ABSTRACT
This introduction provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book introduces multiple ways to practice equality, each situated within a specific political frame for democracy emerging from a particular history. Many communities and organizations practice forms of democracy that give equal power to all members. Historical practices also show that other obstacles exist to full participation by different groups: the colonized and the enslaved, workers and subsistence farmers, nonvoting immigrants and refugees or exiles, the illiterate and uneducated rural poor, and other groups excluded as a matter of course by ancient Athenian and modern English, French, and US democracies past and present. Many who identify with modern legislative systems take a single, local democratic tradition and globalize it as a universal model for all people. One of the strengths claimed by democracy is that it provides an arena for engagement with difference.
