Understanding Democracy A Hip Pocket Guide Annenberg Classroom

This guide, written by John J. Patrick, explains the core concepts of democracy in a clear A-Z format. This guide, written by John J. Patrick, explains the core concepts of democracy in a clear A-Z format. The complete book is available for download. We live in an era of democracy.

A majority of the world’s people live in countries with a democratic form of government, and many others desire democracy. This is a startling new development. During most of the 20th century, there was mortal conflict between democracy and its rivals, and the nondemocratic side often seemed to be winning the struggle. In 1920, for example, there were only 15 democracies in the world, and at mid-century fewer than one-third of the world’s people lived in the 22 established democratic countries. By the end of the 20th century, however, democracy was ascendant; nearly two-thirds of the world’s people lived in the more than one hundred countries with a democratic form of government. The global advancement of democracy has continued into the 21st century.

What exactly is democracy? When and where did it begin? What are the differences between democracy in ancient and modern times? How do we know the difference between democracy and non-democracy today? What is the universal problem of good government in a democracy? What are arguments for and against democracy?

And why do citizens of a democracy need to know exactly what it is and is not? Although democracy is newly resurgent, it is an old idea. More than 2,500 years ago in Athens and other cities of Greece (Hellas), there was rule (kratia) by the people (demos). Democracy (demokratia), or rule by the people, was an alternative to such traditional governments as monarchy, rule by one, and oligarchy, rule by the few. In the first democracies, citizens made and enforced the laws for their small republic, the polis or community of the city. There was majority rule by the citizens, the people of the polis who participated directly in their assembly, the lawmaking body.

The status of citizen, however, was restricted to free males of Greek descent, a minority of the population. Women and slaves could not be citizens, and only a small number of non-Greek males ever were granted the privilege of citizenship. Ancient Greek democracy afforded citizens equal rights to participate directly in governance for the common good of their community. The claims of the community upon the person, however, were primary and superior to the claims of the person upon the community. A good citizen was expected to serve unconditionally the interests of the city-community, especially to defend its freedom and independence against the threat of foreign domination. Crick, Bernard.

Democracy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2002. Dahl, Robert A. On Democracy. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998. Gordon, Scott.

Controlling the State: Constitutionalism from Ancient Athens to Today. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999. Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, and John Jay. The Federalist. Ed. Charles Kessler and Clinton Rossiter.

New York: Mentor, 1999. Huntington, Samuel P. The Third Wave: Democracy in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991. A democracy depends upon the competent participation of its citizens in government and civil society. This can only happen when the people are educated for citizenship in a democracy.

Therefore, all democratic countries provide formal and informal opportunities for civic education, or teaching and learning about citizenship. Formal civic education is carried out through the curriculum of schools, and informal civic education occurs through the interaction of individuals in various societal organizations. Civic education is teaching the knowledge, skills, and virtues needed for competent citizenship in a democracy. Unlike despotic forms of government, in which the people are merely passive receivers of orders from their rulers, democracy involves a significant measure of independent thinking and popular decision making. A democracy cannot be maintained unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to carry out certain duties and responsibilities of a self-governing people, such as voting intelligently, communicating effectively about public issues, cooperating with others... Wherever in the world democracy exists, schools are expected to prepare students for citizenship through civic education.

The society outside the school also provides lifelong opportunities for civic education through the mass media and by participation in community service organizations and political parties. The primary component of civic education is imparting the knowledge needed for citizens’ informed participation in their democracy. Informed citizens have basic knowledge of such subjects as history, economics, geography, and government or political science. They comprehend core concepts of democracy, the constitution and institutions of democracy in their own country, and public issues in the past and present pertaining to the practice of democracy. The second component of civic education is developing the intellectual and practical skills that enable citizens to use knowledge effectively as they act individually and collectively in the public life of their democracy. These skills include the capacities of citizens to read, write, and speak effectively; to think critically; to make and defend sound judgments about public issues.

Skills of thinking and participating, in combination with civic knowledge, enable citizens with common interests to influence the decisions of their representatives in government. The common good (sometimes called the public good) may refer to the collective welfare of the community. It also may refer to the individual welfare of each person in the community. A communitarian view of the common good in a democracy is equated with the collective or general welfare of the people as a whole. The well-being of the entire community is considered to be greater than the sum of its parts, and the exemplary citizen is willing to sacrifice personal interests or resources for the good of the... The good of the country or the community is always placed above the personal or private interests of particular groups or individuals.

From this communitarian perspective, the ultimate expression of the common good is the elevation of public or community interests above private or individual interests. When viewed individualistically, however, the common good is based on the well-being of each person in the community. In a democracy, the government is expected to establish conditions of liberty and order that enable each person to seek fulfillment and happiness on his or her own terms. The exemplary citizen respects and defends the individual rights of each person in the expectation of reciprocity from others. From the perspective of individualism, the ultimate achievement of the common good is when the rights of each person in the community are protected and enjoyed equally. In most democracies of our world today, both the communitarian and individualistic conceptions of the common good are expressed and somehow combined.

In particular countries, however, there usually is a tendency to favor one idea of the common good more than the other. In the United States, for example, the individual interest model of the common or public good tends to prevail. By contrast, in Japan and Poland for example, the collective sense of public good is dominant. In these democracies, the general good of the community, and the people as a whole is usually considered to be more important than the interests or needs of any individual within that community. In every democracy of our world, there is some degree of tension—in some countries higher and in others lower—between the perceived rights and interests of individuals and the communitarian idea of a common good. In the second volume of Democracy in America, published in 1840, the French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about the necessity for citizens to blend personal and public interests in order to achieve...

Government is the institutional authority that rules a community of people. The primary purpose of government is to maintain order and stability so that people can live safely, productively, and happily. In a democracy, the source of a government’s authority is the people, the collective body of citizens by and for whom the government is established. The ultimate goal of government in a democracy is to protect individual rights to liberty within conditions of order and stability. Every government exercises three main functions: making laws, executing or implementing laws, and interpreting and applying laws. These functions correspond to the legislative, executive, and judicial institutions and agencies of any government.

In an authentic democracy, the government is constitutional and limited. A constitution of the people, written by their representatives and approved directly or indirectly by them, restrains or harnesses the powers of government to make sure they are used only to secure the freedom... There are at least five means to limit the powers of government through a well-constructed constitution. First, the constitution can limit the government by enumerating or listing its powers. The government may not assume powers that are not listed or granted to it. Second, the legislative, executive, and judicial powers of government can be separated.

Different individuals and agencies in the government have responsibility for different functions and are granted constitutional authority to check and balance the exercise of power by others in order to prevent any person or... An independent judiciary that can declare null and void an act of the government it deems contrary to the constitution is an especially important means to prevent illegal use of power by any government... The legislature can use its powers of investigation and oversight to prevent excessive or corrupt actions by executive officials and agencies. Third, power can be decentralized throughout the society by some kind of federal system that enables the sharing of powers by national and local units of government. Widespread distribution of power to various individuals, groups, and institutions throughout a country can also be accomplished by constitutional protections of individuals’ rights to form and maintain the voluntary associations of civil society and...

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