I'm hoping to tap into the collective historical knowledge of the forum to answer a question that has occoured to me.
On another a thread was started on 'Islam & democracy'. Being a contrarian I decided to argue 'yes', and so I decided to do a count of muslim nations that are some form of democracy at the moment. Much to my surprise I got close to 20 (if anyone wants the list I can dig it up). Imperfect all, but democracies nonetheless.
Here is the question that occoured - when did the world get on or near that many democracies? Now, I need to make my definitions clear. I'm not talking modern liberal democracies. Societies with a limited franchise or even slavery can be permitted if elected leaders were more or less the ones who governed the nation.
The obvious nations that get in here are the US & UK (especially after 1832). France under the 3rd Republic is in, under Napoleon 3 not, and I'm not sure about Louis Phillppe. Prussia in the early C20th is sort of a line - any less power to parliaments means no democracy, any more gets you included. Self governing colonies like those in Australia don't count. The areas where I'm unsure are smaller European nations - the low countries, Scandanavia, Italy, Greece, Iberian Penninsular. I'm also unsure about Latin America. I know that there were democracies that rose & fell there, but I'm not sure how many there were at any given time.
So, how long did it take for us to rack up 20 simultaneous democracies. Were we there in 1840?, 1880? 1900? 1920? or was it even later?
On another a thread was started on 'Islam & democracy'. Being a contrarian I decided to argue 'yes', and so I decided to do a count of muslim nations that are some form of democracy at the moment. Much to my surprise I got close to 20 (if anyone wants the list I can dig it up). Imperfect all, but democracies nonetheless.
Here is the question that occoured - when did the world get on or near that many democracies? Now, I need to make my definitions clear. I'm not talking modern liberal democracies. Societies with a limited franchise or even slavery can be permitted if elected leaders were more or less the ones who governed the nation.
The obvious nations that get in here are the US & UK (especially after 1832). France under the 3rd Republic is in, under Napoleon 3 not, and I'm not sure about Louis Phillppe. Prussia in the early C20th is sort of a line - any less power to parliaments means no democracy, any more gets you included. Self governing colonies like those in Australia don't count. The areas where I'm unsure are smaller European nations - the low countries, Scandanavia, Italy, Greece, Iberian Penninsular. I'm also unsure about Latin America. I know that there were democracies that rose & fell there, but I'm not sure how many there were at any given time.
So, how long did it take for us to rack up 20 simultaneous democracies. Were we there in 1840?, 1880? 1900? 1920? or was it even later?
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