The term appeared in the 5th century BC to denote the political systems then existing in Greek city-states, notably Classical Athens, to mean 'rule of the people', in contrast to aristocracy ( ἀριστοκρατία, aristokratía), meaning 'rule of an elite'. freedom of speech or freedom of association. In the common variant of liberal democracy, the powers of the majority are exercised within the framework of a representative democracy, but the constitution limits the majority and protects the minority-usually through the enjoyment by all of certain individual rights, e.g. They serve the crucial purpose of inclusiveness and broader legitimacy on sensitive issues-counterbalancing majoritarianism-and therefore mostly take precedence on a constitutional level. Prevalent day-to-day decision making of democracies is the majority rule, though other decision making approaches like supermajority and consensus have also been integral to democracies. The most common form of democracy today is a representative democracy, where the people elect government officials to govern on their behalf such as in a parliamentary or presidential democracy. The original form of democracy was a direct democracy. The notion of democracy has evolved over time considerably.

Cornerstones of democracy include freedom of assembly, association, property rights, freedom of religion and speech, inclusiveness and equality, citizenship, consent of the governed, voting rights, freedom from unwarranted governmental deprivation of the right to life and liberty, and minority rights. Who is considered part of 'the people' and how authority is shared among or delegated by the people has changed over time and at different rates in different countries, but over time more and more of a democratic country's inhabitants have generally been included. Democracy (from Greek δημοκρατία (dēmokratía) dēmos 'people' and kratos 'rule' ) is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (' direct democracy'), or to choose governing officials to do so (' representative democracy').

Democracy 3 america