ABSTRACT
As more and more citizens all over the world are increasingly dissatisfied with the representative model of democracy applied today, we need new visions for democratic governing. Existing literature is more concerned about advocating the favorite democratic theories and practices of respective authors. In contrast, the objective of this book is to help communities to govern themselves. It argues that citizens should be the authors and owners of the democratic setup they live in. It proposes to put citizens’ and communities’ democratic preferences into the center. The introduction discusses the gaps in the existing literature, presents the concept of Thriving Democracies and describes the rationale as well as the structure of this book. Then it envisions a community that governs itself in the sense of a Thriving Democracy.
