The main part. The political content of democracy

The concept of democracy has been two and a half thousand years. In different centuries in the history of political thought was given to the term ambiguous interpretation. With the complication of political stratification and pictures on her political doctrines that appeal to democracy, the latter took on various interpretations.

However, there are similarities, that allow to determine the general features that characterize this or that system as democratic, and in particular on quantitative parameters - as more democratic or less democratic.

The classical definition of democracy is inextricably linked to its etymological origin. The term comes from the Greek word, which in turn consists of two words: demos - the people and kratos - the power of government. Born in antiquity, democracy literally means "people power" or "the people" [4].

In political science the term "democracy" is used in four senses:

how people power;

as a form of structure of any organization based on principles of equality of its members, selectivity and decision making by majority (party-Profsoyuzna, youth, etc.);

as an ideal social order and its associated worldview and value system;

as a movement for democracy (social democratic, Christian democratic, etc.) [2].

However, over the longer one century in the history of political thought in the concept of "nation" by different authors, academic schools and concepts fit different meaning. The same can be said about the different interpretations of the mechanism of democracy.comparison of democratic practice to the concepts of democracy shows that the latter, on the one hand, often followed the empirical material, on the other - have sought to develop an ideal model of democratic system which takes into account the experience of the historical development of its negative and positive effects. Therefore, if you deeply analyze the essence of democracy, it would bring under real political system with the real needs of social development.

All this necessitates Typing theoretical models of democracy, which in turn resulted in a real practice of political development. One of the first attempts typification of these models was made by Canadian political scientist S. McPherson. Explorer problem is the English political scientist J. Held, who in his work "model of democracy" singled out different types of democracy: classical, ancient democracy (democracy in ancient Greece, Athenian democracy), republicanism (republicanism in ancient Rome and the medieval city Republic), the protective democracy, democracy, developing the theory of mortality of state (Marx); elitaryzm competitive, pluralistic democracy, democratic theory partitsypatornoyi; legal model of democracy [4].

If talking is that the historical genesis of democracy a long and controversial. Born in ancient Greece the idea of democracy is not found there ardent supporters among philosophers. Concept of the brightest representatives of the time of Plato and Aristotle were based on the opposition between "right" and "distorted" forms of government and power. Democracy they zarahovuvaly to "distorted" form. In the next century as dominated skeptical of democracy. After the French bourgeois revolution, it became clear that democracy is the way it is more reasonable political and social organization of society, the state government. In the nineteenth century. in a democracy had its ups and downs, but in general, to it was negative. After the publication of the Alexis de Tocqueville's book (1805-1859)"Democracy in America" began to form positive attitudes to democracy. In the early twentieth century. practically no time left political doctrines, including Bolshevism and fascism, which is based in their ideological constructions not be laid for democracy all sorts. After the 1917 revolution in Russia was proclaimed a dictatorship of the proletariat as a higher type of proletarian democracy.

Great significance in strengthening the modern norms of democracy played Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN (1948), Helsinki Meeting (1975), the human rights movement in post-socialist countries, the Paris meeting of the heads of European governments and adopted its "Charter of Paris for a New Europe " (1990) [5, 421].

One of the basic principles of democracy is the principle of majority. Majority rule is the essence of the doctrine of popular sovereignty, under which the people declared source of supreme power in a democratic society. Democracy presupposes free activities of all political parties, socio-political associations, organizations, movements, acting within the law. For democratic government characterized by multi.

An important attribute of democracy - the principle of separation of powers in the system of government. According to this principle of legislative, executive and judiciary are separate and quite independent of one another. However, they constantly interact and counterbalance one another. The indispensable condition of democracy is transparency of all activities of state bodies, political parties and public organizations. The independent status of the media - is also an attribute of a democratic society.

In a democratic society a significant role in the system of government is given to local government, is a rational division of competence and powers of various levels of government. That local government closest to the people and of its action depends on the daily lives of citizens. Therefore, the degree of democratic society is measured by the fact that the status and scope of local authorities, as well as its level of accessibility for people [1, 125].

In our work we are not able to examine in detail all the concepts of democracy. Therefore, we will cover only those concepts that are associated with the theory and practice of modern democracy that goes back to the XVII-XVIII centuries.