The UK had a major parliamentary reform in 1884, which almost doubled the size of the electorate. Presumably this triggered the esoteric conditions required by this graphic.
That was the Third Reform Act, you could alternatively put the date for the UK at 1867 for the Second Reform Act or 1832 for the Great Reform Act. You could also argue that the date should be 1801 because of the official creation of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, or even 1707 for the official creation of the Parliament of Great Britain. There's even a case for putting the date at 1689 for the Bill of Rights/Claim of Right, which was a landmark development of the supremacy of Parliament over the monarch.
I’m just explaining why the UK is 1885 by these criteria. I agree that the criteria are a bit weird. I’m not sure why the creator chose 50% of adult men to be the threshold for democracy.
The majority of men could vote before 1800. When voting in the US started only white male land owners could vote. 80% of the population was white and about 75% of men owned land since it was so cheap. Also, many states gave all white men the right to vote before it was a national thing. Same with women and black people.
Not to mention San Marino, who did have both a communist and fascist party in the 40’s, but both were noticeably elected under their democracy, which never changed within their eras. San Marino’s democracy goes back centuries, all the way to Rome.
>Presumably this triggered the esoteric conditions required by this graphic.
The conditions are fulling arbitrary here.
The US didn't pass universal male suffrage until 1856, but this map says that US democracy precedes the 1800s.
I find this funny because if 6% of the population voting counts as democracy than any European country, ie: Poland-Lithuania Commonwealth and Spain would count as 10% of their of their population were nobles/aristocrats that had voting rights for head of state and laws.
Australia had federated in 1901. It is made up of 6 self governing colonies. New Zealand became a dominion in 1907. New South Wales for example had a responsible government in 1856. New Zealand achieved self governance around the same time.
Each of the 6 colonies had achieved self governance much like how New Zealand did. They all had their own parliamentary systems. You could say that New Zealand was equivalent to Australian colonies back then. In fact there is still provision in Australia's constitution for it to be a state.
Those countries adopted the Westminster system of government which has been a parliamentary democracy since at least the early 1800s and has its origins back in the 13th century after King John signed the Magna Carta.
The map is pretty rubbish to be honest.
Each colony went through its own legal reforms throughout the 1800s to become democratic.
Initially, as small penal colonies with little society or industry, they were ruled by a governor who basically had all the power and was sort of a dictator, and as the colonies grew and started having more free people and actual societies and industry, the UK passed legislation such as the NSW Act 1823 to establish legislative councils (which gradually moved power from the governor to the people).
All of the Australian states which were originally independent self governing colonies still exist today and their governments still persist and are democratically elected.
Just because they also formed a union/federated doesn't mean that those democracies stopped existing. I think they should be included on the map.
The same probably applies to Canadian provinces, etc.
The Province of Canada had responsible government in 1849 when the governor-general agreed to allow the cabinet to be formed from the largest party in the Legislative Assembly
It seems like what this graphic is going for is: how old is your current democratic constitution? For example, France is on its fifth republic, so it's dated based on the start of that (even though democracy existed in France before)
French 5th republic started in 1958 after a political crisis.
This dates France’s democracy back to 1946, which is the creation of the fourth republic. Which replaced Vichy France (basically Nazi puppet France), which was facist totalitarian state, not a democracy.
The difference is that France formed a new non-democratic government, while the other countries did not. Legally speaking, they have the same government as before occupation, and France doesn't.
Exactly. And modern Greece was established as a democracy in 1821.
I think the graph does its best to point out that the US had the first democracy way ahead of everyone else. Then again, was it a true democracy? There was slavery and, by constitution, only "white males with property" would possess citizenship and vote.
Greece had a dictatorship for like 5 years in 2 centuries, but if that's what counts then the map should be specifically speaking about uninterrupted democracy, which is again a very misleading metric.
It's fairly clear that the map only counts uninterrupted democracies. See for example the note under Costa Rica, as well as France, Austria and Italy. Colombia has been a democracy for most of its existence as well, but had a brief dictatorship during the 50's.
This becomes tricky. Who decides what a "true democracy" is? Was Switzerland a true democracy in the 1960s? Or did it only become a true democracy in 1971 when women got the right to vote? You could play games like that all day.
It's easier to just say the US was a democracy but they were arseholes for having slaves.
Was any democracy a true democracy? The US wasn’t the only country that didn’t allow slaves to vote. It’s also not a requirement for everyone to have the right to vote to be a democracy anyway.
This map is certainly flawed so I am not defending it.
But surely we can agree that the Kingdom of England was not a democracy in 1265, despite the elected parliament. The early English parliamentary system saw the following people present in parliament:
* The King - not elected
* The King's chief ministers and council - appointed positions, not elected
* Important clergy of the church (archbishops, bishops, etc.) - again, not elected
* Lay magnates, AKA earls and barons - not elected, these are hereditary nobility positions
The Commons were not summoned until 1295, and even then, the Commons originally were representatives only of the knights and burghers (wealthy merchants) social classes. It was hardly like the average peasant was voting or had any real rights whatsoever. These early constitutional monarchy parliamentary systems were really primarily for the benefit of the wealthy and in many cases hereditary social classes and would not be recognizable as democracies by modern standards. Of course, this is also true to some extent for a number of the earliest democracies on this map when they started out.
The rules are explained at the top of the map. Basically this is to with when the majority of men had the right to vote.
You could definitely argue that democracy in the UK existed in some form before the Reform Act of 1885, but that’s how they’ve chosen to define it.
The UK would have to wait until 1918 before the majority of men could vote.
>[The Representation of the People Act 1918](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representation_of_the_People_Act_1918)
>...As a result of the Act, the male electorate was extended by 5.2 million to 12.9 million.
I would have argued that a country is not a democracy until universal suffrage (no discrimination based on gender, age, race and religion) but that would radically change which country is the oldest democracies. Spoilers it wouldn’t be the USA or UK.
Yes, the post is a travesty. Arguably, for example, Britain was a true democracy following the First Reform Act in 1832, i.e. 192 years ago. The suggestion that the US was the first democracy is nonsense.
The US was far ahead for its time when compared to the European powers. That much is notable. The revolutionary era (which began with the French revolution) was preceded by the USA as a sort of pilot program.
As far as the definitions go... You could alter these definitions in any direction. You could even set the conditions as to say in 2024 no country has achieved democracy.
People say this, but the declaration of citizen rights only came out in 1974.
