Just want a clear understanding of how a functional Democracy would work? If i am understanding this correctly, America is formally a democracy but truly a republican country. Why is that?
Thanks for any help,
Jesse

A quote from Wikipedia about Democracy:

The Founding Fathers of the United States rarely praised and often criticized democracy, which in their time tended to specifically mean ‘direct democracy’; James Madison argued, especially in ‘The Federalist No. 10′, that what distinguished a democracy from a republic was that the former became weaker as it got larger and suffered more violently from the effects of faction, whereas a republic could get stronger as it got larger and combats faction by its very structure.

Or are we watching what happends?

Is Democracy two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch?

Always been that way, but not half and half, but more like 10%/90%
and whats new is that it’s seldom been so blatantly easy for the 10%
to purchase legislation that makes it legal.

Apart from voting in elections what are the other ways people can participate in a democracy ?

One thing that immediately comes to my mind is: writing to our MP’s and MLA’s.
Can you let me know of other things that can be done to make our country a better place

Join a political party and work from within to change things.

If you think our politicians are letting us down, then work from within a political party to make a difference, perhaps at local level at first, then who knows?

There are very few printed or electronic channels those are not biased. Again there are floods of paid news and politically motivated news; especially before the elections. Everyone knows they play a vital role in making a opinion. Some of the media owner are nothing but businessmen and they put their business before anything.

Again freedom of media is one of the conditions of the democracy. As it considered to be one of the pillars of it. And people have deep faith in media. Most of the people have hardly any other way for collecting information.

It can’t. The powerful people would institute a monarch before they’d give up brainwashing the voters to vote the way they want.

And is putting your little measly vote in the ballot box really worth being pounded with propaganda 24/7/365?

I have did as an assignment. I need to write a 1 page discussing "How Nelson Mandel contributed to peace, democracy and reconciliation in South Africa"

by doing his time . and giving up on hate and terror

so i am doing a project in my Comparative Government class, and were working with democracy, and i need a subtopic for economic freedom. When i say signposts of democracy, i mean the different things that a democracy needs to have (e.g. political tolerance, economic freedom, regular fair, and free elections etc.) if anyone* can help me please do so, thanks.

*No offense, but if you don’t know what signposts of democracy are, don’t try to answer my question.

there is no such topic.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years."
— Alexis de Tocqueville

To answer your question;

Never have truer words been written, Democracies rarely fall from being conquered but fall from within….That is why the words of Alexis Tocqueville are never taught in today’s public school system

What are the major threats to democracy in
modern society?
• Compare and contrast protective and
developmental democracy models.
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of each
model of democracy?
• Can political equality coexist with economic
equality?

democracy is a definition that since the organizing of a state has not been met yet. what i mean is the true meaning of democracy is not yet evident. although there are some aspects shown in our society today but personal interests of politicians or those people in government is always in the way. decisions should be made not by one or a small group of people but by the people.

It seems that most end in a dictatorship of some kind, with only a few establishing a democracy. What do you think helps them on their way?

Revolutions, in countries where systems other than democracy prevails, generally end up in democracy. Leadership with clear aims and capability of planning and hard work can take a country towards democracy. Revolutions by sectarian groups (including army) can only take the country towards dictatorship and totalitarianism. In all revolutions, mass participation decides the result. If it is a small group without mass support leading the revolution, the result would be some sort of dictatorship, where the chief aim would be retaining power at all costs, i.e., giving shape to another form of dictatorship.

Why is it so surprising that India is a democracy? What are the obstacles to democracy in India?

It isn’t.
There are no democracies larger than a small city state.

They have democratic principles.

We aren’t a democracy. Our founders were NOT foolish.
We have a Constitutional Representative Republic with Democratic Principles.

The biggest obstacle? Islam.