This could've easily been fixed by adding "American" in front of "democracy".

by Anonymous 12 years ago

No, it's just basically true around the world. In the states, it's really prevalent and obvious, but it happens everywhere. Like in Russia, Putin won his third term mostly because of his massive popularity.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

But just generalizing "democracy" is the wrong idea here. It implies the theory of democracy, not democracy in action. The theory of democracy is good and not a popularity contest, but only in theory. Democracy in action is a popularity contest.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

In theory, it sort of is a popularity contest, though, because you elect whoever you like, and the person that people like most, therefor the most popular, wins.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

In theory, though, it also implies that the public is intelligent enough to vote for who has the best values, morals, and belief to run a country. A popularity contest just implies who gets more coverage, which DOES happen in democracy in action. Democracy in theory isn't about how many advertisements you have, though.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

The United States isn't a democracy. We're a republic like the Roman empire. Ancient Greece was a democracy.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

In the United States, a republic is "a state that does not practice direct democracy". The US is known as a representative democracy, or, as you stated, a republic.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

There is still a difference between a democracy and a representative democracy.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

No, democracy is the general name for a government type in which people choose how the government runs. What Greece was is a direct democracy. The states is a representative democracy.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

It's kind of both. The Representative Democracy is when we vote for representatives to represent us (The people). Republic means that we elect a president instead of a monarch. That's at least what I think according to the definitions.

by Anonymous 3 years ago

That's why we live in a Republic

by Anonymous 3 years ago