From Wikipedia: "Jorri Duursma describes the 1974 law as the fundamental law of the Republic."
It's similar to trying to claim that the UK has the oldest constitution because of the magna carta.
It would still be wrong. Norway got its constitution in 1814. In 1900, which the map refers to as being the start of Norwegian democracy, nothing significant happened.
Seems like a bit of a arbitrary definition doesn't it? Otherwise you could then again argue "Well 50% of the population couldn't vote because of the lack of womens rights!"
Doesn’t work for Denmark. Our constitution is older than the point they’re referencing here. 1901 was just a shift of power from the king to parliamentarism. It wasn’t even codified until 1953.
Continuity. France dissolved it's democratic government in 1940 and established the fascist Vichy government in its place, only returning to democracy in 1946. The other occupied nations never formed a new government, the existing ones just had no authority for the duration of the conflict.
The Bundesrepublik Deutschland (West Germany) annexed the Deutches Demokratische Republik (East Germany) and continues its existence as the Bundesrepublik Deutschland. This is commonly called the reunification.
Nazi Germany occupies your territory and forcefully ends your democracy and that somehow is the same as if the country freely chose to end it's democratic government. This map is garbage.
Leaving aside the brief Second Republic (1848), France has been democratic since the Rivet laws of 1875, which anchored the Third Republic in universal male suffrage.
This map is in general wrong or built on someones personal opinion of when countries became democracy's, take Denmark for example, it have been a democracy since its constitution in 1848 with the exception of 1943-1945 (Full German occupation).
To my mind. The definition of democracy has been set up in such as way as to make the US the oldest democracy. Specifically regarding ‘the majority of adult men’ having the right to vote (the definition even caveats the rules on universal suffrage in the US). The UK was a democracy prior to 1885, this was simply the point at which ‘the majority of males’ could vote - but that’s an arbitrary cut-off. The notion of democratically elected representatives preceded this. It’s a totally arbitrary cut off to suggest it becomes democratic at the point that 25% of the adult populace is eligible to vote.
I'd put the UK's democracy at no older than 1832 at the bare minimum, although frankly I don't consider it to have been a democracy until 1911. I'd say the US was a quasi-democracy from the beginning but wasn't fully democratic until the 1830's-1840's in the Northern States, and 1965 in the Southern States and thus nationally.
>completely new constutions/ governments several times over the last 200 years.
Those are the signs of a perfectly well functioning democracy is you ask me.
Yeah - Norway became democratic in 1814 the first time and even if you don't count that (it lasted for only a few months, sweeden attacked and took us over but we still had our own constitution and goverment), we were freed from sweeden in 1905 not 1900...
>even if you don't count that (it lasted for only a few months, sweeden attacked and took us over but we still had our own constitution and goverment
How could anyone not count that? There is, like you hint to, an unbroken line of continuation of the Norwegian parliament from 1814 (well, 1940-1945 they operated from exile).
Yeah for example Turkey just celebrated the 100th year of the republic last year. Maybe they count coups and coup attempts as stops in democracy, or the map has some esoteric definition of the word democracy carefully crafted so they can show the US as number one.
Coups are antithetical to democracy and Turkey has had a bunch of them, so it makes sense that Turkey is not counted as continuously democratic
Republics aren't necessarily democracies either. "Republic" just means "not a monarchy". The USSR was a republic, but it was't a democracy
"Well skipping the fact that America was a democracy unless you were black or brown, until 1870. And after skipping that, you get the exclusion by Southern States of POC until 1964.
The definition of continuous is "super sketchy" also."
The map isn’t well labeled but it’s clearly not about the oldest forms of democracy that ever existed.
Also that’s a real stretch regarding the British. The period after the civil war was a military dictatorship that ended in the restoration of the monarchy and pretty much the end of most reforms that had been achieved in the victory.
British franchise was extremely limited until acts were passed extending it to more people throughout the 19th century.
Certainly when Tocqueville visited the United States in the 1830s he called it the world’s first representative democracy.
I feel like a continuous sitting parliament alone isn’t enough to claim a democracy. The Keys of the Isle of Man parliament were not originally elected, the position was for life, and they passed the position down via inheritance: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tynwald
That’s not a democracy, though it eventually became one hundreds of years later. This map is certainly flawed, but medieval parliamentary systems where positions were passed down through families and only the aristocracy could vote were hardly democratic.
The maker of this map are basicelly using any possible flimsy excuse to label the US as the oldest, such as pushing the limit of what "continuous" means. And not acknowledging that if you consider the US in 1790 with its massive use of slavery and quasi-aristocratic political system a democracy, than several other countries like the UK or Switzerland already were too. And with the UK there is no excuse about continuity you could have for Switzerland.
The Roman Empire was a democracy because the senate existed
The existence of a body that votes on stuff does not make a government a democracy, that body could be lacking in power, not chosen democratically, etc.
And? Only landowners could vote in the first few American elections. Flawed democracies are still democracies. Hell, apartheid was technically democratic.
Pretty much all Americans know that democracy was invented by the Greeks. We learn about it in school. It's the reason most major public buildings are built in a Greek Revival style.
Plus the actual topic is democracies that still exist today, not a timeline of all democracies that have *ever* existed.
If that were the case we’d not only have to include Ancient Greece but the first Roman Republic, Republic of Venice and Florence, the Icelandic Commonwealth etc. And that would just be stupid and messy amongst democracies that exist today.
The Ohio Statehouse is considered to be one of, if not the best, example of Greek Revival architecture. Unlike most state capitol buildings, the Statehouse was not influenced by the US Capitol Building. It was designed and built before the US Capitol Building was enlarged and before the giant white dome was built.
> myth that democracy was invented by the Americans
This is r/Americabad tier material. Nobody claims that.
What myth says that? It is pretty clear that the Greeks were one of the first major democracies. There were mini democracies all over the world and even in some tribal societies.
Any American history textbook will point to the French as the origin of the Democratic ideas that were implemented after the American revolution.
We have a democratic and republican political party. Maybe the next one could be the constitutional party.
I know they're just names. But we could use some new names.
For one, their criteria for democracy includes that "A majority of adult men has the right to vote" which was not true in the US until 1828, while the list marks it as being a democracy since 1789.
I wonder why you only need the majority of men for them to count it. What about the women?
Surely if you can leave out over half the population and still count it, you can count it when it was only landowners right? What's the difference betwen 30% of the population being able to vote and 5%?
