> The fundamental unit of democracy is the polity, [...]
By polity, do you mean a Greek city state of at most a few thousand people? Or do you mean something the size of the Roman Republic (but not the provinces)? Or do you mean something the size of modern federal republic of India? Or do you mean individual Swiss Cantons? Or perhaps the European Union? Or individual political parties, as long as they elect their internal leadership democratically?
I'm not sure if there is a 'fundamental unit', but if you want to make an argument that the 'polity' is the fundamental unit, you at least need to say which level. So eg municipality, county, state, nation, supra-national institutions like EU or even the UN? And that's just for federal countries. There are also unitarian countries and probably lots of weird edge cases.
By polity, do you mean a Greek city state of at most a few thousand people? Or do you mean something the size of the Roman Republic (but not the provinces)? Or do you mean something the size of modern federal republic of India? Or do you mean individual Swiss Cantons? Or perhaps the European Union? Or individual political parties, as long as they elect their internal leadership democratically?
I'm not sure if there is a 'fundamental unit', but if you want to make an argument that the 'polity' is the fundamental unit, you at least need to say which level. So eg municipality, county, state, nation, supra-national institutions like EU or even the UN? And that's just for federal countries. There are also unitarian countries and probably lots of weird edge cases.