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. Ideally, this includes equal (and more or less direct) participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law.

Nature of democracy

Main article: Democracy

Democracy can be described as a(n):

• Institution – structure or mechanism of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of individuals within a given human community. Institutions are identified with a social purpose and permanence, transcending individual human lives and intentions, and with the making and enforcing of rules governing cooperative human behavior.
  • Form of government – "government" refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized.

Essence of democracy

• Criticism of democracy – has always existed in democratic societies, with much of the criticism claiming that democracy is either economically inefficient, politically idealistic or morally corrupt.
• Majority rule – decision rule that selects alternatives which have a majority, that is, more than half the votes. It is the binary decision rule used most often in influential decision-making bodies, including the legislatures of democratic nations.

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.
• 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 – system 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 – application of democracy in all its forms (including voting systems, debates, democratic structuring, due process, adversarial process, systems of appeal, and so on) to the workplace.

Elections

• Election rules
  • Elective rights – include eligibility (the right to run for office, that is, the right to be a candidate), and suffrage (the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process).
    • Suffrage –
  • Voting –
    • Crossover voting –
    • One vote one value –
    • Right of foreigners to vote –
    • Suffrage –
      • Universal suffrage –
    • Voting system – s
      • Proxy voting –
      • Secret ballot –
• Electoral fraud – illegal interference with the process of an election. Acts of fraud affect vote counts to bring about an election result, whether by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates, or both. Also called voter fraud, the mechanisms involved include illegal voter registration, intimidation at polls and improper vote counting. What electoral fraud is under law varies from country to country.
  • Show election – election that is held purely for show, that is, without any significant political purpose. Show elections are a common event in dictatorial regimes that still feel the need to establish some element of public legitimacy. Also known as a "sham election" or "rubber stamp election".
• Referendum – direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of direct democracy.
• Redistricting –
  • Gerrymandering – manipulating geographic boundaries of electoral districts to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group in the form of partisan or incumbent-protected districts.
• Sortition – selection of decision makers by lottery. The decision-makers are chosen as a random sample from a larger pool of candidates. Also known as allotment or the drawing of lots.
• Types of elections
  • By-election – election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections. Occasionally also spelled "bye-election", and known in the United States and the Philippines as a "special election".
  • Fixed-term election –
  • General election –
  • Indirect election –
  • Local election –
• 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 –

See also

• Global Foundation for Democracy and Development (GFDD) –
• Fundación Global Democracia y Desarrollo (FUNGLODE) –
• Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor –
• Corsican Constitution –
• Democracy Index –
• Democracy promotion –
• Democracy Ranking –
• Democratic capitalism –
• Direct Action and Democracy Today –
• Education Index –
• Elections in Cuba –
• The End of History and the Last Man –
• Four boxes of liberty –
• Imperative mandate –
• Intercultural cities –
• International Centre for Democratic Transition –
• Islam and democracy –
• Isonomia –
• A Jewish and Democratic State –
• Kleroterion –
• List of wars between democracies –
• Mandate (politics) –
• Motion (democracy) –
• National Democratic Institute for International Affairs –
• United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship –
• Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy –
• Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights –
• Party of Internet Democracy –
• Penn, Schoen & Berland –
• Polity data series –
• Post-democracy –
• Potsdam Declaration –
• Public sphere –
• Ratification –
• Singaporean communitarianism –
• Synoecism –
• Tharwa Foundation –
• Theory of Deep Democracy –
• Trustee model of representation –
• Sarah Turner (journalist) –
• Venezuelan Communal Councils –
• Vox populi –
• Western European parliamentary model –
• Why Democracy? –
• Workplace democracy –
• World Bank's Inspection Panel –
• World Forum for Democratization in Asia –
• World on Fire –
• World Youth Movement for Democracy –
• Constitutional economics –
• Cosmopolitan democracy –
• Community of Democracies –
• Crowdsourcing –
• Democracy Index –
• Democracy Monument –
• Democracy promotion –
• Democratic Peace Theory –
• Democratization –
• Direct Action and Democracy Today –
• Direct democracy –
• E-democracy –
• Economic Democracy –
• Election –
• Empowered democracy –
• Foucault/Habermas debate –
• Freedom deficit –
• Freedom House –, Freedom in the World report
• Liberal democracy –
• List of direct democracy parties –
• List of types of democracy –
• Majority rule –
• Media democracy –
• Thomas Muir (political reformer) –
• Netocracy –
• Poll –
• Parliamentary democracy –
• Polyarchy –
• Sociocracy –
• Sortition –
• Subversion –
• Rule of law –
• Rule According to Higher Law –
• Voting –
• Absolute democracy –
• Bhutanese democracy –
• Christian democracy –
• Consensus democracy –
• Guided democracy –
• Interest group democracy –
• Messianic democracy –
• Non-representative democracy –
• Procedural democracy –
• Sectarian democracy –
• Sovereign democracy –
• Substantive democracy –
• Third Wave Democracy –