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How Democratic is the American Constitution? (2001, ISBN 0-300-09218-0, among others) is a book by political scientist Robert A. Dahl that discusses seven "undemocratic" elements of the United States Constitution. The book defines "democratic" as alignment with the principle of one person, one vote, also known as majority rule.
Prior to the American Revolution in what is now the United States—and before the coming of age of the "crowned republics" of constitutional monarchies in the United Kingdom and other European countries—democracy and republic were "used more or less interchangeably", [6] and the concepts associated with representative democracy and hence ...
Most democracies apply in most cases majority rule, [7] [8] but in some cases plurality rule, supermajority rule or consensus rule are applied. They serve the crucial purpose of inclusiveness and broader legitimacy on sensitive issues—counterbalancing majoritarianism—and therefore mostly take precedence on a constitutional level.
Legal historian Christian G. Fritz [9] distinguishes between "constitutional questions", examining how the constitution was interpreted and applied to distribute power and authority as the new nation struggled with problems of war and peace, taxation and representation, and "questions of constitutionalism —how to identify the collective ...
The U.S. Constitution was a federal one and was greatly influenced by the study of Magna Carta and other federations, both ancient and extant. The Due Process Clause of the Constitution was partly based on common law and on Magna Carta (1215), which had become a foundation of English liberty against arbitrary power wielded by a ruler.
Types of democracy refers to the various governance structures that embody the principles of democracy ("rule by the people") in some way. Democracy is frequently applied to governments (ranging from local to global ), but may also be applied to other constructs like workplaces, families, community associations, and so forth.
Constitution of the Year XII (First French Republic) Constitution of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1848. A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed.
Who has the right to suffrage has changed over the centuries and universal suffrage is necessary for a nation to be considered a democracy and not a dictatorship. [ 7 ] These resemble similarities within the British Parliament system, [ 8 ] where there’s a makeshift hierarchy but the American upper house holds more importance in terms of ...