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It is not within the ambit of this study to explore all the contextual definitions of democracy, however because distributed governance of schools was born out of the need to extend democracy across all spectrums of society, this study will be incomplete without cursorily exploring this concept.

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The United Nations defines democracy as a form of government that is based on the freely expressed will of the people to determine their own political, economic, social and cultural systems and involving their full participation in all aspects of their lives (UN, 1993:1661).

Democracy is a governance system in which the people choose their leaders voluntarily from among opposing groups and individuals who are not designated by the government (Kotze, 2004:23). Abraham Lincoln's description of democracy in his Gettysburg address as a

‘Government of the People, by the People, for the People’, simplifies the meaning of democracy to such a degree that it might apply to either authoritarian or liberal democracies.

Blaug and Schwarzmantel, (2000:24) regard popular sovereignty under the law as the central value of democracy. Democracy still has this basic meaning, but over the centuries, the meaning of the term democracy has gradually been modified to include many connotations and concepts to adapt to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (Basson, 2000:157-176). Burke (1996:68-70), a philosopher and politician, argued persuasively that a representative is not a mere delegate, but that a representative should apply his judgment and his industry and effort to serve his constituents by deliberating on matters that have effect on the constituency or in the case of this study the particular school community. He Burke (1971:13) pointed out that a representative becomes a member of a forum (in this case the SGB) of deliberation such as parliament. Furthermore, Burke (id), surmised that most of the matters to be decided on by the State (or any forum of deliberation for that matter) could not be determined before discussion. The discussion is necessary for all the representatives to exercise their judgment and opinion on matters that had not been determined as yet. He maintained that if being a representative at parliament would merely involve the communication of the will of the constituents that had already been determined, then the representative would simply be a messenger with no power to decide and that no discussion nor deliberation would take place or in fact be necessary in parliament (or any forum of deliberation such as the SGB). This then defines participatory democracy where discussion, consultation and sincere sharing of power become the focus as South Africa is defined as.

2.3.1 LIBERAL, SOCIAL AND PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY

Liberal democracy contains several subsets of concepts, which not all theorists acknowledge with equal force (Tarrant, 1989:13). For instance, the participatory democrats in the tradition of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and deliberative democrats such as Habermas (1987; 1992;

1996) do not view democracy from the perspective of competing individual rights and civil liberties that need state protection, because their emphasis and principal concern is that

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democracy can be created outside formal government in all the institutions of society (Cunningham, 2002:127).

Adams and Waghid (2005:25) regard participation, community engagement, rationality, consensus, equality and freedom as the constitutive principles of the South African democracy. Democratic school governance an offspring of representative democracy in S.A.

implies that all the role players, including parents, decide on School governance policies which affect the education of their children. This points to a genuine handing over and sharing of power by the State, with resultant responsibility and accountability, rather than an abdication of accountability and responsibility by the State.

Conceptualising democracy is challenging, because like most political terms, democracy does not fit neatly into a single definition but has a variety of meanings for theorists and democrats (Dieltiens, 2000: 6; Luckham, Goetz, & Kaldor, 2003:15). Cunningham (2002:150) insists that the debate on the exact definition of the term “democracy” is an exercise in futility, because definitions differ according to the alternative premises, values and views of theorists. Nevertheless, in order to commence from a benchmark, the researcher suggests that the most practical approach is to adopt an arbitrary definition.

2.3.2 DICTIONARY DEFINITIONS

The New Oxford English Dictionary (Pearsall, 2006) defines the various nuances in which the noun ‘democracy’ is used as:

• Government by the people;

• That form of government in which the sovereign power resides in the people as a whole, and is exercised either directly by them (as in the small republics of antiquity) or by officers elected by them;

• In modern use the term democracy often more vaguely denotes a social state in which all have equal rights, without hereditary or arbitrary differences of rank or privilege.

The Webster’s English Dictionary (Geddes & Grosset, 2003) defines democracy as:

• The political orientation of those who favour government by the people or by their elected representatives; or

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• A political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them; and

• The doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group.

The above definitions shed light on the ANC’s objective to apply Liberal Socialist and Representative democratic principles to all organs of South African society, which explains the reasoning behind establishing SGBs so they could share in the governance of public schools.

2.3.3 REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY

An SGB as an integral part of the school is an example of people elected to represent a particular school community. Zanetti (1998:102-121) recommends that those elected (State-bureaucrats) make policy that administrators (school personnel) would objectively or efficiently implement. In this traditional view, the assumption that citizens participate in the process only through their elected officials is vital. Addams (2002:425-444) focuses on the interdependency of all people and their individual experiences (as well as their values and beliefs) which constitute the central aspects that would transform democratic ideals into democratic practices, yielding benefits to society, especially to its ignored and oppressed classes. Similarly, Dewey (1998:340-344) believes that shared activities are the basis for socially intelligent practices, insofar as people understand the consequences of their acts “as having a bearing upon what others are doing and take into account the consequences of their behaviour upon [themselves]” (Dewey, id). Much like Follett’s (1925a:30-49 in Elías &

Alkadry, 2011:872-876) “circular behaviour,” Dewey’s (id) “mutuality” implies that all our actions impact on other people’s lives, while other people’s actions and beliefs have a bearing on our own lives. Guiding one’s actions in light of those of others, is a crucial element of Follett’ community process theory as it is in Addams’ (id) practical democracy or democracy as a way of life. The latter, they understood, is a collaborative process seated in the understanding of other people’s situations as a precursor for making judgments and for acting. These theories make a strong case for the imperative that the DBE consult school communities when they change policy or even design policy in particular, when it concerns the school’s human resources, which is the nerve center of any school. State and school education policies are the framework on which school governance is based.

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