Universal male and female adult suffrage is a relatively recent phenomenon -in a nation state it first occurred in 1893 in New Zealand . Adult male suffrage ( regardless of property rights) first occurred in republican France in 1792. Universal suffrage (including blacks ) was only enforced in US Federal elections from 1965. The above dates clearly indicate true universal suffrage really only becoming the accepted norm in recent times in the Western world, let alone globally.
Democracy in a given geographical catchment works most fairly where voters have similar views and shared identities (ie in a nation-state composed of numerous well-defined minorities, only the majority group will consider its interests are represented by ruling governments unless coalitions of minorities are formed). Where there are long-standing minorities in a given electoral catchment, resentment and exclusion naturally follow .
Additionally in the last 10 years with the advent of the internet and the fictional “War on Terror”, a new set of issues, both constraining and enabling democracy, have arisen.
The capacity of private citizens to find truthful information on government decisions and responses has markedly improved over the last 10 years with the rise of the internet, justifiably causing the credibility of most Western politicians to be tarnished as their ongoing epidemic of lying and posturing is exposed.
In addition, Western state’s and private corporate’s attack on general elections in the past few years in countries such as Iran, the Russian Federation and the celebrated colour revolutions of Eastern Europe, have now enabled any electorally defeated opposition party to claim fraud and vote rigging and to “legitimately ” resort to revolution on the streets ; the principles of majority vote rules are now significantly undermined . This democratic revisionism has now also been exacerbated by the West’s recent tacit support for the Egyptian Army’s coup against Egypt’s legitimately elected government .
On top of that , the US and UK security apparatuses and other “democratic ” state apparatus’ insistence on total knowledge of their citizens’ online and phone conversations, is a further deliberate malign attempt to ensure that only those who currently have the power and money are able to circulate their view of the world to the voters, thereby attempting to maintain the “status quo”; somewhat in opposition to true democratic principles.
Democracy may or may not be, to paraphrase Churchill, the least worst alternative method of government representation, but the cracks are surely showing…
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Links
http://katieandmartin.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/a-brief-history-of-universal-suffrage/
New Antarctica 