Ameliorations of “Democracy”

Abstract

Abstract This chapter explores whether amelioration of “democracy” can be a better strategy than abandonment. The ameliorator wants to give the D-words a meaning that is better than the current one. They aim to improve the semantic, pragmatic, and communicative properties of the D-words. The chapter focuses on defects of particular ameliorative definitions and describes problems that spring out of various ameliorative proposals. It criticizes ameliorative proposals from Thomas Christiano, David Estlund, and Joseph Schumpeter, highlighting the many ways in which many accounts fail to match up with our ordinary notion of democracy. It also discusses various democracy indices that provide quantified models of degrees of democracy.