Micro processes of construction and deconstruction of democracy

Abstract

Democracy is a golden coin, everyone demands it and the more varied and different political regimes presume to practice it. Its origins are ambiguous,  because in ancient Greece “cratos” meant government, but the citizen committees, called “demos”, included only privileged sectors that had to meet certain conditions. The rest did not count in decision-making, which is why they were not part of the “cratos” and, consequently, Greek democracy was the government exercised by those who belonged to the demos. Therefore, Greek democracy, which inspired modern democracy, was the government of the privileged sector grouped in the demos, regardless of the rest of the people.