Democracy

In the dictionary definition, democracy "is government by the people in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system." In the phrase of Abraham Lincoln, democracy is a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." So, in short, democracy is a system where the population of a society controls the government. It may be broadly described a society as a whole, which can also exert political power and social power.

However, people often mistakenly think that freedom is democracy, but in fact they are not synonymous. Democracy is indeed a set of ideas and principles about freedom, but it also consists of a set of practices and procedures that have been developed for a long period of time.

This is a good way to organize political life, as it can be seen from the major practice of democracy --- election. Today, the most common form of democracy, whether for a town of 50,000 or nations of 50 million, is representative democracy, in which citizens elect officials to make political decisions, set up laws, and govern programs for the public good. Whatever the method used, public officials in a representative democracy hold office in the name of the people and remain responsible to the people for their actions. Roughly speaking, society means people, people mean society, and so a political life which is organized by democracy creates and governs a society which its citizen want to be.