Democracy, History of

Abstract

Political authority in a democracy is based on the will of the people. From its origins in ancient Greece, the advocates and opponents of democracy have argued about what this means. Who are the ‘people’? How is their will to be expressed? What is the relationship between democratic politics and society? How are the rights and opinions of the minority to be protected? What are the primary threats to effective democracy and how can they be avoided? What are the dangers of democracy? In the modern era, democratic practice began with the great revolutions at the end of the eighteenth century. Throughout the nineteenth century democratic institutions developed everywhere in Europe; at the same time, the principle of popular sovereignty was applied to a range of social, economic, and national issues. Between 1914 and 1945, democracy seemed in danger, threatened on left and right by movements that used democratic methods to establish new sorts of tyrannies. In the second half of the twentieth century, however, democracy seemed to triumph over its opponents until it became, in theory if not in practice, the sole source of political legitimacy in the modern world.