Talk:Democracy

Rights and Freedoms

Democracy is about civil rights and personal freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and suffrage are some of the fundamental rights and freedoms in democracy. In democratic nations, life, liberty, and property cannot be taken away without legal cause. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these rights are Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness" -Constitution of the United States of America

Support-Bargaining

The theory of support-bargaining suggests that the systems of government recognised as 'democratic' are better understood as processes in which support is assembled in groups and organisations through support-bargaining. In political support-bargaining, parties formulate policies and proposals that will attract support. People give their support to parties in accordance with their acceptance or rejection of the policies and proposals on offer. An electoral system, understood as an artificial support-bargaining structure, is used to facilitate the emergence of a party with majority support in a legislature. In contrast with democratic theory, which has difficulty reconciling parties with popular rule, the theory gives a central role to political parties, as the most powerful agents of support-bargaining systems.

Support-bargaining theory also draws attention to the importance of finance for political parties. The assembly of support across a nation for the same policies involves substantial costs. Democratic theory has no understanding of parties and consequently no understanding of the importance of finance in political processes.

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Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was Merge. The material that was suggested to be transfered has been integrated under the heading of Democracy#Hybrid democracy.→Yaniv256 ^wind _roads 18:48, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

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I propose that Varieties of democracy be merged into Democracy. I think that the content in the Varieties of democracy article can easily be explained in the context of Democracy, and the Democracy article is of a reasonable size that the merging of Varieties of democracy will not cause any problems as far as article size or undue weight is concerned. →Yaniv256 ^talk _contribs 21:00, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

• Strong merge: So long as the information is preserved, I'm for this. In particular, I'd like to see the information in Varieties of democracy#Hybrid democracy receive its own subsection under Democracy#Forms, since the Democracy page does not currently include any information about hybrid democracy. Other relevant, sourced information in Varieties of democracy could be merged into the appropriate sections of Democracy#Forms, but I would want to avoid merging much of the substantive info into Outline of democracy#Types of democracy, since the outline page is supposed to be rather light on details. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 04:30, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Democracy Index tables

These tables should be alphabetized -- it's difficult to find a specific country. Also, tables are not the best way to present this data, columnized lists would be better. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:32, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Currently the order is according to the Democracy Index, but if you prefer alphabetic, be my guest. :) Moreover, if you dislike the idea of the table, I would not be offended if you just take it out, and would not revert. I am not so sure about the table myself, and thought just to give it a try. →Yaniv256 ^wind _roads 01:48, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

If they are in some specific order that the Index placed them in, that's fine, but a table doesn't give you any clue if it should be read down or across. Were the countries numbered? Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:52, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

They are ranked in the original publication and in our Democracy Index article. I put in captions to that effect. I am not sure I need to repeat the caption in the second table. Please correct me there if I am wrong. →Yaniv256 ^wind _roads 03:10, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

If you ask me, the list is ugly. →Yaniv256 ^wind _roads 03:17, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

It takes up less space than the table, and presents the order of the data unambiguosly. The table was unnecessary and ambiguous, even with your note at the bottom.

When I was preparing the list to replace the second table, I realized that taking that amount of information (country and ranking) directly from the Index was straying into WP:COPYVIO territory, so I've replaced it with an alphabetical listing of the countries in text form. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:44, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes. I acctually don't think that the ranking should be stressed at all, as it is just a number someone put together. The bigger issue for me is that we lost all the flags and links. This article serves mostly middle and high-school students, and for them I think color is very important. But, it is a matter of taste. If space is of concern we can always use a smaller font. Prototime, do you have a preference? →Yaniv256 ^wind _roads 03:54, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

The rankings are based on the scores which generate the index value, which determines what category the country falls into, so they're not irrelevant at all. The links are there, and the use of flags is generally deprecated -- and all of Wikipedia's artles are aimed at a general audience. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:04, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the use of flags being generally deprecated; scores of articles on Wikipedia use flags in conjunction with national or international subjects. See, for example, United Nations, Reactions to the September 11 attacks, and Syrian civil war, just to name a few of the numerous articles that use flags. While not of utmost importance, for consistency and aesthetic appeal, flags are appropriate and should probably be used in this article as well. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 02:02, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Please see WP:FLAGS and WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. While flag icons are by no means forbidden, the guidelines recommend that their use be severely limited. In this situation, the flag icon is mere decoration, because a picture of the flag of Norway does not convey any more information than the word "Norway" does -- in fact, it conveys less, because the word can exist on its own, but for the vast majority of people, the flag will have little or no meaning until the word gives it context. Because of this, the flag icon is simply a pretty decoration, with no encyclopedic value. Please don't restore the flag icons and make an issue out of it, because it's one that you will eventually lose: the tide is certainly running against the unnecessary use of flags icons. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:17, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Democracy-Repression Nexus and the Democracy Continuum

Democracy-repression nexus and democratic continuum don't appear to have articles. I'm wondering if they should be included in this article? or if they should have separate articles? or if they already exist under some other title? looking for advice.AnieHall (talk) 18:58, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Patriarchy

I had an edit removed for repeatedly adding "patriarchy" to types of governmental systems in the opening paragraphs to this article. I will summarize the debate so far. First, my edit was deleted because an editor said patriarchy is a social system, not a governmental system, so I added a source to the dictionary definition of patriarchy which says it is a type of governmental system. The edit was also removed because it was suggested that patriarchy was not part of the philosophical discussion of ancient Greece, so I added a source for Aristotle's discussion of patriarchy as a model of power distribution in society and government. Then I had the edit removed because the editor said that patriarchy is both a governmental system and a social system and also that it is already included in the term "oligarchy" that is mentioned in the article. The editor requested that I take this debate to the talk section, which I am respectfully doing, so I will address the last two reasons for deleting my edit. First, it is not a logical argument to say that because something is by definition both A AND B that you cannot cite it as and example of A. Patriarchy being both a social and governmental system does not effect the legitimacy of referencing it as a governmental system here. Why should it? That is a specious argument, in my opinion. Second, patriarchy is not a type of oligarchy for two reasons. Oligarchy is, specifically "rule of the few" and men, as a class, are nearly half the population. Also, if patriarchy is a type of oligarchy, then Athenian democracy was an oligarchy, because it was a patriarchy, which contradicts the meaning of the sentence in question, that democracy and oligarchy were in opposition in Athenian political philosophy. Obviously the Greeks did not think patriarchy was a type of oligarchy, as they did not see their society as an oligarchy and it was a patriarchy. The patriarchal nature of Athenian and Early American democracies are often left invisible in discussions of political theory. However, this is 2012, and this article should reflect the consciousness of today, not the biases of history. I want to stress that I am not adding bias, I am removing it. I was respectful enough to take this debate to the talk page when requested (even though I have repeatedly shown the evidence to refute the arguments of the editors who deleted my edits). In fact, I think the burden of proof should be on the editors who are deleting my edits, as I have supplied citations and proofs for my arguments, but the editors who deleted did not.Amyluna13 (talk) 02:01, 9 November 2012 (UTC)