Between the Ideal and Reality: Democracy from Antiquity to Globalization

Since its genesis and practical implementation in the ancient Greece, up to its contemporary confirmation as a sacrosanct unquestionable world order, democracy as the rule of the people has always been conceived by philosophical analysis and reflection in the works of the most significant social and political philosophers, from Plato and Aristotle, through Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Tocqueville, Kant, Hegel and Mill, to Dewey and Rawls. This general content of Pavo Barisic's book The Ideal of the Rule of the People: Introduction to the Philosophy of Democracy is in its pages systematically and comprehensively documented and critically discoursed. Reflecting to his consideration of the development of democracy from antiquity to modernity, this paper discusses its various aspects and dimensions, together with the critical dialogue with philosophers and other theoreticians of democracy, from Plato and Aristotle to Dewey, Lippmann, Popper, Winters and Scholte, particularly focusing on the prospects of the development of democracy in the age of contemporary globalization.