Why did democracy fail in europe between the first and the second world war?

by FlowersAtLast

The fall of democracy in europe seemed to be an important factor between the first world war and the second in many different european states, was this just a few isolated incidents or part of a bigger trend? What prompted these states to try and rid themselves of democracy? why is it that whilst many countries became totalitarian that some kept their democracy? Was there something these countries had or lacked in order to sway them towards dictatorships or the continuation of democracy?

PlayMp1

By what measure do you mean democracy failing in Europe in the interwar period?

I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of interwar European governments, but we can list off the governments I know were nondemocratic and then we can proceed from there.

Non-democratic governments:

  • USSR
  • Germany after 1932
  • Spain (military dictatorship between 1923 and 1930, then the Second Spanish Republic until the Civil War)
  • Fascist Italy
  • Poland after 1926

And then there's the distinctly democratic governments (though many were and are constitutional monarchies):

  • France
  • United Kingdom
  • Denmark
  • Sweden
  • Norway
  • Czechoslovakia
  • Poland before 1926
  • Germany before 1932

Democracy wasn't failing, though it was in quite a struggle. The proportion of democratic governments to nondemocratic governments was roughly equal.