Democracy is considered good because it recognizes the rights of the individual and strives to maintain and protect those rights, for instance freedom of speech and religion.
The word democracy comes from the Greek “demokration”, from “demos”, the people, and “kratos”, rule. The concept of rule by the people for the people undoubtedly goes back to prehistoric times but, in western political tradition, we associate it with the city-states of ancient Greece.
There it was a form of government known as direct democracy. Decisions were made by the whole body of citizens, acting under the procedure of majority rule. However, we must remember that not everyone was a citizen. Women were not allowed to vote and there were many slaves who had no rights at all.
It is easy to see how difficult this system would be to organize in a large country and indeed there was a gap of about 2,000 years before the idea of representative democracy arose. This is a form of government where the citizens exercise the same rights as in direct democracy, but through representative chosen by and responsible to them.
Nowadays, most countries in the world are democracies, in name at least. That is, they claim a form of government, elected by the people, whosepowers are limited by a constitution. Theoretically this means that although the majorities are in power, they are bound by law to guarantee individual and collective rights to those who are in the minority. But in many countries theory does not always conform with practice.
We also use the word democratic to describe any political or social system which is attempting to bring about equality among the people, especially in the distribution of private property.
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