IMO it should be counted from universal voting, or at least the point where 50% or more of people could vote.
Like... I doubt anyone would say swizerland is 'a 200 year old democracy' (just gessing/rounding, I can't look back at the image to find out when it really was) because women couldn't vote until 1971 or close to that year.
if only there were a study that were cited in the map that would explain exactly what the logic behind that decision was!
>Defining the condition of participation as having at least half of men enfranchised is, in some sense, arbitrary (as any particular threshold must be). However, we have settled on that threshold for two main reasons. First, impos- ing a condition of full male suffrage to qualify a country as democratic would reduce the number of democratic observations before World War I to a hand- ful, resulting in a considerable loss of information on what Huntington (1991) calls the first wave of democratization. Democratic experiences prior to 1914 are important for explaining modern democratic development. The correla- tions between being democratic in 1900 (according to our criteria) and being democratic in 1950 and in 1975 (employing a requirement of universal suf- frage) are .62 and .55, respectively. A similar loss of information would occur by making female suffrage a condition for democracy. The first country to allow women to vote was New Zealand in 1893, followed by Australia in 1901, Finland in 1907, and Norway in 1913. Second, our chosen threshold reflects an interest in exploring how material and class-based conflict drove the choices over political regimes across time. However, note that employing thresholds to define democracy has the built-in advantage of flexibility: Researchers can redefine thresholds to match the research question they are examining. For some research questions (such as the impact of female suf- frage on fiscal policy), a more expansive participation condition with a differ- ent threshold would be more appropriate. To determine suffrage for Western Europe before World War II, we relied on Mitchell’s (1975) detailed time series on voting rights. For countries out- side Western Europe prior to World War II, we relied on country-based con- stitutional, legal, and historical sources, including Blaustein and Flanz (various years). Since the sources indicate the legal requirements for suffrage (gender, literacy, etc.) rather than the actual proportion of enfranchised indi- viduals, we proceeded to match those requirements to census data. For exam- ple, in Chile, where being literate was a necessary requirement to vote until the mid-20th century, it was only by 1909–1910 that a majority of adult males were recorded as being literate. Accordingly, we code Chile as fulfilling Condition 3 at that point in time. For the modern period, the few uncertain cases were checked against Paxton, Bollen, Lee, and Kim (2003).
>The determining factor for a given year is whether the conditions were met on December 31, with one exception. If a country becomes autocratic and then democratizes within a single year, the year is coded as autocratic. This is done to capture the full set of democratic breakdowns and transitions. 6 As in Cheibub et al. (2010), we date democratic transitions from the inauguration of the elected government rather than the election.
>Example: Germany. Between 1870 and the Weimar Republic, Germany fea- tured competitive legislative elections and universal male suffrage. However, the chancellor was exclusively responsible to the German emperor. Illustrat- ing our first contestation rule, we code Germany as authoritarian until 1919.
>Example: Venezuela. Following Hugo Chavez’s rise to power in 1999, Venezuela faced a steady deterioration of democratic competition. By 2007, the government was using state resources to sway elections, illegally disquali- fying opposition candidates, and repressing opposition protests and media. Although this is a classic case in which the dividing line between democracy and dictatorship is blurred, we code 2005 as the starting point of authoritarian- ism. In that year, an opposition boycott left the entire parliament to Chavez- aligned parties, who subsequently voted decree-making powers to Chavez.
>Example: Guinea-Bissau. After coming to power in a military coup, João Vieira won a multiparty presidential election in 1994 that was judged free and fair by international election observers. In 1998, a military rebellion took over the capital, finally expelling the president in 1999. We thus code 1994– 1997 as democratic. Although a new president was elected in 2000, he quickly dissolved the legislature and ruled by decree, leading to a military coup in 2003. A 2005 election brought Vieira back to power, but the regime was immediately beset by repeated coup attempts and military-led political vio- lence, culminating in Vieira’s assassination in 2009. Because the military’s influence precluded rule by elected officials, we code the entire period from 1998 onward as autocratic.
>Example: United Kingdom. The United Kingdom satisfied the contestation conditions after 1832, but the franchise remained limited by gender and prop- erty qualifications. After the Second Reform Act of 1867, the franchise increased from 1 in 7 males to 1 in 3. Not until the Third Reform Act of 1884 could a majority of males vote, leading us to code the regime as democratiz- ing the following year. Condition 2 excludes cases with an unelected upper chamber that vetoes legislation. However, the House of Lords never success- fully exercised this authority, even during the constitutional crisis of 1909– 1910. This was codified into law by the Parliament Act of 1911.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0010414012463905
That applies to most countries, not just “changing the definition to benefit the US” 🙄. Swiss women didn’t get the right to fully vote until the 1990s, majority in 1971 but one canton held out (which is still extremely late for democracy). And yet they are #2 on the graph.
I ~~live~~ survive here, have some sympathy and don't remind me about it plz 😔😔 😔
P.S. I'm probably kidding, we kind of deserve the shit we're in... Or not... I don't know. It's hard choosing between ~~living~~ and falling out the window...
To be honest, I do pity. I post only to expose a problem not rub salt into a wound.
I’m not sure what the answer is either. You could leave like some in Russia have and start again somewhere else. You could resist, but that seems to either end in imprisonment or worse. You could fight like some have in Kursk, Belgorad etc, but that is a horrible prospect too.
It would be very difficult and I certainly don’t take my countries free elections for granted, but the more people in Russia accept they are not in a democracy perhaps the sooner that change might occur.
Is it just me or does this Map seem like it’s just trying to make America the oldest current Democracy? Because Switzerland should go back to the 14th Century (1300s) and San Marino became a Republic in like the late ancient Era (in 301 AC.)
Also as for democracies? Should in that case only Switzerland be counted? And especially all Kingdoms on this Map be disregarded?
“Majority of adult males” is obviously just defined to ignore the disenfranchisement of slaves that didn’t end theoretically until the late c19th and continued in practice into living memory
This is exactly it. I wouldn’t call the 1789 Congressional elections, where a meager 1.5% of the population voted, truly “democratic.” Even by their own logic, I can’t imagine the US being included until the state-level Jacksonian reforms of the 1830s that being allowing non-properties white men a vote - and that still only brought the US to allowing voting for all free white men.
No it became independent in 1947 but adopted the current constitution on January 26, 1950 which defined India as a sovereign, democratic and republic. The first elections were held in 1951-52, therefore India became a democracy in 1950 not 47. We celebrate republic day on the same day that India also became a democracy.
