Democracy and Democratization: Theory and Research

Democracy is an essentially contested concept, both in the sense that the notion inspires different normative interpretations and in the sense that different translations of a particular conception into an institutional constellation are possible. Democracy as a political regime – in broad terms understood as the rule of the many rather than the rule of the one or the few – has taken on various meanings over time and is being used with a variety of adjectives (liberal democracy, constitutional democracy, radical democracy, direct democracy, cosmopolitan democracy, global democracy and so on). In addition, democracy can be related to different dimensions of modern societies, most prominently an institutionalized dimension, but equally ideational, symbolic and cultural dimensions.