreover, and just as problematically, the Swiss system requires high levels of civic education and political stability to function effectively, arguably more so than in the case of representative democracies, to which I will turn next. Critics have argued that it can lead to inconsistent policies or prevent necessary but unpopular reforms.

The major alternative to the direct approach is representative democracy, whereby citizens elect officials to make decisions on their behalf, a descendant of the approach of the Roman Republic. This is by far the most common form today, with variations in how representatives are chosen and how much power they hold. One major set of variations concerns the trio of options that distinguishes parliamentary, presidential, and semi-presidential systems.

Parliamentary systems feature a legislature (the parliament) that selects the executive leader (the prime minister) from among its members. The executive depends on maintaining parliamentary support and can be removed through votes of no confidence. Examples include the UK, Canada, and Germany. By contrast, presidential systems have citizens directly elect both the legislature and a separate executive (the president) who serves for a fixed term. The executive and legislature branches operate independently, with reciprocal checks and balances. The United States exemplifies this model (and, currently, it ain’t working too well, as we’ve seen). There are also hybrid, so-called semi-presidential systems, which combine elements of both, with a directly elected president and a prime minister chosen by parliament. France and Russia use variations of this system, with obviously very different results.

There are two other major sets of variations among representative democracies that we should briefly examine. One is the difference between federal and unitary systems, which pertains to how power is distributed. Federal systems divide authority between national and regional governments (like the US or Germany), while unitary systems concentrate power at the national level (like France or the UK).