Was America the first democracy in the west since the rise of Roman Emperors?

by johnpauljones987

After Ceaser came to power in Rome as an emperor, was democracy ever practiced in the west until the American Revolution?

VontyskAW

No. This answer really depends on how you define a "democracy", but there have been a number of governments that could qualify:

  • The Althing of the Icelandic Commonwealth, founded in 930.

  • The Tuath of medieval Ireland.

  • The democratic parliament of England (later the United Kingdom): England had its first elected paliament in 1265, and after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 the King was little more than a figurehead, with (the elected) parliament holding the real power.

  • The Corsican Republic had a democratic government and a constitution in 1755.

The difficulty with this question comes with how you define a "democracy". Is the UK, with a unelected, but powerless, head of state a democracy? And what about governments with some form of elective representation, but only for a tiny portion of the population (like the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which had elections but only allowed nobles to vote).

Define what you mean by a "democracy" (and remember that technically the US is not one to this day) and this question will become easier to answer. But the answer is almost certainly "no" no matter how you define the question.