Essay Database

If we were to make a list of the essential idea of democracies to understand them in a general way, it boils down to three main prepositions. The people, legitimately influenced during an election, choose representatives who promise certain policies, and afterwards the people legitimately influence the elected official. There is universal suffrage in the election, and approximate equality in both the influencing of the people during the election and their subsequent influencing of those …

…be attributed to tolerance and accommodation. (Lijphart) The leaders of the four camps made special efforts to take into account their differences and accommodate their conflicting interests and demands. Through patient negotiations the leaders made compromises that all could agree on. The Dutch experience demonstrates that “deep, mutually reinforcing social cleavages do not form an insuperable barrier to viable democracy.”(Lijphart) This should be viewed as something positive for those democratic societies with many differences.