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Government by the people. Until recently, democracies counted very few persons among 'the people'. Now they include all adult citizens, including, in many nations, recent immigrants, and democracy is virtually universally revered as the best or the right form of government. In the democratic upsurges in Eastern Europe in 1989, a rallying-cry from crowds in the street was ' We are the people'. Every chanter, every listener, knew what that meant, and most of them presumably …

… true of many intellectual enterprises, clarification regularly uncovers difficulties, often grievous difficulties, for our understanding of democracy. As a result, democratic theory thrives while theoretically democracy looks more shambling than ever. Though democracy may not be a good example of deliberation, its theory often is. Debates are beautiful, wide-ranging, insightful, and, unusually for philosophy, increasingly grounded in empirical cases. There is no call for science fiction or contrived examples in democratic theory. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**