ABSTRACT
The chapter discusses both the differences and continuities in ancient and modern usage, and attempts to rebut the contention that democracy rests on a principle of exclusivity. It stresses the importance to modern democracy of the belief in human rights, and focuses on the disappearing differences in usage between "democracy" and "republic". A newer view of freedom arose in and through democracy because the effort to create popular government required that tribalism be replaced as a basis of organization by new social and political entities based less and less on kinship. The chapter offers a working definition of the term as the expression of the universal human quest for autonomy— and some reflections on the tensions among the forms autonomy takes in democracy. The art of democratic politics consists in a continual mediation among the forms of autonomy in order to preserve balance and maintain social harmony.
