Democracy and Democratization:

Democracy has never been a simple topic nor is there any "one size fits all" model. Instead, democracy (government by the people), like its antithesis, "autocracy" (government by one), has come in many forms since it first appeared in ancient Greece. At its simplest, democracy is exactly what its Greek roots mean: "The people govern". But, there, the simplicity ends. Polities from those earliest Greek city states to the most complex modern societies all call themselves "democracies" even though they differ in what their limits and electoral processes are and how they work.