What is democracy? How do we know when we have it? Is liberal democracy merely one, or the only, version of democracy, realizable at governmental level? What is the relation between democracy and human rights? Do economic and social rights really count as human rights, and are they necessary to democratic citizenship? These are some of the questions addressed in this original book.

The volume is organized around an interlinked set of problems: democracy's definition and justification; its institutional and societal conditions; the relation between democracy and human rights; the assessment of democracy through democratic audit, and the criteria for its consolidation, development and deepening.

Democracy and Human Rights will be of particular value to students of politics who are interested in democracy both as an idea and as a political and social practice, and to those concerned with issues of human rights and their relation to democracy.