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The Student Side of the The Challenge of Democracy Site
Updated March 10, 2017

Internet Links for Chapter 2: Majoritarian or Pluralist Democracy?

Chapter 2 discusses the theory of democratic government and distinguishes between majoritarian and pluralist democracy. Google searches will turn up numerous citations to our distinction. These links point to democracy as practiced in other parts of the world.


Democracy
Democracy Index 2016
"According to the 2016 Democracy Index almost one-half of the world's countries can be considered to be democracies of some sort, but the number of "full democracies" has declined from 20 in 2015 to 19 in 2016. The US has been downgraded from a "full democracy" to a "flawed democracy" because of a further erosion of trust in government and elected officials there."
Democracy's "Third Wave"
"The history of democracy is not a slow steady advance, in the view of political scientist Samuel P. Huntington of Harvard University, but a succession of waves that have advanced, receded, then rolled in and crested again." This essay succinctly explains the waves.
Freedom House
Freedom in the World, Freedom House's flagship publication, is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. Published annually since 1972, the survey ratings and narrative reports on hundreds of countries and related and disputed territories are used by policymakers, the media, international corporations, civic activists, and human rights defenders to monitor trends in democracy and track improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide.
International Center for Peace and Development
"ICPD is supporting research conducted by MSS Research (India) to identify the factors responsible for the emergence of democratic governance in Western Europe over the past five hundred years and to correlate the development process in politics with parallel advances in peace, economics, education, social organization and technology."