In response to [1], I must insist that &quot;democracy&quot; has an obvious colloquial meaning, that is, the power of the people.  While I reckon the &quot;will of the people&quot; is not exactly trivial to define (if there&#x27;s even such a thing), we do have a few instances of supposedly democratic government go directly against the wishes of the majority of its people (the adoption of the EU constitution by France comes to mind).<p>Come to think of it, the difference between a democracy and a republic is quite obvious: the first is an ideal, while a republic is a set of institutions.  Whether a particular set of institutions achieves democracy or not is the hard question.