Chapter 1
What Is Democracy?

Democracy, as a leading value in modern society, has been widely recognized and praised, but usually abused and misunderstood. Many people who have different understandings of democracy have declared that they are safeguarding their democracy. It is still a long way to go before the public reach consensus on “what democracy is” and “what democracy is supposed to be”.

In the view of etymology, democracy can be traced back to Greek words “Demos” (people) and “Kratia” (rule), originally representing “the rule of people”, which, in the most familiar and common way, means that “people are masters of the country”. Still, what does “people” here mean? Every person, or just some special classes, or the majority of people according to certain principle? Besides, how should we understand “rule” of people? Does it mean that everybody should take care of every single political affair, or that people only have the rights to elect representatives? These questions look simple, yet act as premise and basis for us to figure out the definition of democracy, and to get a better understanding of “whether democracy is universal” and “how we should improve democratic political construction”.

Classical discourse