Term paper on Democracy

Democracy Essays

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Democracy

Democracy, as it is used today, means the people rule. A democracy is a form of government that is run by the people of that country through elections and representation. A democracy is really a form of a republic known as a democratic republic. A republic is a government where officials, elected by a small group of people, make the important decisions.

Democracy has been around for almost 2500 years since Athens, Greece became the first democracy. The Romans also experimented with democracy, however it was more a republic, and not a democracy. Around 1200 England laid the groundwork to become a republic. Later, in the 1700's, United States of America, became a democracy.

There are many features of democracy. Most of these features are the same, but individual countries use varations of the main ideas. The main feature of democracy, which determines a true democracy, is free, competitive elections. Sometimes women or minorities don't have the right to vote. Some of these other features, such as checks on power, help to limit the strength of any one person or party. Other features like free elections, and majority/ minority rule, help to make elections fair, since the judgment of many people is generally better then the judgment of a few people. Political parties keep one government, or idea of government form holding all power. These features let the people to govern themselves without the country being torn apart.

There are two true types of democracies, direct democracies, and representative democracies. In a direct democracy all the people meet to discuss problems and creat laws. A direct decision consults all the people for the decisions.. Since that is unpractical in todays world, a new form of democracy, the representative democracy has been made up. This form of democracy has elected representatives making most of the day to day decisions, while the main groups of citizens consulted for only the most important decisions.

One of the earliest known democracies was in Athens, a city-state in southern, ancient Greece. Around 620BC, Athens became the first true democracy. In Athens the ruler Draco tried to make many reforms in the city state. Draco organized laws by putting them in a written code, letting everyone know what the laws were and how they applied to everyone. He also gave the people the right to a trial. The next ruler Solon, the next Athenian ruler also helped Athens become a democracy. He also wrote many reforms into the laws and gave all citizens the right to vote. Some of his reforms created problems for other people, who wanted to become citizens. In 500BC, Athens looked like a modern democracy. The main lawmaking body was known as the assembly, and all free male citizens could be in the assembly. The assembly met about forty times a year to discuss and vote on the issues. The council of 500, which was made of volunteers from all ten districts, helped sort out the assembly's business. An even smaller council, a counsel of fifty men, made the daily decisions of the city-state. The largest problem of Athens democracy were that only a few of the people could become citizens, therefore limiting the power to a small group. This problem caused many slaves, and other non-landowners to be disappointed. Athens, no matter what the problems, was the first true democracy.

Rome, around 500 BC, became a republic. A republic is not a democracy, but is very similar to a democracy. In this republic, the elected officials only represented a small fraction of the people. Some of the ideas Rome used, mainly the practice of elected officials helped to shape the ideas of a representative democracy.

In Rome, the wealthy people, the patricians, had much more power then the poorer people, the plebeians. Despite the fact that the plebeians had very little power, the fact that they had any power at all was a step foreword for democracy. As a part of Romes government, there was a senate and two assemblies. The senate, made up of senators, proposed laws and ratified treaties. The Assembly of Centuries directed military members, and the Assembly of Tribes represented all of the people. In theory the assembly would be made up of both plebeians and patricians. It was proved that the patricians were very adept at controlling the plebeians and thus held all the power at the assemblies. Despite the fact that the Roman people had overthrown the king, they still felt the need for supreme leadership. Because they felt they needed a powerful leader they decided to appoint consuls, a pair of officials who carried out Romes laws. The consuls ruled for one year, commanded their own army, and had the power to veto any of the other consuls decisions. Another thing the Romans did was make it so a dictator could rule for a six-month period...

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