What countries live under democracy?

Answer 1

Answer 1

First off, in modern political-science parlance, a "democracy" is defined as a government form where citizens can participate in government via voting in open, free elections where the election provides a meaningful choice to the citizen. It does NOT mean that the citizen has to directly participate in the government themselves.

Most modern democracies are organized as a representative republic (some are constitutional monarchies), where citizens vote in contested elections (i.e. where two more more meaningfully different persons in the contest) for representatives, who have actual powers to alter current laws in the country and bring about reforms (either more liberal or more conservative).

Given that there are no democracies in pure sense existing in the world today (hippie communes excepted), the following is a list of Republics and Kingdoms that are primarily governed by the criteria mentioned above and are typically classified as Liberal Democracies: (This list is not exhaustive)

Argentina, Australia, Barbados, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cape Verde, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guyana, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Kiribati, South Korea, Lesotho, Lithuania, Mali, Mexico, Micronesia, Mongolia, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Palau, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sao Tome & Principe, Senegal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Suriname, Sweden, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia (if the recent election is indicative), Turkey, Tuvalu, United Kingdom, United States of America, and Uruguay

In addition there are what are termed Illiberal Democracies, which are places that operate like Liberal Democracies on their face, but are plagued with one or more of the following problems: Powerful Non-Elected Elite Have a Strong Say in Government, Voter Fraud, Election Non-Recognition, Extra-Constitutional Authorities, Prevalent Coups d'Etat, and Insignificant Differences between Candidates or lack of Advertisement for Most Candidates. A list of such countries would include:

Mexico, Venezuela, Ukraine, Russia, Iran, Most of Sub-Saharan Africa, Thailand, Italy, Lebanon, and Egypt.

Answer 2

Well, because democracy gives citizens the right to vote for who they believe should rule several countries practice it such as Australia, America, Europe and has began to spread across the globe.

Answer 3

Many countries around the world are democracies. In form they may be congressional federal republics like the US, Colombia and Brazil; parliamentary federal republics like India, Germany and South Africa; unitary congressional republics like Uruguay, Chile and Costa Rica; unitary parliamentary republics like Finland, Italy and Singapore; federal parliamentary monarchies like Australia, Canada and Malaysia; or unitary parliamentary monarchies like Sweden, New Zealand, Spain, Japan and the UK.

What they all have in common is a balance of internal power where the voting electorate (the People) has the final say in who governs the country and the electorate is made up of the whole of the adult citizenry, with no special group either with more power, or excluded from power.

The difference between a congressional system and a parliamentary system is that the congressional system has one head who is both Head of State and Head of Government, whereas a parliamentary system has a separate Head of State (either a president or a monarch) and a Prime Minister who is Head of Government.

The separation of powers in a congressional system is typically divided three ways between Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches.

In a Parliamentary system the separation it is normally between the Parliament (legislative and most of the executive powers), the Head of State (a small part of the executive powers and a tiny part of the judicial powers) and an independent judiciary (virtually all of the judicial powers). The answer to that is the US, Mexico, and some parts of Africa