What is Democracy?- II (#176, Topic Q)

My good friend, Anonymous, has honored me with his usual perceptive comment. On this topic (#174), he said: "Democracy ... is a condition where you can write your thoughts freely." Good thinking. This must be what the National Endowment for Democracy has in mind. In a recent report, quoted in Fred Hiatt's column, "The Democracy Backlash," Washington Post, 7/10/06, NED holds that "maintain[ing] some nominally democratic processes, usually including elections, and claim[ing] to be democracies" are not democracies but "hybrids." But I am more confused than ever. Is Democracy a condition? If voting is not a sufficient condition, what is/are? Is democracy a condition in the eyes of the beholder? Saturday, 7/15, at the G-8 summit in Russia, US President Bush commented that "I talked about my desire to promote institutional changes in parts of the world like Iraq, where there is a free press and free religion" (Washington Post, 7/16/06) -- this is no different from what Anonymous has said; does having these conditions sufficient for a democracy? Apparently Russian President Putin felt differently, when he remarked: "We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, I will tell you quite honestly." So, how many kinds of democracy are there? Putin seems to like sovereign democracy. In USA, one reads about electoral democracy (where the president is elected by an electoral college bearing little relationship to votes cast) or about representative democracy (where laws are enacted by representatives elected by the citizenry who then compete, invariably through financial considerations, for their attention). Democracy: A Primary Source Analysis, a juvenile book (published in 2005, very much my level), talks about Athenian democracy (508-404 BCE), and Greek democracy (ended 338 BCE); it also says that "The world's longest-lasting democracy is established" between 1400-1450, when "The Mohawk Onandaga, Seneca, Oneida, and Cayuga Native Americans join together under the Great Binding Law.". Very interesting. Needless to say, the more I read, the more confused I am. Mincing no words, this juvenile book opens with clear statements even I can understand: "Democracy really means equality. In a democracy, everyone's opinion should count equally. Realistically speaking, complete democracy has never been achieved. And it may never be." So, my question: What is Democracy? remains in search for an answer.