Democracy is a model of government in which the decision-making power in economic, political and social matters rests with the population. It uses this power to elect its representatives and form institutions.
In democracy, the direction taken by a given territory or country is established through existing social majorities among the population that composes it.
These popular representations can originate through suffrages and voting in various ways. By way of territorial and national elections for the election of parliaments or the use of a referendum for a particular subject.
It usually distinguishes itself in direct democracy (by means of consultations or referendums election is held) or indirect and representative (a vote or public consultation is used to elect public representatives who, from now on, will be responsible for the task of state administration and government).
Through democratic state models it is possible to ensure coexistence between different social groups in the same country, collecting their differences in a social and political way and seeing their interests defended in the form of legislation, as is a constitution.
Historical evolution of the concept of democracy
The origin of the concept of democracy is in ancient Greece. Despite their different expressions in the different models of government until now they have been undergoing evolution, to the extent that the concept of citizenship has developed and totalitarianism has progressively diminished on the global map.
This is observable in the way in which the democratic range has progressively included new social nuclei.
From the concept of powerful citizens and landowners to that of new bourgeois , expanding the scope of income necessary for the vote as history and its societies progressed.
Democracy in the contemporary context
With the incipient, since the last decades, leading role of women in the configuration of modern societies and their democracy has achieved universal suffrage.
In this way the democratic fan has consolidated since its empowerment with the emergence of national and popular sovereignty pushed after the Enlightenment to its expansion and draft in most societies, especially in the West.
In that sense, by concept democracy is positioned against totalitarian models such as fascist or communist dictatorships , as well as other absolute forms of power such as autocracy .
