Democracy is a system of government where citizens participate in political decision making through voting. There are various types of democracies including representative democracy, where citizens vote for representatives, and direct democracy, where citizens vote on policy initiatives directly. Representative democracies can take the form of parliamentary or presidential systems. Hybrid systems combine elements of direct and representative democracy, using mechanisms like referendums. For a democracy to be effective, it must protect citizens' rights and have separation of powers to prevent any one branch from accumulating too much authority.
2. Submitted by
Arya R. C.
Social Science
Submitted to
Miss. Nimmy Varghese
DEMOCRACY
3. INTRODUCTION
Democracy is “a system of government in which all the people of
a state or policy are involved in making decisions about its affairs, typically
by voting to elect representatives to a parliament or similar assembly”
Democracy is further defined as;
a) Government by the people especially rule of the majority
b) government in which the supreme power is vested in the people
and exercised by them direcly or indirecly through 2 system of
representation ususally involving peiodically held free elections.
According to political scientist lazy diamond. It consist of our
key elements.
1. A political system for choosing and replacing the government through
free and fair elections.
2. The active participation of the people as citizens, in politics and civic
life.
3. Protection of the human rights of all citizens
4. A rule of law in which the laws and procedures apply equality to all
citizens.
Types of democracies
Democracy has taken a number of forms both in throny and
practice. Some varieties of democracy provide better representation and
more freedom for their citizens than others. However if any democracy is
not structured so as to prohibite the government from excluding the people
from the legislative process or any branch of government from altering
4. the separation of powers in its own faviour, then a branch of the system
can accumulate too much power and destroy the democracy.
The following kinds of democracy are not exclusive of one another
many specify details of aspects that are independent of one another amny
specify details of aspects that are independent of one another and can co-
exist in 2 single system
Basic Forms
Representative democracy is a form of democracy in which people
vote for representatives who then vote on policy intiatives as opposed to a
direct democracy in which people vote in policy initiatives directly.
Direct.
Direct democracy is a politiccal system where the citizens
participate in the decision making personally, country to relaying on
intermediaries or representatives. The supportens of direct democrazy argue
that democracy is more than merely a procedual issue. Adirect democracy
gives the voting population the power to
1. Change constitution laws
2. Put forth initatives, referendums and suggestions for laws
3. Give binding order to elective officials such as revoking them before
the end of their elected term, or initiating lawseuit for breaking a
campaign promise.
Direct democracy only exists the swiss cantons of Appenzell
innerhoden and glanrus
5. Representative systems
Representative democrazy involves the election of government
officials by the people beig represented if the head of state is also
democratically elected then it is called democractic republic. The most
common mechanism involve election of the candidate with a majority or
a pluarity of the votels. Most western countreis have representative
systems.
Representative system may be electedon become diplomatic
representatives by a particular district or represent the entire electorate
through proportional systems with some using a compination of the two
some representative democracy such as referendums. A charactestic of
representative democracy is that while the representatives are elected by
the peope o act in the peopl’s interest, they retain the freedom to exercise
their own judgement as howest to do so. Such reason have chiven criticism
upon representative democracy, pointing out the conhadictions of
representation mechanism with democracry.
Parliamentary
Parliamentary democracy is a representative democracy where
government is appointed by or can be dismissed by representative as
opposed to a “presidential rule” where in the president is both head of
state and the head of government and is elected by the voters. Under a
parliamentary democracy government is excercised by delegation to an
executive ministry and subject to ongoing review, checks and balances
by the legislative parlimenr elected by the people.
Presidential
Presidential democracy is a system where the public elects the
6. president through free and fair elections. The president serves as both the
head of state and head of government controlling most of executive
powers. The president service for a specific terms and cannot exceed that
amount of time. Elections typically have a fixed date and are’nt easily
changed. The president has direct control over the cabiner, specifically
appointing the cabinet members.
The president cannot he easily removed from office by the
legislature but he or she canot removed members of the legislative branch
any more easily. This provides some measure of separation of powers. In
consequence however, the preseident and the legislature may end up in
the control of separate parties, allowing one to block the other and thereby
interfere with the orderly operation of the state. This may be the reason
why presidential democracy is not very common outside the Americans,
Africa, and central and south east Asia.
A semi presidential system is very a system of democrazy in which
the government includes both prime minister and a prime minister and a
president. The particular power held by the prime minister and president
vary by country.
Hybrid or semi direct
Some modern democracies that are predominately representative
in nature also heaily rely upon forms of political action that are directly
demcratic. These demicracies which combine elements of representative
democracy and direct democracy are termed bybrid democracies, semi
direct democracies or participatory democracies Examples include
switzerland and some us states where freequest use is made of referendums
and initiatives.
7. CONCLUSION
In comparisn to other regime types democracies provide the
most checks on the authority of government while providing the most
protection of the civil rights and liberties of individuals. There is no "
perfect democracy”All democracies have their strong and weak points.
What is importat is that there is complementarility between
democratic structires and the characterstics, needs, and priorities of
the state in which democracy operates when such complementarity
does not exist, the democratic principles of tolerance.