What's the difference between democracy and oligarchy?

Democracy


Definition:

  • (n.) Government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is retained and directly exercised by the people.
  • (n.) Government by popular representation; a form of government in which the supreme power is retained by the people, but is indirectly exercised through a system of representation and delegated authority periodically renewed; a constitutional representative government; a republic.
  • (n.) Collectively, the people, regarded as the source of government.
  • (n.) The principles and policy of the Democratic party, so called.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) On his blog, Grillo called the referendum results a victory for democracy.
  • (2) We are deeply saddened," said Nyan Win, a spokesman of National League for Democracy.
  • (3) Despite Facebook's size and reach, and its much-vaunted role in the short-lived Arab spring , there are reasons for thinking that Twitter may be the more important service for the future of the public sphere – that is, the space in which democracies conduct public discussion.
  • (4) UPDATE II [Tues.] Two other items that may be of interest: first, Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger was the guest for the full hour yesterday on Democracy Now, discussing the paper's role in reporting the NSA stories, and the video and transcript of the interview are here ; second, marking our collaboration on a series of articles about spying on Indians, the Hindu has a long interview with me on a variety of related topics, here .
  • (5) Can somebody who is not a billionaire, who stands for working families, actually win an election into which billionaires are pouring millions of dollars?” Naming prominent and controversial rightwing donors, he said: “It is not just Hillary, it is the Koch brothers, it is Sheldon Adelson.” Stephanopoulos seized the moment, asking: “Are you lumping her in with them?” Choosing to refer to the 2010 supreme court decision that removed limits on corporate political donations, rather than address the question directly, Sanders replied: “What I am saying is that I get very frightened about the future of American democracy when this becomes a battle between billionaires.
  • (6) Historical reality suggests the concept of socially necessary risk determined through the dialectic process in democracy.
  • (7) Spain’s constitutional court responded by unanimously ruling that the legislation had ignored and infringed the rules of the 1978 constitution , adding that the “principle of democracy cannot be considered to be separate from the unconditional primacy of the constitution”.
  • (8) These are basic principles of democracy and Israeli law.
  • (9) The values of human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and the respect for human rights are absolutely fundamental to the European Union.
  • (10) And it means the Foreign Office dealing with those in the Middle East and North Africa who are on the side of democracy and human rights, not sitting down to tea with torturers.
  • (11) The referendum shows that democracy really sucks – that democracy does not deliver stability, prosperity [or] responsible government,” Tsang said.
  • (12) This thoughtful intervention brought new hope to us and others, for the rebuilding of public trust in surveillance conducted with respect for privacy, democracy and the law.
  • (13) "For tax evaders, she should turn to Pasok and New Democracy to explain to her why they haven't touched the big money and have been chasing the simple worker for two years."
  • (14) Secularism is the only way to stop collapse and chaos and to foster bonds of citizenship in our complex democracy.
  • (15) The charity Bite the Ballot , which persuaded hundreds of thousands to register before the last general election, is to set up “democracy cafes” in Starbucks branches, laying on experts to explain how to register and vote, and what the referendum is all about (Bite the Ballot does not take sides but merely encourages participation).
  • (16) The writer John Lanchester concedes that democracies will always need spies, but reading the Snowden documents persuaded him that piecing together habits of thought from internet searches takes things far beyond conventional spying: “Google doesn’t just know you’re gay before you tell your mum; it knows you’re gay before you do.
  • (17) In the wake of her win, Aung San Suu Kyi has written to Min Aung Hlaing, the president, Thein Sein, and the parliamentary Speaker, Shwe Mann, requesting a meeting to discuss the election and “national reconciliation”, according to the National League for Democracy Facebook page.
  • (18) Our later measures – parliament's power to declare peace and war, MPs to be subject to a right to recall, an end to the royal prerogative, an elected Lords – were about a 21st-century democracy, with citizenship to be founded on a new bill of rights and responsibilities and, in time, a written constitution.
  • (19) It won’t happen suddenly, but the most likely outcome for European social democracy is the one being secretly contemplated on the Labour backbenches: a fusion with liberalised conservatism.
  • (20) The genius of a democracy governed by the rule of law, our democracy, is that it both empowers the majority through the ballot box, and constrains the majority, its government, so that it is bound by law.” Turnbull added: “Why does Daesh [another term for Islamic State] hate us?

