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Democracy is recognized as the primary vehicle for the fulfilment of individual and collective aspirations, the articulation of interests, and the nurturing of civil society. Globalizing forces have underpinned the spread of this message across the globe. Yet the march of democratization is highly contested and politicized and there is little consensus on what democracy is or should be. This volume brings together preeminent scholars from around the world in a collection of essays that point to a changing and broadening agenda of democracy. Themes addressed include challenges to democracy in established democracies and in transitional societies, the media and communications, globalization, criteria of democracy, religion, culture, civil society, and the internationalization of the democratic ethos. While democracy has been given a new lease on life in the post-Cold War context and its sphere of applicability has widened beyond the state closure, this book highlights the limitations .
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It is unfortunate today that most educational systems have determined to do away with classes in civics and government, the negative effects of just this one decision is proliferating across most democracies, especially Western democracies. Past generations learned the basics of democracy, from itséarly birth and what the basic idea of democracy and democratic societies was and what it meant to live in a democracy. Looking back to the 5 th century and following this idea of how people and societies should be governed one can only arrive at the conclusion that today in 2018 democracy and the original idea and benefits this form of government was designed to provide to citizens living in what we refer to as a democratic government, society has moved very far away from those ideals. If we start from the original understandings of democracy and the democratic process here is what we find as the primary principle: A system of processing decisions and conflicts in which outcomes depend on what most benefits the majority and a process in which no single force controls what occurs and the outcome. This is often simplified by stating that democracy is a process that establishes the concept of " the rule of the majority ". Ultimately, we find that in order to be considered a democracy or a democratic government there are four key factors that will make that determination. 1. There must be a system for choosing and replacing the government through free and fair elections in which the principle of " one man, one vote " forms the basis. 2. There must be evident active participation by citizens in the political process and in the society 3. There must be a guarantee and protection of basic human rights of citizens 4. There must be clear evidence of the rule of law and procedures applied and enforced equally on all citizens. The rest of this paper will take each of these determining factors and look at them in the present light in order to support the realities of democracies and where they actually are in 2018. The primary focus will be on the United States, however, all Western democracies have all or most all of the same fissures, some more acute than others but all suffer the same degradation of these basic principles and pillars.
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