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Amartya Kumar Sen proposes a democratic solution to the problem of social choice. This article examines what Sen has said about democracy as a political regime. We begin with Sen’s definition of democracy and what he calls its intrinsic importance, constructive role and instrumental importance. Judging from certain case studies to which Sen refers in his work, however, we find that his conception of democracy is far from being that of a precisely defined political system and that its putative benefits are sometimes belied by empirical realities.