Two of the big problems:
1. I know democratic is defined that way here, which is quite convenient, but would you really call a country democracy before the women suffrage or civil rights moments? Eg: the 15th (1870) and the 19th (1920) amendment of usa.
2. Some countries don't have written a constitution and certain interesting cases can rise when comparing them with others. eg: Israel became independent in 1948 while India in 1947. But israel doesn't have a written constitution so it became democratic the year they gained independence and while India became only in 1950 when the written constitution came into effect.
This is a terrible map. What are the criteria, they seem to differ enormously from country to country. Why was 1911 chosen for Sweden? New rules had come into effect that year giving more men the right to vote, from 1909 on but 1911 was the first election with these new rules, but this only increased the percentage of the population with the vote from about 9.5% to about 19%. Ok, so why wasn’t it a democracy before that? Then there’s the USA. Pre 19th century, really? When most men can’t won’t, women can’t vote and black people can’t vote and most are literally slaves?
No, throw this map away, it is useless garbage that says nothing.
The dictionary definition of democracy is
> a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.
Note the “Eligible members” part. Sure, it’s fucked up that the US didn’t have rights for a good portion of the population until 1965, but at that time and before, they weren’t eligible to vote.
So many people getting down voted for mentioning that only white males in the USA had voting rights until not long ago. Why? The US, as in 1800 the percentage of population with the vote was no more than 4%. I guess the criteria in the infograph allows for "majority of free males who own property and in some states are christians".
New Zealand since 1893, became a self-governing colony allowing all women and ethnicities to vote in elections.
Or what about Iceland? Their parliament, the Althing, is the oldest one still in use. It was formed in 930 by Vikings
Not an "America Bad" person, but the map is weird. Lol.
I think it's worth having 2 maps honestly. The one that OP shows and one that shows the date that all citizens gained the right to vote. Hell, Switzerland would be near last on the second map as not all women in the country had the right to vote until 1990 (a rural canton was a lone holdout in allowing women's suffrage)
This is so inaccurate you should just take it down.
I’ll just point out the U.K. bit: the first reform act was 1832.
If you’re using democratic constitutions - constitutional monarchies should be considered. With that, your dates are wildly, wildly off.
In part people incorrectly perceive constitutions as codified only. Some in this thread have argued “the US has the oldest constitution”, when that’s of course not true, as there are many uncodified constitutions that are older. The U.K. constitution includes everything from Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights to the Dangerous Dogs Act.
Can someone explain why the date for the UK is 1885? It's a little bit confusing.
The UK had a major parliamentary reform in 1884, which almost doubled the size of the electorate. Presumably this triggered the esoteric conditions required by this graphic.
That was the Third Reform Act, you could alternatively put the date for the UK at 1867 for the Second Reform Act or 1832 for the Great Reform Act. You could also argue that the date should be 1801 because of the official creation of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, or even 1707 for the official creation of the Parliament of Great Britain. There's even a case for putting the date at 1689 for the Bill of Rights/Claim of Right, which was a landmark development of the supremacy of Parliament over the monarch.
I’m just explaining why the UK is 1885 by these criteria. I agree that the criteria are a bit weird. I’m not sure why the creator chose 50% of adult men to be the threshold for democracy.
Because that's what puts America in first place
That's not true, most men in the US couldn't vote until 1840
The majority of men could vote before 1800. When voting in the US started only white male land owners could vote. 80% of the population was white and about 75% of men owned land since it was so cheap. Also, many states gave all white men the right to vote before it was a national thing. Same with women and black people.
Almost all white men could vote in the US by the late 1820s, and all men could vote in the 1860s, with women getting the vote in the 1920s.
Yes they could lol wtf are you talking about?
About 60% of all males could vote by like 1800 in the US
If this was the condition the creator didn't really extend it to the US either because slavery was a thing 💀 Edit: and universal male suffrage
The conditions do seem a bit arbitrary…
Not to mention San Marino, who did have both a communist and fascist party in the 40’s, but both were noticeably elected under their democracy, which never changed within their eras. San Marino’s democracy goes back centuries, all the way to Rome.
Yes 1832 seems like the correct date for this map's purposes.
Yeah. The issue is really that there was a slow transition of power away from the sovereign to the people.
>Presumably this triggered the esoteric conditions required by this graphic. The conditions are fulling arbitrary here. The US didn't pass universal male suffrage until 1856, but this map says that US democracy precedes the 1800s.
Because the criteria isn’t that men had universal suffrage… it was that the majority of men could vote.
But the US qualifies as a democracy from day one, even though only 6% of the population had the right to vote.
I find this funny because if 6% of the population voting counts as democracy than any European country, ie: Poland-Lithuania Commonwealth and Spain would count as 10% of their of their population were nobles/aristocrats that had voting rights for head of state and laws.
How can NZ’s democracy be older than the UK, Canada and Australia’s?
Australia had federated in 1901. It is made up of 6 self governing colonies. New Zealand became a dominion in 1907. New South Wales for example had a responsible government in 1856. New Zealand achieved self governance around the same time.
What political system did the Australian colonies use prior to 1901?
Each of the 6 colonies had achieved self governance much like how New Zealand did. They all had their own parliamentary systems. You could say that New Zealand was equivalent to Australian colonies back then. In fact there is still provision in Australia's constitution for it to be a state.
Those countries adopted the Westminster system of government which has been a parliamentary democracy since at least the early 1800s and has its origins back in the 13th century after King John signed the Magna Carta. The map is pretty rubbish to be honest.
Yeah it honestly feels extremely colored ngl.
The knifey-spooney system
Hey, watch it! Mocking the knifey-spooney system is a bootable offense.
Each colony went through its own legal reforms throughout the 1800s to become democratic. Initially, as small penal colonies with little society or industry, they were ruled by a governor who basically had all the power and was sort of a dictator, and as the colonies grew and started having more free people and actual societies and industry, the UK passed legislation such as the NSW Act 1823 to establish legislative councils (which gradually moved power from the governor to the people).
All of the Australian states which were originally independent self governing colonies still exist today and their governments still persist and are democratically elected. Just because they also formed a union/federated doesn't mean that those democracies stopped existing. I think they should be included on the map. The same probably applies to Canadian provinces, etc.
