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Democracy At Work Institute
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') 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 freedom of assembly, association, property rights, freedom of religion and speech, inclusiveness and equality, citizenship, consent of the governed, voting rights, freedom from unwarranted governmental deprivation of the right to life and liberty, and minority rights. 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Election MG 3455
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the executive (government), executive and judiciary, and for local government, regional and local government. This process is also used in many other private and business organisations, from clubs to voluntary associations and corporations. The global use of elections as a tool for selecting representatives in modern representative democracies is in contrast with the practice in the democratic archetype, ancient History of Athens, Athens, where the elections were considered an oligarchy, oligarchic institution and most political offices were filled using sortition, also known as allotment, by which officeholders were chosen by lot. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voting Rights
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to vote is called active suffrage, as distinct from passive suffrage, which is the right to stand for election. The combination of active and passive suffrage is sometimes called ''full suffrage''. In most democracies, eligible voters can vote in elections of representatives. Voting on issues by referendum may also be available. For example, in Switzerland, this is permitted at all levels of government. In the United States, some states such as California, Washington, and Wisconsin have exercised their shared sovereignty to offer citizens the opportunity to write, propose, and vote on referendums; other states and the federal government have not. Referendums in the United Kingdom are rare. Suffrage is granted to everybody mentally capable, i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liberal Democracy
Liberal democracy is the combination of a liberal political ideology that operates under an indirect democratic form of government. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, a market economy with private property, and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties and political freedoms for all people. To define the system in practice, liberal democracies often draw upon a constitution, either codified (such as in the United States) or uncodified (such as in the United Kingdom), to delineate the powers of government and enshrine the social contract. After a period of expansion in the second half of the 20th century, liberal democracy became a prevalent political system in the world.Anna Lührmann, Seraphine F. Maerz, Sandra Grahn, Nazifa Alizada, Lisa Gastaldi, Sebastian Hellmeier, Garry Hindle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Majoritarianism
Majoritarianism is a traditional political philosophy or agenda that asserts that a majority (sometimes categorized by religion, language, social class, or some other identifying factor) of the population is entitled to a certain degree of primacy in society, and has the right to make decisions that affect the society. This traditional view has come under growing criticism, and liberal democracies have increasingly included constraints on what the parliamentary majority can do, in order to protect citizens' fundamental rights. This should not be confused with the concept of a majoritarian electoral system, which is a simple electoral system that usually gives a majority of seats to the party with a plurality of votes. A parliament elected by this method may be called a majoritarian parliament (e.g., the Parliament of the United Kingdom, or the Parliament of India). Under a democratic majoritarian political structure, the majority would not exclude any minority from future par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Consensus Democracy
Consensus democracy, consensus politics or consensualism is the application of consensus decision-making to the process of legislation in a democracy. It is characterized by a decision-making structure that involves and takes into account as broad a range of opinions as possible, as opposed to systems where minority opinions can potentially be ignored by vote-winning majorities. The latter systems are classified as majoritarian democracy. Consensus democracy also features increased citizen participation both in determining the political agenda and in the decision-making process itself. Some have pointed to developments in information and communication technology as potential facilitators of such systems. A consensus government is one in which the cabinet is appointed by the legislature without reference to political parties. It is generally found as part of a consensus or non-partisan democracy. Examples Consensus democracy is most closely embodied in certain countries such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supermajority
A supermajority, supra-majority, qualified majority, or special majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of more than one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority rules in a democracy can help to prevent a majority from eroding fundamental rights of a minority, but they can also hamper efforts to respond to problems and encourage corrupt compromises in the times action is taken. Changes to constitutions, especially those with entrenched clauses, commonly require supermajority support in a legislature. Parliamentary procedure requires that any action of a deliberative assembly that may alter the rights of a minority have a supermajority requirement, such as a two-thirds vote. Related concepts regarding alternatives to the majority vote requirement include a majority of the entire membership and a majority of the fixed membership. A supermajority can also be specified based on the entire membership or f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Majority Rule
