Democracy in the context of Political campaigning

Classical Athens, known contemporaneously simply as Athens (Ancient Greek: Ἀθῆναι, Athênai [atʰɛ̂ːnai̯]; Modern Greek: Αθήναι, Athine [aˈθine]), was the major urban centre of the notable polis (city-state) of the same name during the classical period (480–323 BC) of ancient Greece, located in Attica, Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League. Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Isagoras. This system remained remarkably stable, and with a few brief interruptions, it remained in place for 180 years, until 322 BC (amid the aftermath of the Lamian War). The peak of Athenian hegemony was achieved during the Age of Pericles in the 440s and 430s BC.

In the classical period, Athens was a centre for the arts, learning, and philosophy, and it was the home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum. Athens was also the birthplace of Socrates, Plato, Pericles, Aristophanes, Sophocles, and many other prominent philosophers, writers, and politicians of the ancient world. It is widely referred to as the cradle of Western civilization and as the birthplace of democracy, largely due to the impact of its cultural and political achievements during the 5th and 4th centuries BC on the rest of the then-known European continent.

A democracy is a political system, or a system of decision-making within an institution, organization, or state, in which members have a share of power. Modern democracies are characterized by two capabilities of their citizens that differentiate them fundamentally from earlier forms of government: to intervene in society and have their sovereign (e.g., their representatives) held accountable to the international laws of other governments of their kind. Democratic government is commonly juxtaposed with oligarchic and monarchic systems, which are ruled by a minority and a sole monarch respectively.

Democracy is generally associated with the efforts of the ancient Greeks, whom 18th-century intellectuals such as Montesquieu considered the founders of Western civilization. These individuals attempted to leverage these early democratic experiments into a new template for post-monarchical political organization. The extent to which these 18th-century democratic revivalists succeeded in turning the democratic ideals of the ancient Greeks into the dominant political institution of the next 300 years is hardly debatable, even if the moral justifications they often employed might be. Nevertheless, the critical historical juncture catalyzed by the resurrection of democratic ideals and institutions fundamentally transformed the ensuing centuries and has dominated the international landscape since the dismantling of the final vestige of the British Empire following the end of the Second World War.

The Roman Republic (Latin: Res publica Romana [ˈreːs ˈpuːblɪka roːˈmaːna]) was the era of classical Roman civilisation beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establishment of the Roman Empire following the War of Actium. During this period, Rome's control expanded from the city's immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world.

Roman society at the time was primarily a cultural mix of Latin and Etruscan societies, as well as of Sabine, Oscan, and Greek cultural elements, which is especially visible in the ancient Roman religion and its pantheon. Its political organisation developed at around the same time as direct democracy in ancient Greece, with collective and annual magistracies, overseen by a senate. There were annual elections, but the republican system was an elective oligarchy, not a democracy, with a number of powerful families largely monopolising the senior magistracies. Roman institutions underwent considerable changes throughout the Republic to adapt to difficulties such as the creation of promagistracies to rule its conquered provinces and, after the Social War during the late Republic, the inclusion of peninsular Italians as citizens and senators.

The Parthenon (/ˈpɑːrθəˌnɒn, -nən/; Ancient Greek: Παρθενών, romanized: Parthenōn [par.tʰe.nɔ̌ːn]; Greek: Παρθενώνας, romanized: Parthenónas [parθeˈnonas]) is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the goddess Athena. Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of classical Greek art, and the Parthenon is considered an enduring symbol of ancient Greece, Western civilization, and democracy.

The Parthenon was built in the 5th century BC in thanksgiving for the Greek victory over the Persian invaders during the Greco-Persian Wars. Like most Greek temples, the Parthenon also served as the city treasury. Construction started in 447 BC when the Delian League was at the peak of its power. It was completed in 438 BC; work on the artwork and decorations continued until 432 BC. For a time, it served as the treasury of the Delian League, which later became the Athenian Empire.

Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the electorate directly decides on policy initiatives, without elected representatives as proxies, as opposed to the representative democracy model which occurs in the majority of established democracies. The theory and practice of direct democracy and participation as its common characteristic constituted the core of the work of many theorists, philosophers, politicians, and social critics, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, and G.D.H. Cole.

In governance, sortition is the selection of public officials or jurors at random, i.e. by lottery, in order to obtain a representative sample.

In ancient Athenian democracy, sortition was the traditional and primary method for appointing political officials, and its use was regarded as a principal characteristic of democracy. Sortition is often classified as a method for both direct democracy and deliberative democracy.

Political philosophy studies the theoretical and conceptual foundations of politics. It examines the nature, scope, and legitimacy of political institutions, such as states. The field investigates different forms of government, ranging from democracy to authoritarianism, and the values guiding political action, like justice, equality, and liberty. As a normative field, political philosophy focuses on desirable norms and values, in contrast to political science, which emphasizes empirical description.

Political ideologies are systems of ideas and principles that outline how society should work. Anarchism rejects the coercive power of centralized governments. It proposes a stateless society to promote liberty and equality. Conservatism seeks to preserve traditional institutions and practices. It is skeptical of the human ability to radically reform society, arguing that drastic changes can destroy the wisdom of past generations. Liberals advocate for individual rights and liberties, the rule of law, private property, and tolerance. They believe that governments should protect these values to enable individuals to pursue personal goals without external interference. Socialism emphasizes collective ownership and equal distribution of basic goods. It seeks to overcome sources of inequality, including private ownership of the means of production, class systems, and hereditary privileges. Other strands of political philosophy include environmentalism, realism, idealism, consequentialism, perfectionism, nationalism, individualism, and communitarianism.

