Rate the Democracies and Republics of 1900 based on representation

On a scale from one to ten(1=best, 10=worst) rate the Democratic and Republican governments that existed by the year 1900 based on the representation of their citizens.

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I'd like to add Constitutional Monarchies to this discussion too.
 
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Well, New Zealand would be a 1, it was the only country allowing women to vote nationwide then and allowed racial minorities to vote as well, with some prominent Maori politicians.

Other than that I'll have to do some research.
 
given that US at best is a 3 nowadays it might be tricky (first-past-the-post aren't representing the losing 49% ...)
 
based upon what little I know, I would probably also go with New Zealand. I believe a few western US states were also quite early in granting women the right to vote and hold elective office, and being outside the Jim Crow south, African Americans could probably also vote. American Indians, however, were not considered citizens and could not vote.
 
being outside the Jim Crow south, African Americans could probably also vote.

Could and did. Oscar De Priest, a child of former slaves, living in Chicago, was elected a Commissioner of Cook County in 1904.

De Priest later was the first black U.S. Representative from outside the South. He was of course a Republican.
 
given that US at best is a 3 nowadays it might be tricky (first-past-the-post aren't representing the losing 49% ...)

The question seemed to me to be about suffrage, rather than representation of political factions in the legislature. But perhaps SPJ meant both?
 
The question seemed to me to be about suffrage, rather than representation of political factions in the legislature. But perhaps SPJ meant both?
I meant mainly along the lines of suffrage, representing the needs and general desiers of it's citizens based on consensus. But you can go into detail into other realms such as that stated by you before if you wish.
 
The question seemed to me to be about suffrage, rather than representation of political factions in the legislature. But perhaps SPJ meant both?
Considering that FPTP is very conducive to gerrymandering, suffrage might not mean much, if the voting districts are deliberately designed to disenfranchise certain voters. A slightly different objection than Sian's though.

Anyway, Denmark has to get a pretty bad score. Not only was there a wealth requirement on top of the usual lack of suffrage for women, the king also got to decide the government until 1901.
 
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Considering that FPTP is very conducive to gerrymandering, suffrage might not mean much, if the voting districts are deliberately designed to disenfranchise certain voters.

I'm not sure it's any more conducive than STV or AV. Anyway, the vast majority of advanced democracies in the world have managed to have an independent electoral commission to do this. It's only the US that is particularly backward in this regard.
 
New Zealand would also get my vote too since it seems the most progressive at the time - although strictly speaking the Head of State is formally the representative of the British Monarch and consequently not elected. De facto however the Governor-General is appointed by the Monarch on the advice of the elected Prime Minister, at least this is the case today. I'm unsure if that was the situation in 1900 or if the GG was appointed on advice of the English Privy Council.
 
I'm not sure it's any more conducive than STV or AV.
I was just focusing on FPTP because that's what was brought up. The greater flexibility in voting for the others does seem to me to offer some advantages in this regard over FPTP, at a cursory glance, but I can't say for sure.

Anyway, the vast majority of advanced democracies in the world have managed to have an independent electoral commission to do this. It's only the US that is particularly backward in this regard.
Even with "independent" electoral commissions, FPTP still makes some people's vote count for far less. Look at the 2010 election in GB, where the Liberal Democrats got 8.4 seats/million votes, while Labour got 30 seats/million votes.

Compare the candidate split between FPTP and a proportional system:

Party: FPTP/Proportional
Conservatives: 306/235
Labour: 258/189
Lib. Dem: 57/150

Of course, changing the voting system would change the political make-up as well, which further speaks to it not really being particularly representative.
 
I'd look at this question just in terms of suffrage, not in the responsiveness of the government to popular sentiment or factions thereof.

Some nations were federal systems (the U.S., Canada, Australia, Germany) where suffrage varied, and some were colonial entities (the British dominions) where the actual powers of government were still constrained by the mother country in some way. But I could make some broad assessments:

There's the first tier of states by suffrage:

[1] New Zealand - full universal suffrage for men and women by the 1890's puts NZ at the top of the list
[2] Australia, United States, France, Switzerland, Germany - The U.S. and Australia theoretically had universal adult male suffrage, and some of their federal states were beginning to grant women the right to vote (South Australia, three western U.S. states). Points are deducted for racial discrimination in actual practice, against aborigines in Australia and African-Americans in the American South. France had long had universal male suffrage, albeit with points deducted (again) for disenfranchisement of Algerian Arabs and Berbers. Germany had universal adult male suffrage from 1871 - how democratic the actual regime was, however, is another question.

Below that, in the [3] to [6] range are western states granting suffrage to the majority, albeit not all, adult males. This includes states such as the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Scandinavia (yes, Denmark was probably no higher than 5), as well as Austria-Hungary, which was transitioning to near universal male suffrage.

And below that, [7] to[10], we have states like Spain and Italy where there was only a limited male suffrage, and the state was hardly democratic to begin with.

Latin America is harder to place. Many LA states had broad suffrage in theory, but often few voted in practice, assuming there was an election at all between monthly coups.
 
I'm not sure it's any more conducive than STV or AV. Anyway, the vast majority of advanced democracies in the world have managed to have an independent electoral commission to do this. It's only the US that is particularly backward in this regard.

Well, it cuts both ways, because partisan gerrymandering also produces what many consider to be a socially desirable result: a sizable number of minority-majority districts, where African-Americans and (increasingly) Hispanics have a better shot of electing the same to Congress. This has the converse effect of making suburban districts that Republicans can get elected to more easily. In short, both parties have another incentive (beyond partisan gain) to gerrymander.

Having lived in both PR (New Zealand*) and Single Member Plurality/FPTP (United States) countries and observing the popular reactions to both, I don't think it's a clear-cut advantage for one or the other. Each has its drawbacks. Both systems can aggregate and channel political factions, albeit in different ways. As one Kiwi I knew put it, with PR the ugly backroom deals get cut after the election, whereas in FPTP systems, they get cut before it. The U.S. only has two major parties, but there are many factions within those parties, and one could argue that they sometimes have more access to power by being within those parties rather than outside them. I'm not saying one is superior to the other; just that they try to achieve the same thing through different mechanisms, and each has its advantages and disadvantages.

But all of this is distinct from the question of suffrage, which was by far the more lively and urgent question for most westerners in 1900. It hardly matters whether your electoral system is PR or FPTP if you don't even have the right to vote in the first place.

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* Technically, New Zealand is a mixed system, a Mixed Member Plurality, where half the legislative seats are by constituency and the other half are party list - it's modeled on the German system. But true, pure PR systems are hard to come by anyway.
 
I was just focusing on FPTP because that's what was brought up. The greater flexibility in voting for the others does seem to me to offer some advantages in this regard over FPTP, at a cursory glance, but I can't say for sure.


Even with "independent" electoral commissions, FPTP still makes some people's vote count for far less. Look at the 2010 election in GB, where the Liberal Democrats got 8.4 seats/million votes, while Labour got 30 seats/million votes.

Compare the candidate split between FPTP and a proportional system:

Party: FPTP/Proportional
Conservatives: 306/235
Labour: 258/189
Lib. Dem: 57/150

Of course, changing the voting system would change the political make-up as well, which further speaks to it not really being particularly representative.

This analysis only makes sense if you consider the party to be the most important thing rather than the candidates. However, I think we're straying into general chat so I'll leave it here!
 
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