Shapiro, I. The real world of democratic theory

摘要

Democracy is by now the form of government that prevails around the world. During the last 20 years the number of democratic countries has doubled and today democratic states outnumber nondemocratic ones. According to Freedom House (2011), 115 of the192 existing countries are electoral democracies with more than half of the world's population living in them. If these facts are seen as democracy's triumph against authoritarian regimes, the question then becomes, are there moral grounds for justifyingdemocracy In The Real World of Democratic Theory, Ian Shapiro building on his previous work on Democratic Theory, offers a rich and systematic answer to the above question.