Generally, democracy is a society or government ruled by the people or by popular sovereignty. The idea of popular government originated in the ancient Greek political thought of Athens. The word democracy derives from the Greek words demos ("people" or "many") and cracy ("ruled by" or "regime of"). Democratic government is the favored type of government in the modern period, and other forms of rule (such as monarchy--rule of one--or aristocracy--rule of a few) are considered illegitimate or inherently unjust. Almost all states in the 20th-century world (even communist and fascist) claimed to be democratic or a "republic." All nondemocratic states are considered dictatorial in this modern view.

Historically, however, Western political thought has not favored democratic styles of government. Plato and Aristotle often associated the rule of the many with the ignorant, impoverished masses, producing unjust, foolish government. For classical political theory, virtuous governing required qualified citizens, and most people would not be intellectually, morally, economically, and culturally prepared to rule wisely. So, a more elitist governing group was preferred (usually adult, male, wealthy, educated, experienced persons) by the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers. During the Middle Ages in Europe, St. Thomas Aquinas adopted this classical view that just government ruled for the "common good" but did not have to be democratic to do so.

The modern preference for democratic, republican government came from the British liberalism, which conceived of just government from the "consent of the governed." Any human possessed of reason and having an interest in social law should be allowed to participate in governing. John Locke's social contract view of the state is automatically democratic because every member of society has equal natural rights requiring state protection, is taxed to support that state, and therefore has a right to have a say in the laws governing him or her. From this modern liberal logic, the franchise, or right, to participate in governing through voting is properly extended to more and more individuals. The experience in the West has been to gradually expand the suffrage (voting) right to more citizens (women, the poor, minorities, the young, etc.).

Questions arise then over "who" is "the people" and "how" do they rule in a democracy. In the United States of America, a typical modern republic, citizenship has few requirements (basically being born or naturalized in the country, being at least 18 years old, and not being mentally ill or in prison). The purpose or mode of governing in a democracy includes: (1) to prevent dictatorship or tyranny; (2) to promote social and moral well-being; (3) to advance economic wealth and military power. All of these rationales for democracy have been used to support it.

The Protestant Christian political thinkers (Martin Luther, John Calvin) based their arguments for democracy on the universal sinfulness of humans, recommending limited political power in any single ruler or group. James Madison, the leading founder of the U.S. Constitution, adhered to this Christian view that democratic pluralism was necessary to prevent sinful people from allowing political power to lead to social oppression. The system of checks and balances in the U.S. government was designed to pit "ambition against ambition" and prevent tyranny. Democracy is seen as a necessary evil for imperfect humans.

Early in the modern period, arguments occurred over how representative a democracy could become. Montesquieu held that a true democracy required a small country like the Greek polis, where every citizen knew everyone else. Given the larger, more complex nations in modern times such classical or "direct" democracy was impractical and representative "republics" were formed, in which not everyone would govern but could choose those who did govern, through voting in elections. Thomas Jefferson tried to combine the classical, participatory democracy with the large U.S. republic through a system of local, state, and national republics, or federalism. The fear among classical or communitarian democratic thinkers (such as Benjamin Barber) is that the larger a representative democracy (or republic) becomes and the more distant the central government from most citizens, the greater danger there is for an unresponsive, corrupt, dictatorial state. Alexis de Tocqueville argued that the less personal contact each citizen had with the government, the more likely a "tyranny of the majority" led by a demagogue could occur in large democracies. This is why he saw the U.S. jury system as preserving democratic culture--it involves small groups of citizens engaging in serious political discourse and public decision making. Where modern society makes government more complex and distant from average citizens, concerns for election reform, voter participation, political parties, and media portrayal of politics become topics for study in political science.

With the rise of communist and socialist ideology in the 19th century, democracy took on economic dimensions. The view that public ownership of property and a state-planned economy (socialism) was "economic democracy" led to many "social democratic" movements and political parties. This Leftist argument that political equality and democracy could not be realized where great inequalities of wealth existed challenged Western or capitalist democracies. Because state operation of economics (as in the Soviet Union) usually required centralization of political power, this "peoples" or "socialist democracy" usually resulted in less democratic governments, but the concern with matching economic and social equality with political equality contributed to the mixed or welfare-state democracies of the West.

Most study of democracy now has to do with how "truly democratic" modern republics are or to what extent formal democratic systems mask the true power of elites in business, professions, unions, or other interest groups. As democratic theorist Benjamin Barber summarizes it: "The democratic ideal remains one of the most cherished and at the same moment most contested of political ideals." He sees current threats to democracy more from mass society (consumerism, privatism, commercialism, and the trivialization of popular culture) than from power-hungry rulers.

Free term papers are not written to satisfy your specific instructions. You can use our professional writing services to buy a custom written research paper, term paper, or essay on Politics at affordable price. CustomTermPapers is the best solution for those who seek help in writing term papers, essays, and research papers related to Politics and other relevant topics.