The constitution of the United Kingdom comprises the written and unwritten arrangements that establish the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a political body. Unlike in most countries, no official attempt has been made to codify such arrangements into a single document, thus it is known as an uncodified constitution. This enables the constitution to be easily changed as no provisions are formally entrenched.

The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom and its predecessor, the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, have recognised and affirmed constitutional principles such as parliamentary sovereignty, the rule of law, democracy, and upholding international law. It also recognises that some Acts of Parliament have special constitutional status. These include the Magna Carta, which in 1215 required the King to call a "common counsel" (now called Parliament) to represent the people, to hold courts in a fixed place, to guarantee fair trials, to guarantee free movement of people, to free the church from the state, and to guarantee rights of "common" people to use the land. After the Glorious Revolution, the Bill of Rights 1689 and the Claim of Right Act 1689 cemented Parliament's position as the supreme law-making body, and said that the "election of members of Parliament ought to be free". The Treaty of Union in 1706 and the Acts of Union 1707 united the Kingdoms of England, Wales and Scotland, the Acts of Union 1800 joined Ireland, but the Irish Free State separated after the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922, leaving Northern Ireland within the UK. After struggles for universal suffrage, the UK guaranteed every adult citizen over 21 years the equal right to vote in the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928. After World War II, the UK became a founding member of the Council of Europe to uphold human rights, and the United Nations to guarantee international peace and security. The UK was a member of the European Union, joining its predecessor in 1973, but left in 2020. The UK is also a founding member of the International Labour Organization and the World Trade Organization to participate in regulating the global economy.

The Athenian coup of 411 BC was the result of a revolution that took place during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. The coup overthrew the democratic government of ancient Athens and replaced it with a short-lived oligarchy known as the Four Hundred.

In the wake of the financial crisis caused by the failed Sicilian Expedition of the Athenian military in 413 BC, some high-status Athenian men, who had disliked the broad-based democracy of the city-state for a long time, sought to establish an oligarchy of the elite. They believed that they could manage foreign, fiscal, and war policies better than the existing government.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; French: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, OCDE) is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. It is a forum whose member countries describe themselves as committed to democracy and the market economy, providing a platform to compare policy experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practices, and coordinate domestic and international policies of its members.

The majority of OECD members are generally regarded as developed countries, with high-income economies, and a very high Human Development Index.

Athens is one of the oldest named cities in the world, having been continuously inhabited for perhaps 5,000 years. Situated in southern Europe, Athens became the leading city of ancient Greece in the first millennium BC, and its cultural achievements during the 5th century BC laid the foundations of Western civilization.

The earliest evidence for human habitation in Athens dates back to the Neolithic period. The Acropolis served as a fortified center during the Mycenaean era. By the 8th century BC, Athens had evolved into a prominent city-state, or polis, within the region of Attica. The 7th and 6th centuries BC saw the establishment of legal codes, such as those by Draco, Solon and Cleisthenes, which aimed to address social inequalities and set the stage for the development of democracy.

In political philosophy, consent of the governed is the idea that a government's legitimacy and moral right to use state power is justified and lawful only when consented to by the people or society over which that political power is exercised. This theory of consent is starkly contrasted with the divine right of kings and has often been invoked against the legitimacy of colonialism. Article 21 of the United Nations' 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government". Consensus democracy is the application of consensus decision-making and supermajority to democracy.

A democratic deficit (or democracy deficit) occurs when ostensibly-democratic organizations or institutions (particularly governments) fall short of fulfilling the principles of democracy in their practices or operation. Representative and linked parliamentary integrity have become widely discussed. The qualitative expression of the democratic deficit is the difference between the democracy indices of a country from the highest possible values.

The phrase "democratic deficit" is cited as first being used by the Young European Federalists in their Manifesto in 1977, which was drafted by Richard Corbett.It was also used by David Marquand in 1979, referring to the European Economic Community, the forerunner of the European Union.

Deliberative democracy or discursive democracy is a form of democracy in which deliberation is central to decision-making. Deliberative democracy seeks quality over quantity by limiting decision-makers to a smaller but more representative sample of the population that is given the time and resources to focus on one issue.

It often adopts elements of both consensus decision-making and majority rule. Deliberative democracy differs from traditional democratic theory in that authentic deliberation, not mere voting, is regarded as the primary source of legitimacy for the law. Deliberative democracy is related to consultative democracy, in which public consultation with citizens is central to democratic processes. The distance between deliberative democracy and concepts like representative democracy or direct democracy is debated. While some practitioners and theorists use deliberative democracy to describe elected bodies whose members propose and enact legislation, Hélène Landemore and others increasingly use deliberative democracy to refer to decision-making by randomly-selected lay citizens with equal power.

Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and the rule of law. Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic and may be based upon the rule of a party, the military, or the concentration of power in a single person. States that have a blurred boundary between democracy and authoritarianism have sometimes been characterized as "hybrid democracies", "hybrid regimes" or "competitive authoritarian" states.

The political scientist Juan Linz, in an influential 1964 work, An Authoritarian Regime: Spain, defined authoritarianism as possessing four qualities:

Civic engagement or civic participation is any individual or group activity addressing issues of public concern. Civic engagement includes communities working together or individuals working alone in both political and non-political actions to protect public values or make a change in a community. The goal of civic engagement is to address public concerns and promote the quality of the community.

Civic engagement is "a process in which people take collective action to address issues of public concern" and is "instrumental to democracy". Underrepresentation of groups in the government causes issues faced by groups such as minority, low-income, and younger groups to be overlooked or ignored. In turn, issues for higher voting groups are addressed more frequently, causing more bills to be passed to fix these problems.