What is democracy?

Let's start with some definitions:

Democracy \De*moc"ra*cy\, n.; pl. {Democracies}. [F.
d['e]mocratie, fr. Gr. dhmokrati`a; dh^mos the people +
kratei^n to be strong, to rule, kra`tos strength.]
1. Government by the people; a form of government in which
the supreme power is retained and directly exercised by
the people.

2. Government by popular representation; a form of government
in which the supreme power is retained by the people, but
is indirectly exercised through a system of representation
and delegated authority periodically renewed; a
constitutional representative government; a republic.

3. Collectively, the people, regarded as the source of
government. --Milton.

4. The principles and policy of the Democratic party, so
called. [U.S.]

From WordNet (r) 1.7 [wn]:

democracy
n 1: the political orientation of those who favor government by
the people or by their elected representatives
2: a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body
of citizens who can elect people to represent them [syn: {republic},
{commonwealth}] [ant: {autocracy}]
3: the doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized
group can make decisions

whoops

tack this on the end

on the whole group [syn:
{majority rule}]

Also, in the non-democratic countries you don't live long enough to kill yourself.

This is a question for one of those human search engines like Nick Dastoor. Which nation has used referenda most in the selection of policy? Does anyone think the future of democracy might be 'polls + power', rather than 'representation'?

In other words, political disintermediation?

(Because then I could hate 'the people' and not waste so much time hating politicians.)

Switzerland probably wins the referendum and it is one of the least free and most rules based societies going. (Men must not piss standing up after 10pm)

Inadequate as the current democratic system is, I truly ph34r the sort of power the right-wing press would develop if the future of democracy was to be 'polls+power' over representation.

representation is good but the representatives must be tied to their constituencies. Not controlled by but it should be a reprasentative's reponsibilty to con vince his contituents of the validity of his/her decisions.

Representation is a smokescreen tho. There is not one person at any level of government that I can think of who comes close to representing me. I mean who can you really identify with? Who do you feel is actually listening to you and people like you?

the one great thing I learned/adopted from my political theory class is that democracy is a scalar rather than a binary concept - e.g. we should think of countries not as being democratic or undemocratic, but as being more or less democratic.

beyond that I'm not offering any kind of definition or pointers as to what makes countries more democratic than others.

Well i guess things like having a media that gives out a wide range of views and having a police force that doesn't open fire on protestors help. Not sure if the number of choices you get on the ballot paper makes a difference to the survey linked above (in NZ we get about eight realistic choices compared to the two people in the UK and US get), and they don't seem to mind that our head of state is unelected and lives in the other end of the world. But what is it that makes the USA so much more democratic than the UK in the survey?

How does the Queen affect us again?

Her corgis are always shitting everywhere.

I once got into a tedious argument with SexPistols fan about their irrelevancy and she said "you think God Save the Queen is irrelevant? Look who's picture is on your money!". I didn't have any money at the time but i just looked and its Kate Sheppard. So anyway Queen Kate was affecting this person quite a bit.

I like the Sex Pistols.

Are you worried about Queen Kate's fascist regime?

I'm worried about anyone who thinks they're relevant politically