Democracy is a word that gets used quite frequently to describe a system of government. By popular usage, the word "democracy" implies a form of government in which the government derives its power from the people and is accountable to them for the use of that power. In this sense, the United States might accurately be called a democracy. Many states allow for policy questions to be decided directly by the people by voting on ballot initiatives or referendums. However; by definition, the word “democracy” describes a system in which citizens meet to discuss all policy and then make decisions by majority rule. Democracy is a form of government that gives power to the people. In this regard, the United States is not a democracy. In reality, the United States is a republic which is a system that allows the people to choose representatives who, in turn, make policy decisions on their behalf.
The country in which we
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The goal of this paper is to compare the quality of democracy between two neighboring countries. Malaysia and Singapore, both South East Asian countries, are just a hop, skip and jump from each other yet very different in their systems of democratic governance. One way to assess a nation’s system of government is to evaluate the power of the citizen. The type of government a nation adopts shapes the political participation process. By definition, one form of democracy is direct democracy, in which all eligible citizens have direct and active participation in the political decision making. Another form of democracy is a representative democracy, in which political power is exercised indirectly through elected representatives. Democracy suggests a nation has systematically built a fair government that conducts free, fair and regular elections.