ABSTRACT
Democracy and public policy are intertwined because the organization of authority in a nation affects the design and implementation of government activity. Fundamental to democracy is the notion that citizens possess the ability and means to shape decisions made by public officials. How this theoretical idea became the guiding principle of a distinctive form of government is discussed first by a review of direct and representational democracy. Next, the institutional features associated with democratic governments are described. Different nations have evolved different institutional models of democracy. Parliamentary, presidential, and semipresidential forms are described, and these three models demonstrate how the idea of rule by the people can be the foundation for government in nations with different cultures and levels of development. Governments are created to pursue a variety of purposes, some of which are common to all governments. The primary purpose of democratic government, by definition, is to insure popular sovereignty, which in turn depends on the protection of individual civil and political rights. Democracy's desirability derives from its institutional design which allows the majority of citizens to influence public policy in ways relevant to their interests and needs. Recent societal changes, it is argued, have resulted in a “postdemocratic era” in which the viability of traditional representational democracy has been questioned. Calls for enhanced participatory forms and the use of digital technologies to foster popular sovereignty pose challenges to the continuing relevance of democracy in the twenty-first century.
