Degrees of democraticity

There are competing conceptions of democracy. In particular, the terms “democracy” and “democratic” have been defined by political philosophers and political scientists in many different ways. Which one is right? How should one choose among the proposed definitions? A democracy is perhaps always a State, but the adjective “democratic” is often applied to other entities as well; for example, organizations, collective decisions, decision methods, personalities, families, and so on. However, in what follows, I shall concentrate upon States and certain similar political organizations or societies, such as unions and confederations of States. The problem of how to choose among different conceptions of democracy might be held to be, at least partly, a normative question. Presumably, different philosophers propose different concepts of democracy because they evaluate types of political organizations differently; each favors the definition that picks out his or her favorite type of society. However, I recommend that we separate the normative and the definitional questions. In this way, different thinkers may adopt the same concept of democracy, even if they disagree normatively. This would facilitate theorizing concerning democracy.