What are democratic values? All modern politics, as well as international relations, literally revolve around this concept. Numerous political opponents in various states constantly accuse each other of the lack of this very democracy. Most developed
world states of our time are countries with a democratic regime. However, states with different governance principles and values are becoming outcasts. Democratic regimes, according to prominent contemporary thinker
Francis Fukuyama, are not only the most progressive in the modern world, but also ideal
forms of government. And such a view today really has many supporters. After all, democratic regimes actually demonstrate the highest productivity and legal capacity.
The ancient origins of democracy
The idea of democracy is an original European product. Its first realized version was the policies of ancient Greece, where government agencies
(areopagus, bule, councils of archons) were elected by voting, and the most important decisions for cities were made by the whole people. Interestingly, a procedure was even invented here, which is a de facto preventive measure to protect the democratic regime of the polis state - ostracism. Many of the achievements of ancient Greek civilization were later captured by the Romans. Including the idea of democracy here has taken on new forms. It was in the
Roman Republic that the concept of citizenship was born, which is close to modernity. In addition, here for the first time in the world the idea of separation of branches of power arose and was realized - something without which this
form of government is unthinkable today.
Democratic regimes in modern times
With the fall of ancient civilization, many of its achievements, including in political thought, were lost for a long time. Again, the ideas of democratic governance began to emerge and be developed by progressive thinkers of the New Age: Hobbes, Montesquieu, Russo, Locke and others. During this period, among other proposals of philosophers of the era, important ideas arose about the so-called “social contract”. For the first time since time immemorial
claims of the monarchs to
absolute power began to be questioned. By the way, the formation of ideas about democracy also influenced the emergence of national communities, as we know them today. The most important moment in the formation and design of the modern world order was the Great French Revolution, which occurred in 1789. According to its results, the monarch as such was first overthrown in Europe. Of course, this episode was only the beginning of a long journey, when previously inviolable kings and dynasties surrendered their positions, and confidence in their natural and civil rights was strengthened in the
mass consciousness of European peoples. For the next nineteenth and twentieth centuries, progress had to fight the reaction. One after another, democratic regimes were established first in Europe, and then around the world.