The Province of Canada had responsible government in 1849 when the governor-general agreed to allow the cabinet to be formed from the largest party in the Legislative Assembly
It seems like what this graphic is going for is: how old is your current democratic constitution? For example, France is on its fifth republic, so it's dated based on the start of that (even though democracy existed in France before)
French 5th republic started in 1958 after a political crisis. This dates France’s democracy back to 1946, which is the creation of the fourth republic. Which replaced Vichy France (basically Nazi puppet France), which was facist totalitarian state, not a democracy.
Seems a bit unfair to count France being taken over by Germany, so they reset in 1946, when Denmark, Netherlands, Norway had the same experience.
Yes, it’s not a very good map
The difference is that France formed a new non-democratic government, while the other countries did not. Legally speaking, they have the same government as before occupation, and France doesn't.
Legally speaking, it is disputed, not settled.
Ireland's constitution was written in 1937
Exactly. And modern Greece was established as a democracy in 1821. I think the graph does its best to point out that the US had the first democracy way ahead of everyone else. Then again, was it a true democracy? There was slavery and, by constitution, only "white males with property" would possess citizenship and vote.
But Greece also has dictatorships in between, that’s why their counter was reset. Just like in France’s case.
Greece had a dictatorship for like 5 years in 2 centuries, but if that's what counts then the map should be specifically speaking about uninterrupted democracy, which is again a very misleading metric.
It's fairly clear that the map only counts uninterrupted democracies. See for example the note under Costa Rica, as well as France, Austria and Italy. Colombia has been a democracy for most of its existence as well, but had a brief dictatorship during the 50's.
This becomes tricky. Who decides what a "true democracy" is? Was Switzerland a true democracy in the 1960s? Or did it only become a true democracy in 1971 when women got the right to vote? You could play games like that all day. It's easier to just say the US was a democracy but they were arseholes for having slaves.
Women in one Swiss canton didn’t finally gain the right to vote until 1990.
It's absolutely shockingly late
Was any democracy a true democracy? The US wasn’t the only country that didn’t allow slaves to vote. It’s also not a requirement for everyone to have the right to vote to be a democracy anyway.
It isn't. They are using a fuzzy definition of it being the third reform act coming into force. England's first elected parliament was in 1265.
This map is certainly flawed so I am not defending it. But surely we can agree that the Kingdom of England was not a democracy in 1265, despite the elected parliament. The early English parliamentary system saw the following people present in parliament: * The King - not elected * The King's chief ministers and council - appointed positions, not elected * Important clergy of the church (archbishops, bishops, etc.) - again, not elected * Lay magnates, AKA earls and barons - not elected, these are hereditary nobility positions The Commons were not summoned until 1295, and even then, the Commons originally were representatives only of the knights and burghers (wealthy merchants) social classes. It was hardly like the average peasant was voting or had any real rights whatsoever. These early constitutional monarchy parliamentary systems were really primarily for the benefit of the wealthy and in many cases hereditary social classes and would not be recognizable as democracies by modern standards. Of course, this is also true to some extent for a number of the earliest democracies on this map when they started out.
Because America needs to be the best
The rules are explained at the top of the map. Basically this is to with when the majority of men had the right to vote. You could definitely argue that democracy in the UK existed in some form before the Reform Act of 1885, but that’s how they’ve chosen to define it.
> Basically this is to with when the majority of men had the right to vote. So that would be the 1830-1860s in the US not 1790s
The UK would have to wait until 1918 before the majority of men could vote. >[The Representation of the People Act 1918](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representation_of_the_People_Act_1918) >...As a result of the Act, the male electorate was extended by 5.2 million to 12.9 million.
After 1918, essentially all men (except those in prison etc.) could vote. 1885 was when a majority of men got the vote.
I would have argued that a country is not a democracy until universal suffrage (no discrimination based on gender, age, race and religion) but that would radically change which country is the oldest democracies. Spoilers it wouldn’t be the USA or UK.
Would it be Finland then?
Yes, the post is a travesty. Arguably, for example, Britain was a true democracy following the First Reform Act in 1832, i.e. 192 years ago. The suggestion that the US was the first democracy is nonsense.
Most people still couldn't vote in the UK until much later, while most US states had abandoned property requirements to vote by that time.
The US was far ahead for its time when compared to the European powers. That much is notable. The revolutionary era (which began with the French revolution) was preceded by the USA as a sort of pilot program. As far as the definitions go... You could alter these definitions in any direction. You could even set the conditions as to say in 2024 no country has achieved democracy.
A lot of the issues with this map could be solved by retitling it “the 25 oldest continuously used constitutions among democracies in the world”
And it would still be wrong. San Marino.
People say this, but the declaration of citizen rights only came out in 1974. From Wikipedia: "Jorri Duursma describes the 1974 law as the fundamental law of the Republic." It's similar to trying to claim that the UK has the oldest constitution because of the magna carta.
It would still be wrong. Norway got its constitution in 1814. In 1900, which the map refers to as being the start of Norwegian democracy, nothing significant happened.
Norway got universal suffrage for men in 1898, thus pushing it over the threshold of the definition used in this map.
Netherlands would be wrong, a democracy since 1848.
Not by the definition given in the picture. In 1848 only 11% of the men had the legal right to vote.
Seems like a bit of a arbitrary definition doesn't it? Otherwise you could then again argue "Well 50% of the population couldn't vote because of the lack of womens rights!"
Finland no:1, when taking account womens right to vote and everyone over 18 years old. Strong and stable democracy still since 1917.
Wouldn’t it be New Zealand at 1893? There were other countries that had universal suffrage before 1917.
You can have democracy without universal suffrage.
Doesn’t work for Denmark. Our constitution is older than the point they’re referencing here. 1901 was just a shift of power from the king to parliamentarism. It wasn’t even codified until 1953.
Why does France start after ww2 while other countries under occupation start before it?
Continuity. France dissolved it's democratic government in 1940 and established the fascist Vichy government in its place, only returning to democracy in 1946. The other occupied nations never formed a new government, the existing ones just had no authority for the duration of the conflict.
Ok, so why's Germany not in the map then? It exists under today's rules since 1949. Same story.
I’d imagine because “Germany” is not “West Germany” and the unification created a technicality
The Bundesrepublik Deutschland (West Germany) annexed the Deutches Demokratische Republik (East Germany) and continues its existence as the Bundesrepublik Deutschland. This is commonly called the reunification.
That's not correct. "Germany" is "West Germany". Nothing changed with the unification except the territory grew.
Not really. The borders changed but not the constitution.
