Encyclopedia Britannica - Democracy

Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes, trans. from the Danish by J.A. Crook (1991, reissued 1999).

A brief account of Rome’s republican government is F.E. Adcock, Roman Political Ideas and Practice (1959, reissued 1972). An excellent, though critical, account of the Italian city-state republics is Lauro Martines, Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy (1979, reissued 2002). Also of interest are J.K. Hyde, Society and Politics in Medieval Italy (1973); and Quentin Skinner, “The Italian City-State Republics,” in Dunn (ed.), Democracy: The Unfinished Journey, 508 BC to AD 1993 (1992, reprinted with corrections 1993).

An essential source on the development of cabinet government in Britain is Archibald S. Foord, His Majesty’s Opposition, 1714–1830 (1964, reissued 1979). The classic 1867 work by Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution, ed. by Miles Taylor (2001), remains highly informative. The theory of democracy

The theory, foundations, and institutions of democracy are described in Giovanni Sartori, Democratic Theory (1961, reissued 1973); C.B. Macpherson, Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval (1973); Robert A. Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (1989, reissued 1991), and On Democracy (1998, reissued 2001); and Ian Shapiro, Democracy’s Place (1996). Problems and challenges

Contemporary problems and challenges are discussed in Ian Shapiro and Casiano Hacker-Cordón (eds.), Democracy’s Edges (1999); Keith Dowding, James Hughes, and Helen Margetts (eds.), Challenges to Democracy (2001); and Sergio Fabbrini (ed.), Nation, Federalism and Democracy (2001). Some implications of democratic ideas for nongovernmental organizations are examined in Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Economic Democracy (1985); and Ian Shapiro, Democratic Justice (1999, reissued 2001). Robert A. Dahl

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