... my own views on the compatibility of the two ideals, which are liberalism and democracy. "There are few people nowadays...who do not praise democracy and claim to be democrats" (Ball and Dagger, 1995:23). Democracy today is very popular, both on its own and linked with other ideologies. Its origins however are found in ancient Greece. The central features of direct democracy in ancient Greece included; An assembly which every citizen was entitled to attend; All offices of government were appointed by election; Freedom of speech; Equality before the law; Active citizenship. Little about democracy has changed since then but one significant difference to today is that the universal citizenship in ancient Greece was only for men. Today there are many diverse theories of democracy but the central ideas are as follows (taken from Using Political Ideas, Goodwin, 1997:272): 1) Supremacy of the people 2) Consent of the governed as the basis of legitimacy 3) The ...

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