ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the concept of civic virtue and its importance for contemporary democracies. It then explains how civic virtue is crucial for overcoming many challenges modern democracies face. Furthermore, it specifies what sorts of skills, knowledge, and attitudes citizens must possess to optimally participate in the democratic process. It presents five fundamental democratic values and shows how they can be modelled in the idea of a democratic conversation, i.e., a special kind of exchange between citizens that represents the essential values of democracy. Good citizens are defined as those who can participate in such conversations, and the civic virtues required for democracy are those that enable this participation.
