Re:How old are democracies across the world?
by eatonphil on Thursday February 24, 2022 @11:18AM
(#30456461)
The list of universal suffrage (all men, all women, all ethnicities) is different from the article too though. Only New Zealand in the 19th century. Followed closely by Finland, Norway, Denmark, etc.
Switzerland only required all cantons to allow women to vote in 1991. Australia only allowed all ethnicities to vote since 1967.
I agree the original article has a concept of democracy that is hard to understand when it says Australia and Switzerland were the only ones in the 19th century.
Re:How old are democracies across the world?
by sampo on Thursday February 24, 2022 @11:42AM
(#30456841)
> Only New Zealand in the 19th century.
In New Zealand women could vote, but not run. Only in 1919 were women eligible to be elected to the House of Representatives. And only in 1941 were women eligible to be appointed to the Upper House.
Re:How old are democracies across the world?
by JoeAltmaier on Thursday February 24, 2022 @11:46AM
(#30456920)
Heck it took until the 1990's for women to be US Senators (but for an exception or two).
Curiously a US woman was a representative before women had gained the vote. So kind of topsy-turvy there.
Re:How old are democracies across the world?
by dragonwriter on Thursday February 24, 2022 @11:51AM
(#30456996)
> Curiously a US woman was a representative before women had gained the vote.
Before women had gained a nationally guaranteed equal right to vote; women had the vote in many states (sometimes on an unequal basis) prior to that point.
> A country is classified as an autocracy if it does not meet the above criteria of meaningful, free and fair, multi-party elections
https://ourworldindata.org/regimes-of-the-world-data
My guess is it may be to do with the difficulties that African Americans faced when voting.