We are social beings. So, within every group, decisions must be made about how to live together, preserving wellbeing and relations with others. Historically, those decisions were made by tribal leaders, or monarchs and their courts. Yet the ancient states of Greece, needing collective commitment to the battles in which they engaged, realised it would be generated by giving the people, the demos, a voice in what had to be done. From this issued the idea of “democracy”: a particular form of social organisation in which citizens participate in the decisions that affect them.
Small communities can practise direct democracy: people meet and decide, or vote, on decisions concerning them all. In large modern societies, it operates instead as representative democracy within nation-states: citizens elect representatives to act for them in a forum where collective policies are determined.
