Noun

(panarchies)

The individual's right to choose any form of government without being forced to move from their current locale.

* 1860 article by “Panarchy” de Puydt

(systems theory) Dynamic symmetry across multiple scales.

*{{quote-book, 2001, Lance H. Gunderson and C. S. Holling, Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems, page=25 citation

, passage=In panarchies , transformational change can be generated from below or from above. }}

(diplomacy) An inclusive, multilateral system in which all parties may participate meaningfully.

*{{quote-book, 2006, W.A. Knight, Canada Among Nations, chapter=Plurilateral Multilateralism: Canada's Emerging International Policy?, editors=Andrew F. Cooper, Dane Rowlands citation

, passage=The overlapping governance networks of panarchy have facilitated a context conducive to the above competing multilateralisms.}}

(anarchism, rare) Rule by all; a system of governance in which each person has absolute power.

*{{quote-book, 2001, David Trend, Reading Digital Culture, page=148 citation

, passage=If everyone all at once wanted to know who won the Stanley Cup in 1968 they could have the information simultaneously; cyberspace as the site of Unamuno's panarchy , where each one is king.}}

(rare) Rule of all; absolute or total rule.

*{{quote-book, 1909, Samuel Eagle Forman, A Good Word for Democracy citation

, passage=These contentions give rise to systems of political philosophy which range all the way from anarchy to panarchy ; from the doctrine that government should do nothing to the doctrine that it should do everything.}}

(poetic, rare) An all-encompassing realm.

*{{quote-book, 1839, , Festus: A Poem citation

, passage=Some held that God, and all the heavenly powers, / As with the starry panarchy of space, / Were of one essence, like divine and high;}}

Noun

(democracies)

(uncountable) Rule by the people, especially as a form of government; either directly or through elected representatives (representative democracy).

* 1866 , J. Arthur Partridge, On Democracy , Trübner & Co., page 2:

And the essential value and power of Democracy' consists in this,—that it combines, as far as possible, power and organization ; THE SPIRIT, MANHOOD, ''is at one with'' THE BODY, ORGANIZATION. [....] ' Democracy is Government by the People.

* 1901 , The American Historical Review , American Historical Association, page 260:

The period, that is, which marks the transition from absolutism or aristocracy to democracy will mark also the transition from absolutist or autocratic methods of nomination to democratic methods.

* 1921 , James Bryce Bryce, Modern Democracies , The Macmillan Company, page 1:

A century ago there was in the Old World only one tiny spot in which the working of democracy could be studied. A few of the ancient rural cantons of Switzerland had recovered their freedom after the fall of Napoleon, and were governing themselves as they had done from the earlier Middle Ages[...]. Nowhere else in Europe did the people rule.

* 1994 , Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom , Abacus 2010, p. 24:

Everyone who wanted to speak did so. It was democracy in its purest form.

(countable, government) A government under the direct or representative rule of the people of its jurisdiction.

* 2003 , Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad , W. W. Norton & Company, page 13:

In 1900 not a single country had what we would today consider a democracy : a government created by elections in which every adult citizen could vote.

(uncountable) Belief in political freedom and equality; the "spirit of democracy".

* 1918 , Charles Horton Cooley, “A Primary Culture for Democracy”, in Publications of the American Sociological Society 13 , p8

As states of the human spirit democracy , righteousness, and faith have much in common and may be cultivated by the same means...

* 1919 , Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, The Spirit of Russia: Studies in History, Literature and Philosophy , Macmillan, p446

It must further be admitted that he provided a successful interpretation of democracy' in its philosophic aspects when he conceived '''democracy''' as a general outlook on the universe... In Bakunin's conception of ' democracy as religious in character we trace the influence of French socialism.

* 1996 , Petre Roman, The Spirit of Democracy and the Fabric of NATO - The New European Democracies and NATO Enlargement , p1

The spirit of democracy' means, above all, liberty of choice for human beings... ' democracy , in both its individual and collective forms, is the main engine of the eternal human striving for justice and prosperity.