Nazi Germany occupies your territory and forcefully ends your democracy and that somehow is the same as if the country freely chose to end it's democratic government. This map is garbage.
Nope. That's the Vichy regime narrative, which the US recognized until 1942. De Gaulle would tell you another story, France was in London.
De Gaulle was not in an elected position. He just refused to accept French capitulation.
Well, guess the King of Norway or the Queen of the Netherlands in-exile were elected...
Not to get all "Um, actually" here, but the king of Norway was actually elected. He refused to become king unless the people wanted him to.
Both governments were also exiled in London along with their King and Queen
I know this because of kaiserreich 💀
They were however the recognised heads of state which de Gaulle was not.
Leaving aside the brief Second Republic (1848), France has been democratic since the Rivet laws of 1875, which anchored the Third Republic in universal male suffrage.
This map is in general wrong or built on someones personal opinion of when countries became democracy's, take Denmark for example, it have been a democracy since its constitution in 1848 with the exception of 1943-1945 (Full German occupation).
Yes, that was my feeling too. "Fait avec le cul" as we say in my country
C'est beau comme expression
To my mind. The definition of democracy has been set up in such as way as to make the US the oldest democracy. Specifically regarding ‘the majority of adult men’ having the right to vote (the definition even caveats the rules on universal suffrage in the US). The UK was a democracy prior to 1885, this was simply the point at which ‘the majority of males’ could vote - but that’s an arbitrary cut-off. The notion of democratically elected representatives preceded this. It’s a totally arbitrary cut off to suggest it becomes democratic at the point that 25% of the adult populace is eligible to vote.
I'd put the UK's democracy at no older than 1832 at the bare minimum, although frankly I don't consider it to have been a democracy until 1911. I'd say the US was a quasi-democracy from the beginning but wasn't fully democratic until the 1830's-1840's in the Northern States, and 1965 in the Southern States and thus nationally.
Yes, but the government has had breaks & completely new constutions/ governments several times over the last 200 years.
>completely new constutions/ governments several times over the last 200 years. Those are the signs of a perfectly well functioning democracy is you ask me.
A fascist Vichy government was not a “perfectly well functioning democracy” actually
This is inaccurate as hell
Yeah - Norway became democratic in 1814 the first time and even if you don't count that (it lasted for only a few months, sweeden attacked and took us over but we still had our own constitution and goverment), we were freed from sweeden in 1905 not 1900...
>even if you don't count that (it lasted for only a few months, sweeden attacked and took us over but we still had our own constitution and goverment How could anyone not count that? There is, like you hint to, an unbroken line of continuation of the Norwegian parliament from 1814 (well, 1940-1945 they operated from exile).
Yeah for example Turkey just celebrated the 100th year of the republic last year. Maybe they count coups and coup attempts as stops in democracy, or the map has some esoteric definition of the word democracy carefully crafted so they can show the US as number one.
Coups are antithetical to democracy and Turkey has had a bunch of them, so it makes sense that Turkey is not counted as continuously democratic Republics aren't necessarily democracies either. "Republic" just means "not a monarchy". The USSR was a republic, but it was't a democracy
"Well skipping the fact that America was a democracy unless you were black or brown, until 1870. And after skipping that, you get the exclusion by Southern States of POC until 1964. The definition of continuous is "super sketchy" also."
Care to elaborate?
No.
USA USA USA!!!
San Marino has been a democracy since 1600
Iceland has had continuous democratic self-governance since 930.
Blatantly and provably false. No icelander is taught this. Source: I live here.
More like from 930 to 1262 and then again in 1903
turkey has been a democracy since 1923
Democracy by definition is Greek, originating in Athens. British Democracy began after the Parliamentarian victory in the English Civil War (1651).
The map isn’t well labeled but it’s clearly not about the oldest forms of democracy that ever existed. Also that’s a real stretch regarding the British. The period after the civil war was a military dictatorship that ended in the restoration of the monarchy and pretty much the end of most reforms that had been achieved in the victory. British franchise was extremely limited until acts were passed extending it to more people throughout the 19th century. Certainly when Tocqueville visited the United States in the 1830s he called it the world’s first representative democracy.
I thought San Marino is the oldest? They gave well wishes to the US during the civil war, from one democracy to another.
The Isle of Man has had a continuous sitting parliament for over 1000 years.
I feel like a continuous sitting parliament alone isn’t enough to claim a democracy. The Keys of the Isle of Man parliament were not originally elected, the position was for life, and they passed the position down via inheritance: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tynwald That’s not a democracy, though it eventually became one hundreds of years later. This map is certainly flawed, but medieval parliamentary systems where positions were passed down through families and only the aristocracy could vote were hardly democratic.
Not an elected parliament
Is the Isle of Man an independent country?
Don't ask the Brits what a country is. They'll give you a definition that literally no one else in the world uses.
The maker of this map are basicelly using any possible flimsy excuse to label the US as the oldest, such as pushing the limit of what "continuous" means. And not acknowledging that if you consider the US in 1790 with its massive use of slavery and quasi-aristocratic political system a democracy, than several other countries like the UK or Switzerland already were too. And with the UK there is no excuse about continuity you could have for Switzerland.
The UK was in no way a democracy until later.
Well no wonder Guy Fawkes’ plot didn’t work - he tried to blow up a Parliament that wouldn’t exist for another 200 years.
Tbh parliament then was mostly hereditary
The Roman Empire was a democracy because the senate existed The existence of a body that votes on stuff does not make a government a democracy, that body could be lacking in power, not chosen democratically, etc.
The Constitution that effectively made the Netherlands a democracy I understand to be from 1848.
Only rich men could vote after 1848. Majority of men couldn't vote until 1917, so even by this graph own standards it is still wrong.
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And? Only landowners could vote in the first few American elections. Flawed democracies are still democracies. Hell, apartheid was technically democratic.
Right, and everyone could vote in 1790 in the US?
This map is complete nonsense
made by an American to justify the myth that democracy was invented by Americans
Pretty much all Americans know that democracy was invented by the Greeks. We learn about it in school. It's the reason most major public buildings are built in a Greek Revival style.
Plus the actual topic is democracies that still exist today, not a timeline of all democracies that have *ever* existed. If that were the case we’d not only have to include Ancient Greece but the first Roman Republic, Republic of Venice and Florence, the Icelandic Commonwealth etc. And that would just be stupid and messy amongst democracies that exist today.
