[chad_oliver]

It may not be directly associated to the democratic process for electing a government, but I think you'll find that it's still closely related to democracy in general.

Democracy is fundamentally anchored on the idea that the legitimate right to govern derives from the people, not from the sword or from the blessing of a priest. This means that governments exist to serve the people, not the other way around. The freedoms of the constitution derive from this principle.

[Swizec]

Fun historical fact: In medieval Karantania[1] the "king" was appointed and crowned by the people. He still inherited his title and whatnot, but had to be approved by his people and a free peasant performed the coronation.

So, not a democracy, but right to govern still derives from the people. It has been done.

From wikipedia:

> The ritual was performed in the Slovene language by a free peasant who, selected by his peers, in the name of the people of the land questioned the new Prince about his integrity and reminded him of his duties. Later, when the Duchy of Carinthia had fallen to the Habsburgs, the idea that it was actually the people from whom the Duke of Carinthia received his legitimation was the basis of the Habsburgs' claim to the unique title of Archduke.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karantania

[jacquesm]

Beats the crap out of 'ordained by the heavens'. What never ceases to amaze me is that good solutions to lots of things have been found over time and were lost again.

[tendom]

Well, I think this is not the case in practice, only in ideal. Russia is democratic by definition (far more so than China is communist), so is almost all of South America, at least a third of Africa, most of Europe, and several Asian countries including India (Which just had the biggest democratic election in the world), and most of coastal Asia. There are a few in the middle east, but those have yet to really take fruit. Democracy in practice only means the people get to choose from one or more preselected individuals.