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Importance Of Democracy

Decent Essays

There are varying definitions of what democracy is, but the general idea is that a democracy is a governmental system where there is high and active political participation from all people who live in that country, this political participation involves electing a government with fair elections. A democracy should also give equality and freedom to all of its citizens. In this essay, I will discuss how democracy has changed over time and how definitions differ, then, I will look at theories that explain why a democracy may be more peaceful. Following this, I will begin to examine what the title of this essay actually questions and give contextual examples to do so. I will finally conclude by giving my response to the question “Are democracies more peaceful?”.

The first democracy was seen in Athens, Ancient Greece in the year 507 B.C by the leader Cleisthenes with his system of reforms called “Demokratia” which translates to “rule of the people”. Although this system allowed more than just high society to vote, out of all the people in Athens, only 40,000 were allowed to vote, those being male citizens who were part of the “demos” and aged over 18 . This is evidently different to the democracy we see today, particularly in western nations, for example, the United Kingdom has been a democracy arguably since the introduction of the Representation of the Peoples Acts in 1918 which permitted women to vote, and then the modification in 1928 which allowed all men and women over

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