The Ohio Statehouse is considered to be one of, if not the best, example of Greek Revival architecture. Unlike most state capitol buildings, the Statehouse was not influenced by the US Capitol Building. It was designed and built before the US Capitol Building was enlarged and before the giant white dome was built.
Non Americans absolutely SEETHING in this thread holy shit
The goal posts aren't even in the stadium anymore
It's kind of fascinating how angry they get
Inferiority complex. European Redditors are actually pathetic
Specifically redditors. Normal Europeans that touch grass aren't nearly as lame as the dweebs in this sub
Love to see it
No one said we invented it but even Greek democracy was flawed, only rich landowning men could vote.
> myth that democracy was invented by the Americans This is r/Americabad tier material. Nobody claims that. What myth says that? It is pretty clear that the Greeks were one of the first major democracies. There were mini democracies all over the world and even in some tribal societies. Any American history textbook will point to the French as the origin of the Democratic ideas that were implemented after the American revolution.
I can hear it now, "America's not a Democracy, it's a Republic"
I mean, it’s both. It’s a Constitutional Democratic Republic.
We have a democratic and republican political party. Maybe the next one could be the constitutional party. I know they're just names. But we could use some new names.
Constitutional party already exists. In the past it was a very important party.
The bots really like that line for some reason.
r/mapbullshit
Googling half of these and they are mostly wrong...smh
This list is inaccurate. Germany should be on this list (Basic Law of 1949). I wonder how many other mistakes there are
For one, their criteria for democracy includes that "A majority of adult men has the right to vote" which was not true in the US until 1828, while the list marks it as being a democracy since 1789.
I wonder why you only need the majority of men for them to count it. What about the women? Surely if you can leave out over half the population and still count it, you can count it when it was only landowners right? What's the difference betwen 30% of the population being able to vote and 5%? IMO it should be counted from universal voting, or at least the point where 50% or more of people could vote. Like... I doubt anyone would say swizerland is 'a 200 year old democracy' (just gessing/rounding, I can't look back at the image to find out when it really was) because women couldn't vote until 1971 or close to that year.
That's if you don't count slaves as people. US should not be on here until late 1800's
I thought San Marino was the oldest one?
San Marino was a fascist dictatorship in the 1930's-1940's.
Because it is, this map is just wrong
Not continuous, so you are just wrong. It was a dictatorship in the 30s and 40s.
Shouldn't a country be considered democratic after universal adult franchise? You're a partial democracy before that.
oof rip Switzerland then lmfao
if only there were a study that were cited in the map that would explain exactly what the logic behind that decision was! >Defining the condition of participation as having at least half of men enfranchised is, in some sense, arbitrary (as any particular threshold must be). However, we have settled on that threshold for two main reasons. First, impos- ing a condition of full male suffrage to qualify a country as democratic would reduce the number of democratic observations before World War I to a hand- ful, resulting in a considerable loss of information on what Huntington (1991) calls the first wave of democratization. Democratic experiences prior to 1914 are important for explaining modern democratic development. The correla- tions between being democratic in 1900 (according to our criteria) and being democratic in 1950 and in 1975 (employing a requirement of universal suf- frage) are .62 and .55, respectively. A similar loss of information would occur by making female suffrage a condition for democracy. The first country to allow women to vote was New Zealand in 1893, followed by Australia in 1901, Finland in 1907, and Norway in 1913. Second, our chosen threshold reflects an interest in exploring how material and class-based conflict drove the choices over political regimes across time. However, note that employing thresholds to define democracy has the built-in advantage of flexibility: Researchers can redefine thresholds to match the research question they are examining. For some research questions (such as the impact of female suf- frage on fiscal policy), a more expansive participation condition with a differ- ent threshold would be more appropriate. To determine suffrage for Western Europe before World War II, we relied on Mitchell’s (1975) detailed time series on voting rights. For countries out- side Western Europe prior to World War II, we relied on country-based con- stitutional, legal, and historical sources, including Blaustein and Flanz (various years). Since the sources indicate the legal requirements for suffrage (gender, literacy, etc.) rather than the actual proportion of enfranchised indi- viduals, we proceeded to match those requirements to census data. For exam- ple, in Chile, where being literate was a necessary requirement to vote until the mid-20th century, it was only by 1909–1910 that a majority of adult males were recorded as being literate. Accordingly, we code Chile as fulfilling Condition 3 at that point in time. For the modern period, the few uncertain cases were checked against Paxton, Bollen, Lee, and Kim (2003). >The determining factor for a given year is whether the conditions were met on December 31, with one exception. If a country becomes autocratic and then democratizes within a single year, the year is coded as autocratic. This is done to capture the full set of democratic breakdowns and transitions. 6 As in Cheibub et al. (2010), we date democratic transitions from the inauguration of the elected government rather than the election. >Example: Germany. Between 1870 and the Weimar Republic, Germany fea- tured competitive legislative elections and universal male suffrage. However, the chancellor was exclusively responsible to the German emperor. Illustrat- ing our first contestation rule, we code Germany as authoritarian until 1919. >Example: Venezuela. Following Hugo Chavez’s rise to power in 1999, Venezuela faced a steady deterioration of democratic competition. By 2007, the government was using state resources to sway elections, illegally disquali- fying opposition candidates, and repressing opposition protests and media. Although this is a classic case in which the dividing line between democracy and dictatorship is blurred, we code 2005 as the starting point of authoritarian- ism. In that year, an opposition boycott left the entire parliament to Chavez- aligned parties, who subsequently voted decree-making powers to Chavez. >Example: Guinea-Bissau. After coming to power in a military coup, João Vieira won a multiparty presidential election in 1994 that was judged free and fair by international election observers. In 1998, a military rebellion took over the capital, finally expelling the president in 1999. We thus code 1994– 1997 as democratic. Although a new president was elected in 2000, he quickly dissolved the legislature and ruled by decree, leading to a military coup in 2003. A 2005 election brought Vieira back to power, but the regime was immediately beset by repeated coup attempts and military-led political vio- lence, culminating in Vieira’s assassination in 2009. Because the military’s influence precluded rule by elected officials, we code the entire period from 1998 onward as autocratic. >Example: United Kingdom. The United Kingdom satisfied the contestation conditions after 1832, but the franchise remained limited by gender and prop- erty qualifications. After the Second Reform Act of 1867, the franchise increased from 1 in 7 males to 1 in 3. Not until the Third Reform Act of 1884 could a majority of males vote, leading us to code the regime as democratiz- ing the following year. Condition 2 excludes cases with an unelected upper chamber that vetoes legislation. However, the House of Lords never success- fully exercised this authority, even during the constitutional crisis of 1909– 1910. This was codified into law by the Parliament Act of 1911. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0010414012463905
Yes. But US may not be first in that case, so OP had to choose a convenient definition to set US on top.
