Talk:Suffrage

The legitimacy of democratic government is derived from suffrage. The United States' Declaration of Independence, after listing the basic human rights, goes on to say:

"to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Beside the statement above being unneccessarily US-centered, legitimacy of democratic governments are in fact not per se derived from the suffrage, which is clearly shown by legitime democratic government successfully having quite different rules for suffrage.
-- Ruhrjung 09:53 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

1) A 1913 Webster's definiton of democracy:

From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:

  Democracy \De*moc"ra*cy\, n.; pl. {Democracies}. [F.
     d['e]mocratie, fr. Gr. dhmokrati`a; dh^mos the people +
     kratei^n to be strong, to rule, kra`tos strength.]
     1. Government by the people; a form of government in which
        the supreme power is retained and directly exercised by
        the people.

     2. Government by popular representation; a form of government
        in which the supreme power is retained by the people, but
        is indirectly exercised through a system of representation
        and delegated authority periodically renewed; a
        constitutional representative government; a republic.

     3. Collectively, the people, regarded as the source of
        government. --Milton.

Notice that it is explicitly the people that are the source of democratic government. "Supreme power" is synonymous with sovereign power, which is traditionally described (e.g. by Hobbes, Locke) as the source of all other legitimacy in government. Unless you suggest other means by which the people might do this, it is clearly needed in this definition.

2) America is our oldest democracy and had the primary role in implementing mass-suffrage and defining its relation to democratic government. The Declaration of Independence captures that moment and so is an excellent historical source for this term. Also, the quote is short and to the point.

-- Pablo Mayrgundter 22:22 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

With all respect, I find this reasoning, as mentioned above, US-centered - as if the US-definition of democracy (or the US-understanding of democracy) has precedence.

It's however not to my liking to participate in perpetual re-editings, why I take it easy on the editing.

-- Ruhrjung 01:44 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I agree with Ruhrjung. Suffrage is very important in democracy, but clearly it is not a sufficient basis for legitimacy; many countries that we would not call democratic have had universal suffrage -- and even more have had the forms of suffrage comparable to the US in 1790. Moreover, the oldest "democracy" would be Athens. I have no objection in principle quoting the declaration of independence as an example of a democratic country that uses suffrage to legitimate itself. But I would not use this example as paradigmatic of anything. Those who find this US-centric should feel free to include a quote from Aristotle and from something from France 1789, and something from Edmund Burke, that would do well to balance things out I think. Nevertheless, for me the crucial issue is not whether the source be from the US, France, UK, or Athens, but that whatever the source may be it is made clear that this is just one way that deomocracies have legitimated themselves. Slrubenstein