Will the Real Democracies Please Stand Up?

Abstract

To be a democracy, then, a government must have, de minimus, two characteristics—majority rule and the rule of law. Applying this rather generous definition, we can now test our contentions that (1) nation building, with very, very few exceptions, has been a failed enterprise, and that (2) democracies, even in a vaunted eponymous age, remain very much a minority among governments.¹ But first, a brief word about the history of democracy.