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Key Democratic Principles

The word democracy has its origins in the Greek language. It combines two shorter words: demos meaning whole citizen living within a particular city-state and kratos meaning power or rule.

It is generally agreed that liberal democracies are based on four main principles:

See Playing Fair, a website by the Parliamentary Education Office.

A liberal democracy (that is, one that champions the development and well-being of the individual) is organised in such a way as to define and limit power so as to promote legitimate government within a framework of justice and freedom. There are four critical elements to the framework:

A legitimate government is one that has the appropriate mandate/authority to rule. This usually means a high degree of popular support as demonstrated by a free electorate and frequent elections.

Justice is achieved when citizens live in an environment in which all citizens are treated equally and accorded dignity and respect. This may occur in a representative democracy that is tempered by constitutionalism, free elections and restraints on power.

If freedom is to exist, there must be:

In a liberal democracy efforts are made to define and limit power, often by means of a written constitution. Checks and balances, such as the separation of the Parliament, senior government and judicial power, are instituted. In addition, there are conventions of behaviour and a legal system that complements the political system.

There is no absolute definition of democracy. The term is elastic and expands and contracts according to the time, place and circumstances of its use. What follows is a short list of definitions provided by field experts.

But first, what does democracy mean? In Ancient Greece some cities were democracies, others were oligarchies. Democracy meant rule by the people, oligarchy meant rule by the few. So a city was a democracy if:

Rule by the people; democracy implies both popular participation and government in the public interest, and can take a wide variety of forms.

Democracy: A democracy is a society in which the citizens are sovereign and control the government.

The democratic method is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the peoples vote.

Schumpeter adds that the classical theory of democracy attributed to the electorate an altogether unrealistic degree of initiative which practically amounted to ignoring leadership.

Further, Schumpeter claimed that,

the purpose of democratic method [is] not to select representatives who carry out the will of the people, but to choose individuals who [will] govern on their behalf.

As proposed by Robert Dahl, Schmitter and Karl, and Larry Diamond.

In a direct democracy, such as ancient Athens, all citizens (only adult males who had completed their military training; women, slaves and plebs were not citizens) are invited to participate in all political decisions. This form of democracy is no longer practiced. In this form of democracy citizens are continuously involved in the exercise of power and decision is by majority rule.

In a representative democracy, representatives are elected by the people and entrusted to carry out the business of governance. Australia is a representative democracy.

In a constitutional democracy a constitution outlines who will represent the people and how. Australia is also a constitutional democracy.

Political scientist John Keane suggests that a new form of democracy is evolving in which government is constantly monitored in its exercise of power by a vast array of public and private agencies, commissions and regulatory mechanisms. See Life and Death of Democracy by John Keane, published by Simon and Schuster UK in 2009.

Excerpt from:
Defining democracy Museum of Australian Democracy at Old ...