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Arguably the United Kingdom was not a true electoral democracy until the 50s and until decolonisation. In the early 20th century the United Kingdom governed muc

Arguably the United Kingdom was not a true electoral democracy until the 50s and until decolonisation. In the early 20th century the United Kingdom governed much of the world and non of those people had much say in the government that governed them.

Veen 5y ago
The British Empire and the United Kingdom are not the same entity. The UK was a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy that ruled a non-democratic empire.
- ch4s3 5y ago
  I've always found that to be quite the hair to split. Quasi-democracy in the narrowly defined homeland and crushing authoritarianism for all other subjects. Separating the UK and the British Empire that way feels like a bit of a fig leaf, a polite fiction.
  - openfuture 5y ago
    It's basically the same situation as the USA has w.r.t. the world until maybe very recently, they basically inherited the UK organizational structure.
    - vinay427 5y ago
      This sounds like it fails to recognize much of colonial governments, which were typically in the case of the British a very far cry from simply installing an unelected leader or otherwise manipulating leadership through extortion and other means, as the US (among others) is now known to do. There’s an entire wing of cultural, linguistic, and legal imposition that doesn’t seem to exist in what might more accurately be called imperialism by the US, and these changes still have ramifications in how people in the ex-colonies see themselves, their society, and their relationships to the world.
    - ch4s3 5y ago
      They're quite different things in practice. The US has never had an arrangement like the British Raj in India.
ant6n 5y ago
Arguably, a country without a fair, equal and representative electoral system is not a true democracy. This excludes the us and most Commonwealth countries, except new Zealand (since their electoral reform a decade or so ago).
- lazide 5y ago
  You pretty quickly hit a ‘no true Scotsman’ situation pretty quickly though. If only one country (or a single digit percent) that calls itself a democracy qualifies under the criteria, what use is the criteria?
  - batrachos 5y ago
    Maybe it's not useful? Or not as presented here? I mean, Malaysia and Japan have both been ruled by basically the same party for all but maybe a few years since the end of foreign occupation. One is ruled a democracy here, thee other isn't. I don't see a good reason why, other than Japan is friendlier with Western values than Malaysia. It's also useless when you look more than about 50 years in the past. In 1835 you were really democratic if every white man could vote, now even somewhere like Iran has suffrage for women and minorities.
  - ant6n 5y ago
    Not really. There are many countries with fair, equal, representative elections. With its 200 year old system, the us is really behind the pack.
baybal2 5y ago
> United Kingdom governed much of the world and non of those people had much say in the government that governed them. Yes, and important point. India had a pet parliament, but the prime majority of Indians had no option to vote. In fact, it was mostly Britishers themselves who sat there until mid-192X
pjc50 5y ago
The UK _still_ has an unelected upper house with theoretical veto power. One of its members is ... Evgeny Lebedev, son of former KGB man and oligarch Alexander Lebedev.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  The veto power of the Lords is almost entirely non-existent. Essentially its only power of veto is over laws that the Commons might try to pass to extend the lifetime of a parliament. Literally it can stop the Commons unilaterally extending its power to govern; that's it. Otherwise it can only hold up legislation so as to make it endure more scrutiny, and then only for a year. https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/administrative-law/house-of-lords-role-and-powers-administrative-law-essay.php https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/administrative-la... I think people outside the UK don't really understand the value of the Lords or the way it works, which is remarkably restrained and serious even given various governments' attempts to stack it, and your comment is giving a crucial wrong impression. With a handful of exceptions, I'll take the UK House of Lords over a dysfunctional elected senate. There's very little bad-faith use of powers there and far less obstructionism, compared to, just say for example, the US Senate, which is almost totally dysfunctional.
  - SllX 5y ago
    I happen to quite like our Senate. It’s a chamber for deliberation, not rubber stamping what the House throws their way, and since it is formulated differently it’s resistant to tyrannical majorities and you don’t typically find either a Marjorie Taylor Greene nor a Maxine Waters among their ranks. What precisely do you find dysfunctional about the Senate compared to the House of Representatives or UK Parliament?
    - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
      It's not a chamber for deliberation in the way the UK House of Lords is, because it has a role in creating legislation rather than just amending it/discussing it. As I understand it in the USA system, you can get legislation starting in both houses that often get merged. Whereas in the UK (apart from the one single form of the veto) the Lords can only delay or offer amendments to legislation, and the Commons can reject them. It puts the Lords much more in the service of the Commons than the comment I was replying to suggests. People outside the UK might see an unelected chamber making law, but it doesn't and can't. It can only offer reflection and advice. The US system, I'm sorry, but your Senate is wilfully obstructionist in its roles in federal appointments and judges, the majority abuses procedure to suit it, and it is abusing both the two thirds majority rule -- by simply refusing to even sit when things won't on the face of it won't get past strict party loyalty -- and the filibuster. Look at how unseriously it treated its role in the impeachment or Obama's supreme court picks; the whole world sees an unserious, childish organisation. There is party representation in the Lords but it does not work the way it does in the Senate, because nobody is running for election (there are also many "crossbench" peers who have no affiliation). Second, the way your system elects senators is by no means impervious to the MTG types. John Kennedy, Josh Hawley, Kyrsten Sinema -- these are not serious people; they either act in bad faith, play up to their base or don't turn up. Hawley is actively bad, John Kennedy is a fake and a disgrace, and Sinema is wasting her seat. (Let's agree not to talk about Rand Paul or Ted Cruz.) Because of how the Lords works, almost nobody is in that sort of position, and the Lords functions in a genuinely more collegiate way. I mean someone offered to resign -- in good faith and all seriousness -- from a ministerial position in the Lords for being late.

