Abstract
Democracy is the ‘government of the people, by the people and for the people’. According to this definition, attributed to Abraham Lincoln, the people are a fundamental element of all democratic systems. Democracy is the rule of the people, since governments are composed by individuals who belong to the people. It is a rule by the people, since its members participate in decision-making processes. Finally, democracy is a rule for the people, since governments are expected to rule in accordance with the people’s best interests. While there is a wide agreement that the rule of, by and for the people is a hallmark of democratic systems, much less agreement exists on how membership of ‘the people’, or electorate, should be defined.
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© 2015 Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden
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Sánchez Gassen, N. (2015). The influence of legal changes on the development of the electorate. In: Germany’s future electors. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-06942-1_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-06942-1_2
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Print ISBN: 978-3-658-06941-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-658-06942-1
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