Democracy: Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.

Obviously a term like socialist democracy means no more or less than what the speaker wants it to mean. One must wonder if the Chinese Premier's socialist democracy has room for more than one political party.

A quick rule of thumb that I use is that if a country's name includes the words People's, Republic, or Democratic the chance that it is actually democratic is inversely proportional to the number of these words used.

(People's Republic of China, German Democratic Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo.)

Rouspeteur