Democracy means only that the people rule, nothing more

Evidence

Demos/kratia. The people rule. “Democracy” signifies the aspiration that the people, and not something else, order and regulate their common life through ruling themselves together. Conversely, democracy negates the legitimacy of rule by a part of the people, rather than by the whole—for example, only by those with property, wealth, education, or expertise—or by any external principle, such as power, god(s), violence, truth, technology, or nationalism, even as the people may decide that one or more of these ought to guide, even determine, their shared existence. The term “democracy” contains nothing beyond the principle that the demos rules, although as the only political form permitting us all to share in the powers by which we are governed, it affords without guaranteeing the possibility that power will be wielded on behalf of the many, rather than the few, that all might be regarded as ends, rather than means, and that all may have a political voice. This is the bare promise of bare democracy. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 401

Categorization

• DEFINE: The etymological core definition: democracy contains nothing beyond the principle that the demos rules, and only negatively excludes rule by a part of the people.
• XREF: connects to: Voting alone does not constitute the full work of democracy — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still…, 616; Democracy is a mode of associated living, not just a form of government; True democracy requires that every citizen can potentially govern (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Voting alone does not constitute the full work of democracy #contradicts (0.90) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 616
• Democracy is a mode of associated living, not just a form of government #expands (0.85)
• Deliberative politics is constitutive of democracy, not a regulative ideal #contradicts (0.85) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 54
• True democracy requires that every citizen can potentially govern #expands (0.80)
• Participation without control over parameters is not democracy but its evisceration #contradicts (0.80) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 247
• Democracy minimally requires popular authorization of laws and shared power #corroborates (0.80) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 362
• Democracy requires that every citizen can govern, not merely reach a better job #expands (0.80) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 366
• Genuine consent to fascism would satisfy purely procedural definitions of democracy #qualifies (0.80) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 458
• Democracy can function on recognition by only a minority #corroborates (0.75)
• Even Rousseau justifies democracy only negatively as non-violation #corroborates (0.75) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 403
• The impossibility of identifying wise rulers justifies the necessity of democracy #contradicts (0.75) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 509
• The incommensurability of universal and particular is the precondition for democracy #complicates (0.70) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 378
• Democracy is power’s technical character normalized in moral terms #qualifies (0.70) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 745