Veen 5y ago

The British Empire and the United Kingdom are not the same entity. The UK was a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy that ruled a non-democratic empire.

ch4s3 5y ago
I've always found that to be quite the hair to split. Quasi-democracy in the narrowly defined homeland and crushing authoritarianism for all other subjects. Separating the UK and the British Empire that way feels like a bit of a fig leaf, a polite fiction.
- openfuture 5y ago
  It's basically the same situation as the USA has w.r.t. the world until maybe very recently, they basically inherited the UK organizational structure.
  - vinay427 5y ago
    This sounds like it fails to recognize much of colonial governments, which were typically in the case of the British a very far cry from simply installing an unelected leader or otherwise manipulating leadership through extortion and other means, as the US (among others) is now known to do. There’s an entire wing of cultural, linguistic, and legal imposition that doesn’t seem to exist in what might more accurately be called imperialism by the US, and these changes still have ramifications in how people in the ex-colonies see themselves, their society, and their relationships to the world.
  - ch4s3 5y ago
    They're quite different things in practice. The US has never had an arrangement like the British Raj in India.

ant6n 5y ago

Arguably, a country without a fair, equal and representative electoral system is not a true democracy. This excludes the us and most Commonwealth countries, except new Zealand (since their electoral reform a decade or so ago).

lazide 5y ago
You pretty quickly hit a ‘no true Scotsman’ situation pretty quickly though. If only one country (or a single digit percent) that calls itself a democracy qualifies under the criteria, what use is the criteria?
- batrachos 5y ago
  Maybe it's not useful? Or not as presented here? I mean, Malaysia and Japan have both been ruled by basically the same party for all but maybe a few years since the end of foreign occupation. One is ruled a democracy here, thee other isn't. I don't see a good reason why, other than Japan is friendlier with Western values than Malaysia. It's also useless when you look more than about 50 years in the past. In 1835 you were really democratic if every white man could vote, now even somewhere like Iran has suffrage for women and minorities.
- ant6n 5y ago
  Not really. There are many countries with fair, equal, representative elections. With its 200 year old system, the us is really behind the pack.

baybal2 5y ago

> United Kingdom governed much of the world and non of those people had much say in the government that governed them. Yes, and important point. India had a pet parliament, but the prime majority of Indians had no option to vote. In fact, it was mostly Britishers themselves who sat there until mid-192X

pjc50 5y ago

The UK _still_ has an unelected upper house with theoretical veto power. One of its members is ... Evgeny Lebedev, son of former KGB man and oligarch Alexander Lebedev.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
The veto power of the Lords is almost entirely non-existent. Essentially its only power of veto is over laws that the Commons might try to pass to extend the lifetime of a parliament. Literally it can stop the Commons unilaterally extending its power to govern; that's it. Otherwise it can only hold up legislation so as to make it endure more scrutiny, and then only for a year. https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/administrative-law/house-of-lords-role-and-powers-administrative-law-essay.php https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/administrative-la... I think people outside the UK don't really understand the value of the Lords or the way it works, which is remarkably restrained and serious even given various governments' attempts to stack it, and your comment is giving a crucial wrong impression. With a handful of exceptions, I'll take the UK House of Lords over a dysfunctional elected senate. There's very little bad-faith use of powers there and far less obstructionism, compared to, just say for example, the US Senate, which is almost totally dysfunctional.
- SllX 5y ago
  I happen to quite like our Senate. It’s a chamber for deliberation, not rubber stamping what the House throws their way, and since it is formulated differently it’s resistant to tyrannical majorities and you don’t typically find either a Marjorie Taylor Greene nor a Maxine Waters among their ranks. What precisely do you find dysfunctional about the Senate compared to the House of Representatives or UK Parliament?
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    It's not a chamber for deliberation in the way the UK House of Lords is, because it has a role in creating legislation rather than just amending it/discussing it. As I understand it in the USA system, you can get legislation starting in both houses that often get merged. Whereas in the UK (apart from the one single form of the veto) the Lords can only delay or offer amendments to legislation, and the Commons can reject them. It puts the Lords much more in the service of the Commons than the comment I was replying to suggests. People outside the UK might see an unelected chamber making law, but it doesn't and can't. It can only offer reflection and advice. The US system, I'm sorry, but your Senate is wilfully obstructionist in its roles in federal appointments and judges, the majority abuses procedure to suit it, and it is abusing both the two thirds majority rule -- by simply refusing to even sit when things won't on the face of it won't get past strict party loyalty -- and the filibuster. Look at how unseriously it treated its role in the impeachment or Obama's supreme court picks; the whole world sees an unserious, childish organisation. There is party representation in the Lords but it does not work the way it does in the Senate, because nobody is running for election (there are also many "crossbench" peers who have no affiliation). Second, the way your system elects senators is by no means impervious to the MTG types. John Kennedy, Josh Hawley, Kyrsten Sinema -- these are not serious people; they either act in bad faith, play up to their base or don't turn up. Hawley is actively bad, John Kennedy is a fake and a disgrace, and Sinema is wasting her seat. (Let's agree not to talk about Rand Paul or Ted Cruz.) Because of how the Lords works, almost nobody is in that sort of position, and the Lords functions in a genuinely more collegiate way. I mean someone offered to resign -- in good faith and all seriousness -- from a ministerial position in the Lords for being late.