One theory I've heard is that democracy, or the age of mass politics, was coincident with the age of mass warfare. To see how, look at the English longbow. In

One theory I've heard is that democracy, or the age of mass politics, was coincident with the age of mass warfare. To see how, look at the English longbow. In it's own age it was a superweapon. It was both cheaper, could fire faster, and had better range than the crossbow. But yet, only the English ever used it. The reason why was because it was so cheap to make. But, for a person to develop the muscle mass and skill use it effectively took years of training, and once that training was in place, it could not be taken away. So that made any country that used the longbow vulnerable to peasant rebellions. So to use the longbow, England had to make the tradeoff that they had to make concessions to limited forms of democracy, or risk revolt. If your army uses crossbows, on the other hand, you can just take them away once the fighting is done. Fast forward to Napoleonic France. Napoleon realized that liberte, egalite, and fraternite could be used as weapons. If your people are convinced that the state belongs to them, then you can arm them all. And that's exactly what France did- they created a people's army and ran roughshod over all the other countries of Europe until they eventually followed suit and also allowed forms of democracy in their own countries. They had to, or be conquered. The age of mass democracy therefore coincides with the era of total warfare, for better or worse. We are allowed to participate in governance to the extent that our consent is required for the waging of war. But, that age is coming to an end. The development of nuclear weapons meant that there will never again be another war involving masses of infantry- so our consent is no longer required to run the country. The weapons can now be taken away, and so can democracy. Well, that's one take anyway.