When should democracy be about consensus and when about conflict?

With the focus often being on party politics, elections, and individual policies, it’s easy to lose sight of the broader framework in which decision-making takes place. In looking at the democratic framework, a fundamental question arises: should democracy be about conflict – one’s values over another’s – or about consensus? George Vasilev explains that the two are not mutually exclusive and must, in fact, coexist: conflict is the very lifeblood of democracy, but this does not mean we should not be striving for a degree of consensus.