I came upon this sentence in a newspaper article:

> 国の安全が重要なのは間違いないが、知る権利の **基盤があってこ** そ民主主義が成り立つことへの理解が、全く欠けている

Which I translated into:

> Although there is no doubt that the safety of the nation is important, the
> comprehension is totally missing that a democracy can only exist on the
> foundation of the right to know

Firstly, I am not 100% sure if I got it right that in that sentence, the right
to know (知る権利) is the foundation for democracy, or whether it might be the
other way round.

Secondly, would you in this example even translate the word "基盤" literally, or
is it just seen as a premise. If so, could I replace "知る権利の基盤があってこそ" with "
**知る権利ありき** " ? Since, as I understood, ありき also follows a premise.
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2018-02-02T12:52:55.830
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2018-02-09T04:46:56.030
2018-02-02T17:55:46.937
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question
word-choice nuances
Difference between ありき and 基盤 in a specific sentence
As I am not a native speaker of Japanese I might be wrong about this, but the
way I interpret the sentence is:

_There is no doubt that national security is important, but the understanding
that it is the foundation of the right to know upon which democracy rests, is
entirely lacking._

So, I would definitely translate 基盤 as _the foundation upon which democracy
rests_. And, in response to your first question, I would say a democracy's
foundation is the right to know (i.e., public information).

However, as I said before, I am not a native speaker. The reason I replied
this way is that I cannot "add a comment" due to insufficient points, or so it
seems. Also, by "refreshing" your question this way, others who are native
speaker-levelled may notice it.

I hope this helps you, if only slightly. (:
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answer