What is democracy?« Thread Started on Jul 20, 2007, 8:15pm » --------------------------------------------------------------------------------What is democracy?Posted at: 08:30read at source> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... .xmlAthens - What is democracy?“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time,” Winston Churchill once commented. The word democracy has become ubiquitous. It is used to justify everything from regime change to parking meters, while the internet is drenched with talk of e-democracy, open democracy, local democracy, consensus democracy, liberal democracy, illiberal democracy. We take the term from ancient Athens, but Athenian democracy, the product of an age remembered as egalitarian and high-minded, bore almost no resemblance to ours. While the free citizens of Athens benefited from being able to participate in the political process, their bold experiment was enabled by an economy powered by slavery, an expansionist and aggressive foreign policy, and a society - the first in history - in which women wore the veil. So what is democracy? Is it really the wellspring of liberty and freedom that we hold it to be? What does it mean to have democratic process in a country the size of Britain – or the USA, or India? Can tens or even hundreds of millions of people really be involved in the political process? Or is democracy less about actual involvement, and more about creating a culture of possibility and responsibility? Or is ‘democracy’ just a cloak worn by the ruling elite, and are we more like the ancient Athenians – the real ancient Athenians – than we like to think? To send a letter to the editor of The Daily Telegraph, email dtletters@telegraph.co.uk