By the way, the term of art for what you’re doing, of defining democracy I like as real democracy and democracy I don’t like as not democracy is to call democracy I like “liberal democracy”.
As probably most words that are used for complex concepts, the word democracy was used to label a wide range of different definitions.
There might be a cultural divide here, but a an European and in particular as a German I use the definition of the democracy advocated by the EU, its courts, and most of European political scholars.
The EU defines democracy as a system of government where citizens participate in decision-making, either directly or through elected representatives, and where there are safeguards against the abuse of power, including a strong rule of law, protection of human rights, and an independent judiciary.
This might sound academic, but it has important implications in how we deal with member states such as Hungary that slowly erode the rule of law through actions taken elected leaders.
As said, there are many possible definitions of democracy, but I’d still call those that fail to contain a system of checks and balances less suitable.
The first Wiktionary definition of democracy is fairly close to what I learned in school as an American:
> Rule by the people, especially as a form of government; either directly or through elected representatives[1]
The first half of the EU definition is much weaker ("participate in" vs "rule") and the second half directly contradicts the Wiktionary definition:
> ...where there are safeguards against the abuse of power, including a strong rule of law, protection of human rights, and an independent judiciary.
To the extent that the majority want to destroy the rule of law, violate human rights, and capture the judiciary, those things are antidemocratic. Now I think it's a good thing that (for example) an AfD majority in the Bundestag would be limited in its ability to dismantle those 3 things, but it's certainly not "Rule by the people."
Advocates of liberal democracy also often ping-pong between the propaganda version of “democracy” (as in rule by the people) and liberal democracy. Because they to a limited extent need to appeal to the people, hence the propaganda face. But the liberal democracy face is when they talk about actual-existing democracy...
> The first half of the EU definition is much weaker ("participate in" vs "rule") and the second half directly contradicts the Wiktionary definition:
... the anemic variant where they (politicians, bureaucrats, rich people (with opinions)) have much more power than the average citizen.
Then when really getting down to it they will push the liberal part of liberal democracy in front of themselves. Where “the rule of law”, “human rights” etc. are embodied by themselves much more than the people.
OP says that democracy is one with checks and balances. It’s a straightforward disagreement about definitions.
The author makes no points at all, but that’s neither here nor there in this context.
> By the way, the term of art for what you’re doing, of defining democracy I like as real democracy and democracy I don’t like as not democracy is to call democracy I like “liberal democracy”.
Liberal democracy is very anemic on the democracy part.