Democracy Throughout the World

From the early 1840s to the present day, a democracy can be described as a flawed establishment which has been shaped by the power of wealth and control, complex social relations, and most importantly the people’s desire to live a fulfilling life. Throughout this time period the principles of democracy, such as equality, protection of the people’s interest, and promotion of human rights were shifting in order to increase the democracy efficiency. Therefore the continued importance of the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and Constitution remain significant since, in American today, democracy is a system that is continuously being shaped by the people within it.

Abraham Lincoln (2005) defined modern democracy in three-part as “government of the people”, “government by the people” and “government for the people”. Democracy started in Greek around 500 B.C. with the simple meaning of people with power, nowadays democracy could be separate into two forms the direct democracy and the representative democracy. In this essay, I will argue that democracy is in crisis from the following aspect, fail of the direct democracy, the decline of representative democracy and the eroded right.

Since the beginning of American Democracy it has been morphed from the founder’s format. With all its changes, it still functions as a well-constructed form of democracy that supports our nation. American democracy has both strengths and weaknesses. Government spending or over-spending is a core issue facing our nation in these economically troubled times. There are many points to be addressed regarding American government today.

The authors also argue that the greatness of the government driven by democracy is the right to

The ultimate goal of our constitutional order is not merely to produce democratic procedures but a democratic culture; a culture in which all citizens can participate and feel they have a stake, a culture in which unjust social privileges and status hierarchies have been disestablished. Democracy is more than a matter of fair legal process. It is a feature of social organization, of social structure. Democracy inheres not only in procedural mechanisms like universal suffrage but in cultural modes like dress, language, manners and behavior. Political egalitarianism must be nourished by cultural egalitarianism. A culture of democracy must include both legal rights and institutions as well as cultural predicates for the

Democracy as a form of government is usually exposed to different understanding, interpretations and even definitions. For some it is the solution and for others it is a problem. It is a term that is a fundamentally disputed concept—a concept that is at the heart of endless debates that although are not settled by any kind of argument, are nevertheless continued by all sorts of scholarly evidence. Democracy is a disputed concept because nearly everyone values the “ideal”, yet there are different legitimate but also incompatible criteria for judging whether the ideal is actually one to strive towards. In a perfect world, we as comparative thinkers would use concepts that reflect the uniqueness of each country and yet are simple enough to be relevant and measurable in every country. In reality and practice, the difficulty of gathering political information usually prevents scholars from achieving these goals so we tend to settle on concepts that focus on characteristics of democracy like Robert Dahl in his book, On Democracy, and Sheldon Wolin in his articles “Fugitive Democracy” and “Norm and Form”. These scholars lead us to question why

Liberal democracy is prevalent in the West. This political arrangement guarantees the rights of a people in relation to their government. Many Westerners, unfortunately, cannot give a philosophical explanation and/or justification for it. Ultimately, an examination of liberal democracy will demonstrate that it rests on notions of human dignity, equality and happiness, which are not recent developments in philosophy, but have their origins in classical and scholastic thought. It is in said examination that one can reasonably conclude that liberal democracy while not the best system of government is certainly better than the alternatives.

The general understanding of democracy is that it is a state of leadership where citizens of a country participate equally either directly or by representative individuals in the establishment of laws, which run the society. However, like many other forms of leadership, democracy has its cons and may not give the citizens the necessary freedoms that they think they have. Different philosophers have different insights on democracy in terms of concepts such as liberty, which they embraced. This paper will look at Benjamin Barber and Joseph Schumpeter’s idea of democracy contrasting their definition in terms of citizenship, obligation, rights and duties of each individual in the society declaring whose idea of democracy creates a compelling vision (Terchek & Conte, 2001).

Democracy is a unique type of government, and the purpose of this essay is to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses that a democratic government provides. I will detail that many components of this type of society are both strengths and weakness as each component has beneficial aspects as well as unavoidable pitfalls.

For approximately two thousand five hundred years, democracy, a government ruled by the vote of citizens, has played a vital role in world politics. The preferred political system of free peoples throughout the world, democracy originated on the streets of Athens and became ingrained in Greek society. In five hundred and eight B.C., Cleisthenes, an Athenian ruler, had reformed a government ruled by the people; thus, he established the world's first democracy. Since the time of Cleisthenes, democracy evolved into a powerful political system and influenced western political thought through the various stages of Greco/Roman philosophies, ethical Judeo/Christian teachings, and reforms in Feudalist England

Democracy, as a political value, has widely acknowledged on this day and practice democracy became a world trend. The governments of the world regard democracy as the most important political goal, so that there were no more governments dare to claim to reject democracy. As the pursuit of the ideal life and rational design, democracy adapted the people's demands for rights and freedom, appearing on the significance of the political legitimacy. The democratic realisation is sharing the public power and interest. There are two main approaches to realise the democracy they are the direct democracy and representative democracies. In this thesis, the author focuses on the representative democracy only. The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the

Immanuel Kant—the father of Liberal Internationalism—envisioned a world not torn by hostilities and fraught with the horrors of war. Instead he aspired to a higher level of existence— an existence to be obtained through democracy and free market capitalism, to be regulated by a hierarchy, to maintain sovereignty. Kant’s vision of a league of peace—a treaty to end all wars forever, so to speak—has yet to be accomplished. These hopes for a perpetual peace taunt and mock those in the international field and will continue to do so forever, in light of the improbability that such a level will be attained. Though democratization and globalization have yielded many positive outcomes, it is

Democracy is described as a form of government in which the supreme power is retained by the people, but which is usually exercised indirectly through a system of representation and delegated authority periodically renewed (Melina, 2011). People who take place in a democracy feel they can be part of the solution. Citizens who are involved feel a sense of involvement. Citizens can show their support by posting signs in their yard and/or campaigning to others on why they feel their candidates is the best for their community and/or country. People feel involved when they can express how they feel in the voter’s booth come election time. Some countries do not have the right to vote and others exclude certain groups or individuals from voting.

Winston Churchill once remarked that “democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried”. In agreement with his statement, this paper will examine the problems of democratic governments using specific examples, and compare it to the failure of fascist governments in Nazi Germany and Italy and communist governments in the Soviet Union and China.

Nowadays, there are countless structures of government in the world, some of which are just on paper, others are functioning, but between all the forms of government structures, the best of all, which has been verified and trusted for eras, is democracy just as Ronald Reagan said; ‘it is the most deeply honourable form of government ever