Applied Democracy in Light of the Five “Iso”s of Democracy

Abstract

Athenian democracy, with its five criteria, expresses an understanding and internalization of its components and thus becomes virtue. Modern democracies should strive to maintain a long process based on education for substantive democracy, and those that only emphasize the formal aspect, express a partial application of democracy. In such a situation, damage to democracy occurs. We argue that democracy can be treated as a collection of practices in the polity area by analyzing the politics and strategies of defending democracy as well as human rights. To do so, it is suggested here to integrate the tools of social choice theory with a unique institutionalist perspective that looks at both formal and informal factors. This notion creates the need to develop effective strategies for defending democracy and human rights.