“Democracy” should be banned – the word, that is. That’s the recommendation from Edward Lucas at Economist.com (the comment is also published at Lucas’ blog). The reason: “democracy” is misused, anyway:

If Vladimir Putin of Russia describes himself as a “perfect democrat”, he is welcome to the term, along with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and those nostalgic for the German “Democratic” Republic. Democracy all too often means buying votes, rigging elections and mob rule.

Instead of “democracy”, Lucas suggests that we use “law-governed”, “free” and “public-spirited”. He ends up with Karl Popper’s “open society” as a good candidate for a term that covers the kind of society he wants to describe.

Worth pondering. Maybe with a compilation of democracy definitions in mind.

(Originally published on the Why democracy website.)