Hot answers tagged democracy
23
Democratication came at the hands of improved communications, improved education, the industrial revolution and the agricultural revolution. Not at the hands of cheap weapons.
The invention of the printing press democratised knowledge. Books became significantly cheaper to make and were more widely distributed. It was possible for a wider range of thoughts ...
19
I'll answer just the part about the Roman Republic, if that's alight for now.
The Roman Republic is probably best described as a pseudo-democracy of sorts. Its creation and initial set-up actually pre-dated Athenian democracy by a single year, though even until its dying days it was more of a "democracy for the privileged" than anything. Hence, ...
16
I wouldn't characterize post-Magna Carta England as having a weak central government. Compared to the Holy Roman Empire it had a very efficient central government, in which the parliament played an important role alongeside the king.
The early English Parliament already had a House of Commons. Hence not only the nobility was given rights but the common ...
12
As you have correctly implied, you can NOT equate these terms. Among other reasons, because the first couple are economic systems and the latter are political. There are certain correllations and causations betwene them, however.
Just as a note, your question is nearly impossible to answer for 4 reasons:
You don't actually define what democracy or ...
11
Note: This is a partial and indicative list. I am looking for more information to improve it.
Update 2: It seems there is some controversy over the definition of democracy itself. Until further clarity it would be difficult to populate any such list.
Parliamentary Democray
Switzerland (1802)
Haiti (1860)
Estonia (1918) (See comment below from ...
10
I doubt this is to do with a civil war, but instead to do with the voting system. This is Duverger's law. The USA & the UK use a first past the post system, as opposed to a proportional representation system, and under that, the system tends to 2 parties.
The UK is in Europe, has had a civil war (though is irrelevant now), and has a 2 party system ...
9
There may not be enough data to get any meaningful answers, but it's worth remembering that the U.S. has had a two-party system for most of its history, including before the civil war (Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists, Federalists vs. Democratic-Republicans, Democrats vs. Whigs). As for other countries, remember that almost no country has a system as strong ...
9
First off the wikipedia page that you cite to is based on the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index ("EIUDI") which is not an academic source. The methodology used to assemble the report is not known, but that doesn't mean that it is not useful.
With that in mind from the EIUDI 2011 Report:
Flawed democracies: These countries also have free and ...
8
"The world must be made safe for democracy." - Woodrow Wilson
The irony of Wilson's quote is that WWI did not directly make the world safe for democracy. In fact WWI directly led to the rise of state socialism in the former Russian Empire with its evolution into the USSR, and the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany. From a European standpoint WWI ...
8
Quite a few of them, especially in Central and South America.
Here are lists of attempted and successful coups d'etat, listed by date in the former, by nation in the latter.
8
In addition to what you list, the organizational structure, bookkeeping of the monarchs, and relative literacy levels (albeit not high levels absolutely) helped enable a democratic system to emerge.
Townhalls and church organizations allowed for some census and accountability to emerge.
The later monarchs kept relatively accurate and complete tax records ...
7
The question is poorly stated. The Founding Fathers were not all of one mind on many subjects— the Federalists saw danger in direct democracy, whereas the Anti-Federalists did not. Additionally, popular usage of terms like "democracy" or "republic" is quite different from a political scientist's use of such terms— indeed, quite a lot of things "don't mean ...
7
Presumably this would be ancient Rome during the early Empire. The best numbers available come, I think, from Augustus' official autobiography. The English text can be found here. In paragraph 8 he says that in the Empire-wide census of 14CE "were counted 4,937,000 of the heads of Roman citizens". Now, it seems to be a vexing questions for historians what ...
6
Democracies were not necessarily more stable than other forms of government. Polybius describes a cycle of three forms of government - monarchy, then aristocracy, then democracy, then back to monarchy again (of course, this was not always the case in practice). The important point to note is that each first degenerates into an inferior form (tyranny, ...
6
The 1973 Pinochet coup in Chile seems to fit the criteria you outline. A democratically elected president of a Western country ousted by the military.
The 1973 Chilean coup d'état was a watershed event of the Cold War and the history of Chile. Following an extended period of social and political unrest between the conservative-dominated Congress of Chile ...
