Outline of democracy

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

Democracy – form of government in which all people have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives.^[1] Ideally, this includes equal (and more or less direct) participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law.^[1]

Nature of democracy

Main article: Democracy

Democracy can be described as a(n):

• Institution
  • Form of government

Essence of democracy

• Criticism of democracy
• Majority rule

Types of democracy

Main article: Varieties of democracy

• Agonistic Pluralism – accepts conflict as inevitable and should be channeled in a productive way.
• Anticipatory democracy – 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 – type of democracy developed by economist Fred E. Foldvary, based on multi-level bottom-up structure based on either small neighborhood governmental districts or contractual communities.^[2]
• Constitutional democracy – democracy governed by a constitution.
• Defensive democracy – situation in which a democratic society has to limit some rights and freedoms in order to protect the institutions of the democracy.
• Delegative Democracy –
• Deliberative democracy – focuses on hearing out every policy alternative, from every direction, and providing time to research them all.
• Demarchy – 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 – 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 – implementations of democracy in more pure forms; classically termed pure democracy.
  • Athenian democracy (also classical democracy) – developed in ancient times in the Greek city-state of Athens.
  • E-democracy – comprises the use of electronic communications technologies, such as the Internet, in enhancing democratic processes within a democratic republic or representative democracy.
• Economic democracy – theory of democracy involving people having access to subsistence, or equity in living standards.
• Emergent democracy – social system in which blogging undermines mainstream media.
• Grassroots democracy – 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 – has weak or no limits on the power of the elected representatives to rule as they please.
• 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 – named after American statesman Thomas Jefferson.
• Liberal democracy – representative democracy with protection for individual liberty and property by rule of law.
• Market democracy – another name for democratic capitalism, 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 – Maoist concept based on Mao Zedong's "Bloc of Four Classes" theory in post-revolutionary China.
• Non-partisan democracy – 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 – 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 –
• Radical democracy – type of democracy that focuses on the importance of nurturing and tolerating difference and dissent in decision-making processes.
• Religious democracy – values of religion play a role in the public arena in a society populated by religious people.
• Representative democracy – indirect democracy where sovereignty is held by the people's representatives.
  • Dominant-party system – democratic party system where only one political party can realistically become the government, by itself or in a coalition government.
  • Parliamentary democracy – 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 – republic which has democracy through elected representatives
    • Jacksonian democracy – 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 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 – 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 – 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 – democratic system of governance based on consent decision making, circle organization, and double-linked representation.
• Sortition – 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.

Democratic process

• Workplace democracy

Elections

• Allotment
• By-election
• Electoral fraud
  • Show election
• Elective rights
• Referendum
• Gerrymandering
• Redistricting
• Types of elections
  • Fixed-term election
  • General election
  • Indirect election
  • Local election
• Voting
  • Crossover voting
  • One vote one value
  • Right of foreigners to vote
  • Suffrage
    • Universal suffrage
  • Voting systems
    • Proxy voting
    • Secret ballot
• Elections by country
• Elections by date

Democratic concepts

• Accountability
• Anticipatory exclusion
• Compositing (democracy)
• Democratic capitalism
• Democratic education
• Democratic consolidation
• Democratic deficit
• Democratic ideals
• Democratic structuring
• Democratization
• Deviation from proportionality
• Direct representation
• E-participation
• Tyranny of the majority
• Virtual representation

History of democracy

Main article: History of democracy

• Federalist Papers
• Potsdam Declaration
• Third Wave Democracy

Influential persons

See also

Democracy portal

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Larry Jay Diamond, Marc F. Plattner (2006). Electoral systems and democracy p.168. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.
2. ^ http://www.gmu.edu/jbc/fest/files/foldvary.htm

External links