Oligarchy


Definition:

  • (n.) A form of government in which the supreme power is placed in the hands of a few persons; also, those who form the ruling few.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Once neither painfully elitist nor patronisingly populist, Edinburgh in August now threatens to become an oligarchy, a Chipping Norton of the arts, its sluices greased by Foster's lager, rather than by country suppers and police horses.
  • (2) Coleridge, denouncing “a contemptible democratical oligarchy of glib economists”, asked: “Is the increasing number of wealthy individuals that which ought to be understood by the wealth of the nation?” Dickens did much with Carlyle’s despairing insight into cash payment as the “sole nexus” between human beings.
  • (3) Nor is the Vermont senator only attracting the usual leftwing suspects, such as those attendees who wore “Oligarchy Response Team” T-shirts.
  • (4) He promised to raise the minimum wage, rehire fired workers and to fight a Greek oligarchy well-known for its corruption and tax evasion.
  • (5) "Those who are responsible should pay for the crisis: the bankers, industrialists, ship-owners, big ­merchants, the oligarchy of this country."
  • (6) Hence the real question that Scots have to decide: will independence shift the balance of power away from oligarchy and towards democracy?
  • (7) If there is a “generational struggle to defend the principles of the free market”, it’s a struggle against the corporations, which have replaced the market with a state-endorsed oligarchy .
  • (8) Voting for the oligarchy is not how you get rid of the oligarchy,” said Carlos Martinez, 40, an activist from Texas who creates social media content .
  • (9) And that way is that today in America, we are living in a country that is moving quite rapidly toward an economic oligarchy and a political oligarchy.
  • (10) Thus politics in Russia , the one common denominator in the Litvinenko enigma, may have nothing to do with evolving democracy or our old friend market forces, but rather is a murderous clash of oligarchies over wealth, like Machiavelli's Borgias, or a Hollywood Godfather IV view of events.
  • (11) Jakarta’s politics – and Indonesia’s – is entrenched in an elitist oligarchy, in which party bosses or their corporate backers are the main financiers.
  • (12) Liberating individualism was transformed into exploitable atomisation, creative self-expression replaced by a depoliticised, desocialising consumerism that enabled the rise of a new oligarchy.
  • (13) That is called an oligarchy.” Sanders congratulated the crowd for “making history” by taking part in what the campaign believes is the largest online organizing event of the 2016 campaign so far.
  • (14) If they still come down we will need to take some sort of action.” “I’m still looking at legal action from the supreme court to stop them coming anyway.” The Party for Freedom posted on its website: “Today we face a battle against a corrupt political oligarchy that wants to restrict freedom of speech, and deny patriotic Australians the right to mark the 10nth Cronulla Riots anniversary in Cronulla.
  • (15) But in other cases, it has come with serious problems such as powerful oligarchies that wipe out competition, prevent local innovation, fuel corruption and seek rents.
  • (16) In the 1990s we encountered both anarchy and oligarchy.
  • (17) They desired, rather, that it be lived on a higher level than that of a serf, treated as an inconvenience by a moribund oligarchy.
  • (18) Jeremy Clarkson: big mouth strikes again BBC seeks to limit damage over Clarkson rant Jeremy Clarkson's One Show strike outburst - full text The Jeremy Clarkson moment: populism or oligarchy?
  • (19) And when they say competition, what you're actually left with is four or five – sometimes only three – companies, who barely compete with one another at all but instead operate as an unelected oligarchy.
  • (20) "If management and an existing board take on this power to hire and fire this ceases to be a co-operative and instead becomes little more than a self perpetuating, management-led, oligarchy," said Eyre.