6
The Graeco-Roman world is a unique example of intertwined cultures, the geographical and historical proximity of the two civilizations is such that's it's often impossible to distinguish where the one ends and the other begins. In extremely broad terms, it wouldn't be inaccurate to say that the political system of the Romans were heavily influenced by the ...
5
The availability of weapons to ordinary people has often gone hand in hand with with democratization. Early Greece and Rome were blessed by hilly terrain that allowed yeoman farmers to produce high value added crops like grapes and olives, that could be traded for cheaper wheat and cloth, leaving a surplus for them to buy their own weapons. Plus the fact ...
5
There was a medieval saying, "Stadluft macht Frei." (City air makes one free.)
One important aspect of England (and Greece and Rome before it) was the relative urbanization of its time. The most "progressive" and democratic elements of society tend to concentrate in cities, whereas the most conservative and pro monarchic influences are generally found in ...
5
Depends on how you define "democracy". Do you mean "one person, one vote" (universal adult suffrage)? Up until the early years of the 20th century women couldn't vote.
One could claim the USA didn't have full adult suffrage until after the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Likewise South Africa wasn't exactly a paragon of "one person, one vote" until the ...
5
Was democracy present in India when British colonization began?
Democracy, in some fashion, has appeared in India throughout its history. However,
just prior to the British arrival in India; representative democracy was not being practiced in regards to government. Though the following is largely a depiction of South Asia the text and links represent the ...
5
The word "caliph" comes from the Arabic "khalifa", which means "successor [of the Prophet]". The caliph claims a religion-based legitimacy, instead of popular support as in republics. The philosophy is totally different. A caliphate's objective is to have a government based on the Sharia, while a republic seeks to have a government based on popular will.
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4
One reason could be the numerical size of the diversity present in thought and culture within India which keeps pulling the nation in different directions and acts as a check to the momentum any dramatic activity within the system generates. Coups, Dictatorships etc may appear to be driven by one man but they are brought about by a collective feeling within ...
4
First of all, reading history depends strongly on what glasses you put on when you do so. The level of satisfaction regarding the answer to your question will therefore depend very strongly on what you think of when you say "democracy". This is true when you look at a polity in the past as well as the present: in order to compare before with after, you need ...
4
In addition to the points already made, I would say that religion might have played a major role in how England turned out. The English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution, both of which severely damaged the power of the monarch (the former completely destroying it for a while) were partly because of religion.
Structures like the English Parliament were ...
3
I'm not sure. The democratization in the XIXth century was also due to the increasing power of labour movements, which was not gained by the use of weapons, but by strikes, mostly. When industrialists rule the political system, the labour class doesn't need to shoot - all they need to do to exert influence is collectively refuse to work.
3
Jamahiriya translated is a state of the masses. The way that Gaddafi explained it was that the state was governed by the populace through local councils, and he was the designated leader of the people. In reality, it was an authoritarian state with Gaddafi in sole power.
In practice, the government was organized into "people's committees", which were local ...
3
The rise of democracy and the fall of feudalism are two separate questions, though arguably the latter was a prerequisite for the former.
It is possible that cheap hand guns were a minor factor in either of these, but I doubt it was a major factor. The importance of cavalry in the Middle Ages shouldn't be exaggerated: infantry and archers were usually more ...
3
India might have faced civil war, during the 1947 partition. It was largely through the efforts of Gandhi and other peace seekers that it didn't happen.
The influence of Gandhi and other advocates of non-violence helps explain the lack of coups or dictatorships. Basically, "strong men" were not a fixture of Indian society as they were in others.
3
I found an interesting article that discusses this topic, and I believe it provided a pretty realistic explanation for this. Basically, it stated that the economic and diplomatic sanctions placed on Myanmar by the West had a major impact. The reasoning is not that the rulers of Myanmar particularly cared about the impact of said sanctions on the citizens as ...
2
Actually, I don't think there's ever been a very long period in Indian history where the country was united and was undergoing no civil wars.
Just since the end of the British era, there's been the Pakastani partition (a civil war/diplomatic war/war that eventually split the country in two, or three depending on how you count), the Tamil rebellion, and a ...
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