> Would China become a democracy if the Politburo standing committee reached decisions based on a vote of its members?

No, that’s oligarchy.

These questions have been debated for a long time. There is a No True Scotsman nature to the project, given the very nature of citizenship and polity means there are always demarcations between who can and cannot vote. But the difference is in degrees, and it should be obvious that there is a difference in kind between twenty-five people in a multi-billion-person nation and millions in a millions-more territory.

Seems like if only 10% of the population (modern estimate for ancient Athens) can vote, you are an oligarchy as well?

But perhaps we should say majoritarian democracy is the criteria we are interested in.

> if only 10% of the population (modern estimate for ancient Athens) can vote, you are an oligarchy as well?

Athens is classically considered a democracy. Partly because democracy means more than just suffrage.

> perhaps we should say majoritarian democracy is the criteria we are interested in

This is fair. Though Israel proper still satisfies the criterion. (I wouldn’t demote Britain from a democracy while it was administering occupied Germany, nor even necessarily its colonies. Same for ancient Rome.)

> Though Israel proper still satisfies the criterion. (I wouldn’t demote Britain from a democracy while it was administering occupied Germany, nor even necessarily its colonies. Same for ancient Rome.)

Your argument is more akin to calling South Africa a majoritarian democracy after it passed the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act, imo. By the rules of the 1948 partition (prior to 1948 which side you are living on determines your citizenship), close to a majority of people today living in Gaza or West Bank would be Israeli-side citizens. Post-facto stripping of the partition rights so that only a minority are considered citizens does not make you a majoritarian democracy.

I'm aware that Athens is classically considered a democracy, I just think that view should be complicated from a modern perspective (and even contemporaries described Athens as a democracy in name only).

> Which means that they were questionably democracies.

Ironically Socrates and Plato would say this is exactly what democracies are like. The difference is that you take democracies as positive and they did not. Anyway, calling Athens democracy (they are the OG democracy and the founder of the word itself) not the real thing made me chuckle. If only all that is at stake was a definition disagreement.

Everyone knows that Athens is considered the 'OG democracy', your comment reads as condescending.

If you continue learning about history, you might happen to notice that there appear to be gaps between how societies self-describe and the actual values they live by. This was well-known by contemporaries at the time, as Athens was described "in name a democracy but in fact governed by its first citizen."