What Really Is Democracy: In Plain Language

We have been taught to equate democracy with elections, political parties, and parliament. But are these institutions enough to give citizens genuine political power?

In plain language and without academic complications, Theo Bebekis examines the concepts at the heart of political life: democracy, forms of government, the Constitution, representation, the state, the nation, economic power, and the citizen's place in society.

What distinguishes democracy from oligarchy? Can representation transfer political power from citizens to professional politicians? What happens when economic power becomes political power? And, ultimately, who really governs?

This book challenges many assumptions that modern societies have learned to take for granted. Rather than treating democracy as a label attached to existing political systems, it returns to the fundamental meaning of the word and asks what institutions and conditions would allow citizens to exercise genuine collective self-government.

Accessible, direct, and thought-provoking, What Really Is Democracy? is written for readers who are not satisfied with conventional answers and want to reconsider democracy from the ground up.