Procedural democracy or proceduralist democracy or proceduralism is a term used to denote the particular procedures, such as regular
election
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...
s based on
universal suffrage
Universal suffrage (also called universal franchise, general suffrage, and common suffrage of the common man) gives the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, or political stan ...
, that produce an electorally-legitimated government.
Procedural democracy, with its centering of electoral processes as the basis of democratic legitimacy, is often contrasted with
substantive or participatory democracy, which centers the equal participation of all groups in society in the political process as the basis of legitimacy.
The term is often used to denote an artificial appearance of
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which people, the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choo ...
through the existence of democratic procedures like elections when in reality power is held by a small group of elites who manipulate democratic processes to make themselves appear democratically legitimate.
See also
*
Illiberal democracy
An illiberal democracy describes a governing system in which, although elections take place, citizens are cut off from knowledge about the activities of those who exercise real power because of the lack of civil liberties; thus it does not co ...
*
Substantive democracy
References
{{poli-stub
Types of democracy