engleski

Understanding Democracy

This chapter analyzes the concept and meaning of democracy from the aspect of normative determining (value, ideological and political basis of democracy), and from the aspect of the basic features of contemporary liberal democracy (normative- institutional establishment of a democratic political order and functioning of a democratic political system). Democracy is a political order that establishes the rule of the people through institutional and procedural mechanisms. Its purpose is to realize the freedom, equality, dignity, human and civil rights, and social justice and well-being for each individual. For the sake of better understanding, the historical, philosophical, and political origins of modern democracy are first considered in a historical and political perspective from Athenian democracy, through the development of early modern political thought to bourgeois revolutions and shaping of modern liberal democracy. The chapter then analyzes the dimensions, scope, and criteria of democracy and the distinction between minimal (political) and maximal (substantive) democracy. This is particularly important in the context of the democratic transition of post- authoritarian societies and the consolidation of democracy within them. The chapter pays particular attention to the political participation just as to the prerequisites for substantive democracy (institutional-political, socioeconomic, socio- structural and socio-cultural) as the preconditions for the functioning, viability, and development of democracy.

democracy ; freedom ; equality ; civil rights ; values of democracy ; institutions ; procedures ; participation

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