In light of these circumstances, it is quite possible that the extraordinary pace of democratization begun in the 20th century will not continue long into the 21st century. In some countries, authoritarian systems probably will remain in place. In some countries that have made the transition to democracy, new democratic institutions probably will remain weak and fragile. Other countries might lose their democratic governments and revert to some form of authoritarian rule.
Yet, despite these adversities, the odds are great that in the foreseeable future a very large share of the world’s population, in a very large share of the world’s countries, will live under democratic forms of government that continue to evolve in order to meet challenges both old and new. Robert A. Dahl
Citation Information
Article Title: Democracy
Website Name: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published: 08 February 2019
URL: https://www.britannica.com/topic/democracy
Access Date: August 15, 2019
Additional Reading Classic texts
Classic treatments of democracy and other forms of government are widely available in numerous editions. They include Plato, The Republic; Aristotle, Politics; Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince (1513), and Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy (1513); Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil (1651); John Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government (1690); Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (1748); Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762); Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist (1788), containing 77 of the 85 Federalist papers; Thomas Paine, Rights of Man (1791); Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 4 vol. (1835–40); John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859), and Considerations on Representative Government (1861); John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (1927, reissued 1991); Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, trans. from the German by Thomas McCarthy, 2 vol. (1984, reissued 1987); and John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971), and Political Liberalism (1993).
Noteworthy discussions in the secondary literature include John Dunn, The Political Thought of John Locke (1966, reissued 1975); Richard Fralin, Rousseau and Representation (1978); Robert B. Westbrook, John Dewey and American Democracy (1991); and Thomas McCarthy, The Critical Theory of Jürgen Habermas (1978, reissued 1984). Democratic institutions
A concise introduction is Alan F. Hattersley, A Short History of Democracy (1930). Historical and theoretical approaches are combined in John Dunn (ed.), Democracy: The Unfinished Journey, 508 BC to AD 1993 (1992, reprinted with corrections 1993); and Sanford Lakoff, Democracy: History, Theory, and Practice (1996).
General works on ancient Greece include I.E.S. Edwards et al. (eds.), The Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd ed., 14 vol. (1970–2000); and Thomas R. Martin, Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric Times to Hellenistic Times, updated ed. (2000). A.H.M. Jones, Athenian Democracy (1957, reissued 1986), is indispensable, particularly as a corrective to Plato, Aristotle, and Thucydides. The most comprehensive study of democracy in Athens is Mogens Herman Hansen, The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes, trans. from the Danish by J.A. Crook (1991, reissued 1999).
A brief account of Rome’s republican government is F.E. Adcock, Roman Political Ideas and Practice (1959, reissued 1972). An excellent, though critical, account of the Italian city-state republics is Lauro Martines, Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy (1979, reissued 2002). Also of interest are J.K. Hyde, Society and Politics in Medieval Italy (1973); and Quentin Skinner, “The Italian City-State Republics,” in Dunn (ed.), Democracy: The Unfinished Journey, 508 BC to AD 1993 (1992, reprinted with corrections 1993).
An essential source on the development of cabinet government in Britain is Archibald S. Foord, His Majesty’s Opposition, 1714–1830 (1964, reissued 1979). The classic 1867 work by Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution, ed. by Miles Taylor (2001), remains highly informative. The theory of democracy
The theory, foundations, and institutions of democracy are described in Giovanni Sartori, Democratic Theory (1961, reissued 1973); C.B. Macpherson, Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval (1973); Robert A. Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (1989, reissued 1991), and On Democracy (1998, reissued 2001); and Ian Shapiro, Democracy’s Place (1996). Problems and challenges
Contemporary problems and challenges are discussed in Ian Shapiro and Casiano Hacker-Cordón (eds.), Democracy’s Edges (1999); Keith Dowding, James Hughes, and Helen Margetts (eds.), Challenges to Democracy (2001); and Sergio Fabbrini (ed.), Nation, Federalism and Democracy (2001). Some implications of democratic ideas for nongovernmental organizations are examined in Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Economic Democracy (1985); and Ian Shapiro, Democratic Justice (1999, reissued 2001). Robert A. Dahl