Majority rule is a principle that means the decision-making power belongs to the group that has the most members. In politics, majority rule requires the deciding vote to have majority, that is, more than half the votes. It is the binary decision rule used most often in influential decision-making bodies, including many legislatures of democratic nations. Distinction with plurality Decision-making in a legislature is different from election of representation, although the result of plurality (First Past the Post or FPTP) elections is often mistaken for majority rule. Plurality elections elect the option that has more votes than any other, regardless of whether the fifty percent threshold is passed. A plurality election produces representation of a majority when there are only two candidates in an election or, more generally, when there are only two options. However, when there are more than two alternatives, a candidate that has less than fifty percent of the votes cast in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Presidential Democracy
A presidential system, or single executive system, is a form of government in which a head of government, typically with the title of president, leads an executive branch that is separate from the legislative branch in systems that use separation of powers. This head of government is in most cases also the head of state. In a presidential system, the head of government is directly or indirectly elected by a group of citizens and is not responsible to the legislature, and the legislature cannot dismiss the president except in extraordinary cases. A presidential system contrasts with a parliamentary system, where the head of government comes to power by gaining the confidence of an elected legislature. Not all presidential systems use the title of ''president''. Likewise, the title is sometimes used by other systems. It originated from a time when such a person personally presided over the governing body, as with the President of the Continental Congress in the early United Sta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parliamentary System
A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of the legislature, typically a parliament, to which it is accountable. In a parliamentary system, the head of state is usually a person distinct from the head of government. This is in contrast to a presidential system, where the head of state often is also the head of government and, most importantly, where the executive does not derive its democratic legitimacy from the legislature. Countries with parliamentary systems may be constitutional monarchies, where a monarch is the head of state while the head of government is almost always a member of parliament, or parliamentary republics, where a mostly ceremonial president is the head of state while the head of government is regularly from the legislature. In a few parliamentary republics, among ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Popular Assembly
A popular assembly (or people's assembly) is a gathering called to address issues of importance to participants. Assemblies tend to be freely open to participation and operate by direct democracy. Some assemblies are of people from a location, some from a given workplace, industry or educational establishment others are called to address a specific issue. The term is often used to describe gatherings that address, what participants feel are, the effects of a democratic deficit in representative democratic systems. Sometimes assemblies are created to form an alternative power structure, other times they work with other forms of government. As a government Ancient Greece Athens In Athenian democracy the Ecclesia was the assembly of all male citizens. Modern times New England The town meeting is the traditional governing body of the New England town, which in its traditional form is open to all adult residents to discuss and vote on the major issues of town gove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Communities
A community is a Level of analysis, social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place (geography), place, Norm (social), norms, religion, values, Convention (norm), customs, or Identity (social science), identity. Communities may share a sense of place (geography), place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, town, or neighbourhood) or in virtual space through communication platforms. Durable good relations that extend beyond immediate genealogical ties also define a sense of community, important to their identity, practice, and roles in social institutions such as family, home, work, government, society, or humanity at large. Although communities are usually small relative to personal social ties, "community" may also refer to large group affiliations such as nation, national communities, international community, international communities, and virtual community, virtual communities. The English-language word "community" derives from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minority Rights
Minority rights are the normal individual rights as applied to members of racial, ethnic, class, religious, linguistic or gender and sexual minorities, and also the collective rights accorded to any minority group. Civil-rights movements often seek to ensure that individual rights are not denied on the basis of membership in a minority group. Such civil-rights advocates include the global women's-rights and global LGBT-rights movements, and various racial-minority rights movements around the world (such as the Civil Rights Movement in the United States). Issues of minority rights may intersect with debates over historical redress or over positive discrimination. History Prior to the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), the term "minority" primarily referred to political parties in national legislatures, not ethnic, national, linguistic or religious groups. The Paris Conference has been attributed with coining the concept of minority rights and bringing prominence to it. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
