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Inventions and Developments of Democracy: The Approach of Conceptual History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Uffe Jakobsen
Uffe Jakobsen*
Affiliation:
University of Greenland, Manutooq 1, P.O.B. 1061, 3900 Nuuk, Greenland
*
E-mail: ufja@uni.gl
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Abstract

In traditional approaches to the history of political ideas, the history of democracy is uniformly studied concerning the point of departure, selection of canonical texts, etc. The paper introduces the Koselleckian conceptual history approach (Begriffsgeschichte) and the principle of a broader selection of texts than in the traditional history of ideas to provide a fuller account of usages of the concept, thereby opening up for alternative conceptions of the inventions and development of democracy.

Keywords

democracydemocratisationconceptual history (Begriffgeschichte)‘Nordic Democracy’

Information

Type
Symposium
Information
European Political Science , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , September 2010 , pp. 316 - 327
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 European Consortium for Political Research

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