Democracy (from Ancient Greek : δημοκρατία , romanized : dēmokratía , dēmos 'people' and kratos 'rule' [1] ) is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy "), or to choose governing officials to do so (" representative democracy "). Who is considered part of "the people" and how authority is shared among or delegated by the people has changed over time and at different rates in different countries. Features of democracy often include
The notion of democracy has evolved over time considerably. Throughout history, one can find evidence of direct democracy , in which communities make decisions through popular assembly . Today, the dominant form of democracy is representative democracy , where citizens elect government officials to govern on their behalf such as in a parliamentary or presidential democracy . [2]
Prevalent day-to-day decision making of democracies is the majority rule , [3] [4] though other decision making approaches like supermajority and consensus have also been integral to democracies. They serve the crucial purpose of inclusiveness and broader legitimacy on sensitive issues—counterbalancing majoritarianism —and therefore mostly take precedence on a constitutional level. In the common variant of liberal democracy , the powers of the majority are exercised within the framework of a representative