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Abstract

Since Ancient Greece where the word was first coined, the term ‘democracy’ has been used to designate one of the various forms of government. It also describes and explains one of the ways in which legitimate political power can be exercised in a society. In particular, it designates that form of government in which people exercise their political power using their free will by a method of election, or selection based on the consensus of the majority. In the history of political theory, discussion of the characteristics, the merits, and the defects of democracy are found in the theory and typology of governmental forms.

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Correspondence to Mohammed Nurudeen Akinwunmi-Othman .

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Akinwunmi-Othman, M.N. (2017). A Theoretical Overview of Democracy. In: Globalization and Africa’s Transition to Constitutional Rule. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56035-9_2

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