Encyclopedia of Sociology

DEMOCRACY

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EVAN THACKERAY PRITCHARD

DEDUCTION/INDUCTION

See Experiments; Quasi-Experimental Research

Designs; Scientific Explanation; Statistical

Inference.

DEMOCRACY

Democracy is one of the most important subjects

in the social sciences. From the work of de Tocqueville

in the early nineteenth century through the work

of the best contemporary scholars, democracy has

been studied closely and debated widely (Tocqueville

1969). Democracy has drawn this attention prima-

rily because, in spite of the fact that it is quite rare

historically, it has come to have enormous legiti-

macy in the eyes of many individuals worldwide.

This has not always been the case. Democracy has

been severely criticized by those on both the politi-

cal right and left. But few scholars today question

whether democracy is a social good.

Democracy is also important because many

historically undemocratic countries have adopted

it as a system of government. Many such changes

have occurred only in the years since the Cold War

(Huntington 1991). By 1994, over half the coun-

tries in the world had some form of democratic

governance, a doubling of the number of nation-

states so organized within 25 years (Lipset 1994).

At the core of most discussions of democracy

is a common understanding that democracy is a

method of governance or decision making for

organizations or societies in which the members of

that organization or society participate, directly or

indirectly, in the decision making of that group.

Further, members affect decision making to such

an extent that they can be thought of as actually

governing that organization or society. In short,

democracy is a system of governance in which

members control group decision making.

Not all considerations on democracy have

shared this understanding. For example, those

working in the Marxist tradition saw any state,

democratic or not, as the expression of a class

struggle. As such, any state was inherently un-

democratic, absent the creation of a classless, com-

munist, and hence truly democratic, society (Held