The original distinguished between a republic and a democracy, but I question whether mainstream politicial science distinguishes between them. (On which I might add, I am no real expert.) This distinction seems to be mainly one made in the US, especially by certain political groups (Libertarians for instance.) To an Australian like me, and I guess to a lot of other people, the distinction makes no sense at all. In short, the definitions the original article was based on are minority definitions; I have tried to make them fit better with what the majority of people mean.
See http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=democracy which defines democracy as "Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives" (American Heritage Dictionary).
-- Simon J Kissane
Restoring deletion. If you wish to change the article, Simon, do so acknowledging what you allege--from an admitted position of ignorance--is a minority position. And in any case, please do
not remove useful content--which you did. --
LMS
Well, the point of view of the article doesn't fit one major dictionary's (the American Heritage Dictionary's) defintion at least:
- democracy: "Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives."
- republic: "A political order whose head of state is not a monarch and in modern times is usually a president."
Maybe I was being a bit accusatory and hasty in my original statement, and if so I do apologise. But my point remains that a lot of people (me and the American Heritage Dictionary) included do not take democracy to mean "direct democracy" and republic to mean "indirect democracy"; they take democracy to mean "democracy, either direct or indirect", and republic to mean "not a monarchy, be it democratic or un-democratic".
So maybe I am wrong to think it is solely some particular minorities view on the meaning of the word democracy, but I still maintain that the meaning I give it is the more common one. And I think articles should reflect words as they are most commonly used. -- Simon J Kissane
I think it s not true that "The right to vote is normally denied to prisoners". It maybe true for the USA but not true in continental Europe.
It's not even true throughout the U.S. Many states allow their prisoners to vote.
Well, the UK denies the right to prisoners to vote. Maybe it should be qualified as "many countries".
Also someone changed [citizen-initiated referenda]? to read [referenda on popular demand]?. Why? -- SJK
- Many societies in the past have denied people the right to vote on the basis of race or ethnicity. Examples of this include the exclusion of people of African descent from voting, in the pre-Civil Rights Era American South, and in apartheid-era South Africa.
- Most societies today no longer maintain such provisions, but a few still do. For example, Fiji reserves a certain number of seats in its Parliament for each of its main ethnic groups; these provisions were adopted in order to discriminate against Indians in favour of ethnic Fijians.
Many countries have laws that give national minorities representation in Parliament (for example national minorities parties don't need to pass 5% limit to get into Sejm). --Taw
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