I'm sorry to say but I think all you guys who think that the U.S. and other western nations are not a democracy are wrong. A democracy does NOT have to be a direct democracy in order to be a democracy. Just read up on it. It's not like I'm making these things uo.

Despite global concerns about democracy, more than half of countries are democratic

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/14/more-than-half-of-countries-are-democratic/

How Americans see their country and their democracy

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...eir-democracy/

A democracy is a political system with institutions that allows citizens to express their political preferences, has constraints on the power of the executive, and provides a guarantee of civil liberties. In an autocracy, political preferences cannot be expressed and citizens are not guaranteed civil liberties. Anocracies (a term we’ll often use in this entry) are regimes that fall in between — they are neither fully autocratic nor democratic. https://ourworldindata.org/democracy

What is a democracy? A democracy is a form of government where the citizens of the nation have the power to vote. There are several different types of democracies. Representative democracy is a system where citizens choose government representatives among their citizens. Direct democracy is when the citizens form a governing body and vote directly on issues. A constitutional democracy limits the powers of government through the nation's constitution.

Political scientist Larry Diamond put it best when he said that a democracy must contain four critical elements. These elements are:

• A system of elections used to choose and replace the government
• Protection of human rights of all people
• Active participation of citizens in politics and civics
• All laws apply equally to all citizens

True democracy, also known as direct democracy or pure democracy, is a form of democracy in which people decide on policy initiatives directly. True democracies are often synonymous with full democracies.

Full democracies are nations where fundamental political freedoms and civil liberties are respected and reinforced by the political culture. Full democracies have valid systems of checks and balances, an adequately functioning government, an independent and authoritative judiciary, and a media free from infringement.

Constitutional Republic vs. Democratic Republic

Republics differ from direct democracies. A republic is "a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives." Many modern democracies are republic because the citizens elect representatives rather than govern the state themselves.

Both a constitutional republic and a democratic republic are forms of government where the power rests with the people and is exercised through representative government. The government has an elected head of state.

In a constitutional republic, the government is limited by the laws established in its formal constitution. The government is run by elected officials voted by the population, and those officials must adhere to the government's rules in the constitution.

A democratic republic runs the government how a republic does and bases its government on democratic ideals. To best explain this, the United States can be used as an example. The United States has free and fair elections and citizen participation in government. Additionally, the U.S. protects the human rights of its citizens and honors the rule of law. These four things make the United States a democracy. The fact that the United States has elected government officials and an elected head of government who make laws according to the people's will.

The United States, like other large governments, is not entirely described by a single term and is a hybrid of multiple terms. The United States is both a constitutional democracy and a democratic republic.

The Democracy Index

The Democracy Index is an index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The index measures the states of democracy in 167 based on 60 indicator groups in five different categories: electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties. Each country is scored between 0 and 10 in each of the five categories, then averaged for an overall score. Overall scores between 8.01 and 10 are considered full democracies, which there are 22 of in the world. There are ten countries with scores of 9.0 or higher. These are the most democratic nations in the world.

The most democratic nations in the world are:

1. Norway (9.87)
2. Iceland (9.58)
3. Sweden (9.39)
4. New Zealand (9.26)
5. Finland (9.25)
6. Ireland (9.24)
7. Canada (9.22)
8. Denmark (9.22)
9. Australia (9.09)
10. Switzerland (9.03)

According to the index, several nations are classified as "flawed democracies." While elections are free and fair and there are basic civil liberties, there are faults in other aspects, such as low levels of participation in politics and civics or an underdeveloped political culture. These nations tend to have the most corruption.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/co...racy-countries

Here is the definition I found for oligarchy:
That would describe most of our current “democracies”.

Those nations all have very homogenous cultures too. Canada is probably the most diverse.

Makes sense that a people which is more aligned in outlook and expectations (ie common culture), will be able to get closer to pure democracy without it all going off the rails.

That is simply not true. Having the power to vote does not make a nation a democracy. North Korea holds elections, they have the “power to vote”, do you believe they are a democracy?

Ancient Sparta is generally now, and in the past, considered to have been an oligarchy. Even though both the Ephors and The Gerousia were elected. In fact, part of the reason it was considered an oligarchy is because these officials were elected. Sparta even had an assembly (all the citizens) who could approve and reject measures, however their approval could be “vetoed” by the Gerousia. The Gerousia were also the ones allowed to put forth measures or laws, the assembly could not.

In ancient Athens, widely regarded as having a democracy (there are obvious times when this was not the case), officials were chosen by lot. The reason was that this would keep the power with the people, whereas elections would solidify the power into the hands of the few, especially the wealthy who could afford the time and money to campaign (seem familiar?). Any Athenian could introduce measures or laws to be voted on by the assembly.

Representative democracy certainly has more positive connotations than oligarchy (currently), but it is essentially descriptive of an oligarchy. We, politicians included, refer to ourselves like this because it gives the impression that the power of government rests with the people. This is clearly not the case, the power of the government rests with the few.

Whether the few are hereditary or elected (as in Sparta) does not change the fact that the power is with that few. You and I can neither vote on laws nor introduce laws to be voted on, that power rests solely with the few.

Oligarchy, like democracy, is neither inherently good nor bad. It simply describes how the government is.

We are splitting hairs.

My reason for doing it is because too many people have unreasonable expectations of what democracy in a western information-age republic actually means. It does not mean that the government will automatically and immediately fulfill your each and every entitled whim or fancy, and also punish everyone who disagrees with you, regardless of law or precedent.