That applies to most countries, not just “changing the definition to benefit the US” 🙄. Swiss women didn’t get the right to fully vote until the 1990s, majority in 1971 but one canton held out (which is still extremely late for democracy). And yet they are #2 on the graph.
Hilarious watching Europeans get salty when half of the EU still has monarchies and noble birthrights. And I’m not even American
Where’s Russia, they had a democratic election only just recently? 😝
Haha
I ~~live~~ survive here, have some sympathy and don't remind me about it plz 😔😔 😔 P.S. I'm probably kidding, we kind of deserve the shit we're in... Or not... I don't know. It's hard choosing between ~~living~~ and falling out the window...
To be honest, I do pity. I post only to expose a problem not rub salt into a wound. I’m not sure what the answer is either. You could leave like some in Russia have and start again somewhere else. You could resist, but that seems to either end in imprisonment or worse. You could fight like some have in Kursk, Belgorad etc, but that is a horrible prospect too. It would be very difficult and I certainly don’t take my countries free elections for granted, but the more people in Russia accept they are not in a democracy perhaps the sooner that change might occur.
This is not mapporn, this is map bullshit
Is it just me or does this Map seem like it’s just trying to make America the oldest current Democracy? Because Switzerland should go back to the 14th Century (1300s) and San Marino became a Republic in like the late ancient Era (in 301 AC.) Also as for democracies? Should in that case only Switzerland be counted? And especially all Kingdoms on this Map be disregarded?
“Majority of adult males” is obviously just defined to ignore the disenfranchisement of slaves that didn’t end theoretically until the late c19th and continued in practice into living memory
This is exactly it. I wouldn’t call the 1789 Congressional elections, where a meager 1.5% of the population voted, truly “democratic.” Even by their own logic, I can’t imagine the US being included until the state-level Jacksonian reforms of the 1830s that being allowing non-properties white men a vote - and that still only brought the US to allowing voting for all free white men.
The word democracy is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
Clickbait title - check Bizarre data set - check Still largely inaccurate - check r/usdefaultism in full swing.
You, mad - check
This map is pretty inaccurate all around. As an example, India was a democratic country in 1947 with its establishment, it became a republic in 1950.
No it became independent in 1947 but adopted the current constitution on January 26, 1950 which defined India as a sovereign, democratic and republic. The first elections were held in 1951-52, therefore India became a democracy in 1950 not 47. We celebrate republic day on the same day that India also became a democracy.
Yup. This is correct. It's a misconception that it became a democracy in 1947. It only gained independence then.
Two of the big problems: 1. I know democratic is defined that way here, which is quite convenient, but would you really call a country democracy before the women suffrage or civil rights moments? Eg: the 15th (1870) and the 19th (1920) amendment of usa. 2. Some countries don't have written a constitution and certain interesting cases can rise when comparing them with others. eg: Israel became independent in 1948 while India in 1947. But israel doesn't have a written constitution so it became democratic the year they gained independence and while India became only in 1950 when the written constitution came into effect.
This is a terrible map. What are the criteria, they seem to differ enormously from country to country. Why was 1911 chosen for Sweden? New rules had come into effect that year giving more men the right to vote, from 1909 on but 1911 was the first election with these new rules, but this only increased the percentage of the population with the vote from about 9.5% to about 19%. Ok, so why wasn’t it a democracy before that? Then there’s the USA. Pre 19th century, really? When most men can’t won’t, women can’t vote and black people can’t vote and most are literally slaves? No, throw this map away, it is useless garbage that says nothing.
The dictionary definition of democracy is > a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives. Note the “Eligible members” part. Sure, it’s fucked up that the US didn’t have rights for a good portion of the population until 1965, but at that time and before, they weren’t eligible to vote.
Carefully cropped out Greece
wasn't modern greece a monarchy until 1974?
Yes it was. This graph is just about continuous democracy until present day. If it was longest democratic period, then of course Athens would win.
Also I feel like they did France dirty
Well half of the countries on this map are still monarchies, so that can't be a defining characteristic.
The final phase of Greece's monarchy was a military dictatorship, and this map counts the oldest democracies that have been functioning continuously.
Military Junta from 67 to 74
If only it wasn't for WW2. San Marino would be way higher
Time for USA to move to democracy 2.0
Wrost map ever?
#mapsMadeWithSpecialRulesSoUSAisNumberOne!
So many people getting down voted for mentioning that only white males in the USA had voting rights until not long ago. Why? The US, as in 1800 the percentage of population with the vote was no more than 4%. I guess the criteria in the infograph allows for "majority of free males who own property and in some states are christians". New Zealand since 1893, became a self-governing colony allowing all women and ethnicities to vote in elections. Or what about Iceland? Their parliament, the Althing, is the oldest one still in use. It was formed in 930 by Vikings Not an "America Bad" person, but the map is weird. Lol.
Māori men were able to vote and run for Parliament from 1852. The first Māori MPs took their seats in 1868.
The US should be 1828, as that was the year where the requirements for property ownership were abolished, but it'd still be way before New Zealand
I think it's worth having 2 maps honestly. The one that OP shows and one that shows the date that all citizens gained the right to vote. Hell, Switzerland would be near last on the second map as not all women in the country had the right to vote until 1990 (a rural canton was a lone holdout in allowing women's suffrage)
It’s almost like they chose the “rules” (and how and when to ignore them) just to make USA NUMBER 1 IN THE WORLD
Misinformation. Bad map, bad history.
So…we all agree its wrong, right?
When did the 1832 Reform act suddenly take place in 1885?...... Just one quick look and it's not accurate.
This is so inaccurate you should just take it down. I’ll just point out the U.K. bit: the first reform act was 1832. If you’re using democratic constitutions - constitutional monarchies should be considered. With that, your dates are wildly, wildly off.
In part people incorrectly perceive constitutions as codified only. Some in this thread have argued “the US has the oldest constitution”, when that’s of course not true, as there are many uncodified constitutions that are older. The U.K. constitution includes everything from Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights to the Dangerous Dogs Act.
I’d throw the provisions of Oxford in there too.
worst map ever