PHILOSOPHY OF THE FUNCTIONAL BASICS OF DEMOCRACY: DELEGATION AND SELECTION

Abstract

The functional foundations of democracy, elections, and referenda as essential components of these foundations have been studied. The study of the phenomenon of democracy through the prism of disciplinary models, criteria, and priorities of philosophy is emphasized. The formation of «democracy» as a philosophical concept and a state management tool is analyzed. The meaningful place of the narrative of democracy in modern world order realities in general and in socio-political positioning in particular. The importance of the concept of «social contract» for modern democracy is substantiated: even though this concept was popularized by John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau during the Enlightenment, in our time, it has not lost its criterion significance and instrumental effectiveness. It has been proven that the logic of the transformational evolution of democratic procedures will, in the future, lead to the spread of the practice of electronic voting, the services of which are already used in many countries. It was found that the Ukrainian electoral system still needs to be ready for the full implementation of electronic voting. However, many significant steps have already been taken in this direction. A comparative analysis of election technologies and their application in pre-election and post-election political struggles was carried out. The difficulties of Ukraine’s democratic transition are summarized — in particular and, first of all, through the prism of the mechanism of delegation of powers and the tools of elections.