What Causes Democracy?

The question of "what a democracy is - and is not," to borrow a well-known title, should rather be understood as falling along a continuum. The points of this continuum represent the minimum standards that modern theorists associate with the definition of a democracy, with the advent of new, more complex standards added as we move from one end of the continuum to the other. The minimalist standard, which can be termed Schumpterian/Huntingtonian/Przeworskian, associates democracy with elections, while a more maximal standard, as advanced by post-modern theorists, including feminists and other advocates of minority rights, requires democracy also to encompass political, and ultimately group, equality.