Western democracy

Imagine there is a freaked out dwarven self-proclaimed hegemon coming inside your home out of nowhere and telling you in the most arrogant manner that you have to follow his way of f-ing the world and that this is a status-quo you are not allowed to change. That is an approachable definition of the western democracy thing going on globally.

U have to comply to western democracy, dude, that is the only way of breathing. Heil democracy!

by Umbago September 5, 2024

Reagan Democrat

A Democrat who likes/liked Republican President Ronald Reagan. Reagan has consistently received bipartisan popularity and praise. The term can also be used to describe a Democrat who supports a Republican candidate or policy.

Jim: Lily loved President Reagan.

Josh: Really? I thought she was liberal.

Jim: She is, but she's a Reagan Democrat.

by SantoriniSwimmer223 January 3, 2025

Crony Democracy

Crony Democracy is a sham political system that maintains the outward appearance of a democracy—elections, parties, a constitution—but where real power, wealth, and policy are shaped by a tight, corrupt network of connections between the ruling political class and their favored business elites.

In a crony democracy, your success depends less on merit, public support, or fair competition, and more on who you know, who you’ve bribed, or which politician you went to school with. The government uses regulation, state contracts, and public resources to reward allies and punish opponents, while keeping up a theatrical performance of legitimate democratic process for the voters and the international community.

Don't be fooled by the elections here; it's a total crony democracy. The president's cousin got the billion-dollar infrastructure contract, his major donor's company pays no taxes, and the opposition can't even get airtime on TV.

by AbzuInExile January 24, 2026

Council Democracy

A model where sovereign political power rests with a network of directly elected, recallable, and grassroots councils (like workers' councils in factories or community councils in neighborhoods), which federate upward to larger coordinating bodies. It rejects both liberal parliamentarism and vanguard party dictatorship, aiming for a bottom-up, delegate-based system. It’s the political structure championed by libertarian socialists and council communists, who saw it in the brief flowering of the Paris Commune or the early Soviet councils before Bolshevik centralization.

*Example: The short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic (1919) attempted to implement Council Democracy. Factories and city districts elected councils that sent recallable delegates to a central congress, aiming to administer society without a separate, professional bureaucracy or party hierarchy. It was crushed by Freikorps and central government forces.*

by Dumu The Void February 5, 2026

Socialist Democracy

A broad term for democratic models that aim to combine political democracy with social ownership of the economy. It ranges from reformist visions (like democratic socialism, which seeks to electorally transition to socialism) to more radical participatory models. The core idea is extending democracy from the narrowly political sphere into the economic realm (workplaces, investment). It’s defined by its opposition to both Stalinist authoritarianism and unregulated capitalism.

Example: Kerala, India, with its long history of elected communist governments, strong public sector, land reforms, and high social indicators within a federal democratic system, is often cited as a real-world experiment in Socialist Democracy, emphasizing social welfare and participatory planning alongside multi-party elections.

by Dumu The Void February 5, 2026

Communist Democracy

The theoretical end-goal of Marxist thought: a stateless, classless society where true, direct democracy flourishes because the coercive apparatus of the state has "withered away." Administration of things would replace government over people, with decisions made by free associations of producers. No large-scale society has ever achieved this; it remains a utopian ideal. References to it in existing states are usually considered propaganda to legitimize authoritarian party rule.

Example: In the sci-fi culture of Iain M. Banks' The Culture, a post-scarcity anarchist society managed by benevolent AIs, you see a fictional approximation of Communist Democracy. There is no state, money, or hierarchy, and decisions are made through continuous, nuanced plebiscites and AI mediation—a vision of direct democracy made possible by abundance and technology.

by Dumu The Void February 5, 2026

Neighborhood Democracy

A hyper-local model where the primary unit of political power is the neighborhood or block. Residents in a small, geographically bounded area meet in regular assemblies to make decisions on local issues (parks, traffic, zoning) and elect recallable delegates for city-wide coordination. It’s a building block for municipalist movements, aiming to reclaim the city street-by-street from impersonal bureaucracy and developer capital.

Example: The Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico, organize their governance around autonomous municipalities where villages (neighborhoods in a rural sense) hold assemblies to make decisions. While part of a larger revolutionary structure, this foundation in direct, local decision-making is a form of Neighborhood Democracy.

by Dumu The Void February 5, 2026