I can only speak for the Classical World - but in that context, it is clear that democracy was unpopular (a) because no civic democracy could resist the power of the large kingdoms that dominated the Mediterranean basin from the time of Alexander onward, (b) because the Roman Empire discouraged democracy on the local level, and (c) because Classical Athens, the famous ancient democracy, had a frankly mixed political track record.

Alexander and his immediate successors actually encouraged "democracy" in the Greek cities of their kingdoms; and although this policy was entirely self-serving (they assumed such regimes would be easier to govern), it ensured that many Greek cities at least claimed to be democracies for centuries to come. These cities were, however, almost always either embedded in or allied with large autocratic kingdoms; and their democracy was usually colored by a strong oligarchic element.

The coming of Rome accelerated the decline of local democracy. The Romans preferred to deal with oligarchic regimes on the model of their own Republic, and actively encouraged the creation of hereditary local councils in the cities they governed. These attitudes continued under the Principate. In his Roman History, Cassius Dio (writing in the early third century CE) has a counselor advise Augustus to suppress democracies wherever he finds them:

"The affairs of the other cities you should order in this fashion: In the first place, the populace should have no authority in any matter, and should not be allowed to convene in any assembly at all; for nothing good would come out of their deliberations and they would always be stirring up a good deal of turmoil..." (52.30.2)

Greek and Roman intellectuals, moreover, tended to receive a distinctly negative view of Athenian democracy from the Classical authors they read. In the course of his defense of Flaccus, for example, Cicero describes Athens in the following terms:

"But all the republics [that is, democracies] of the Greeks are governed by the rashness of the assembly while sitting. Therefore, to say no more of this Greece, which has long since been overthrown and crushed through the folly of its own counsels; that ancient country, which once flourished with riches, and rower, and glory, fell owing to that one evil, the immoderate liberty and licentiousness of the popular assemblies. When inexperienced men, ignorant and uninstructed in any description of business whatever, took their seats in the theater, then they undertook inexpedient wars; then they appointed seditious men to the government of the republic [democracy]; then they banished from the city the citizens who had deserved best of the state. These things were constantly taking place in Athens..." (16-17)

After the rise of the Hellenistic kingdoms, in short, democracy could only have a local role; and after the rise of Rome, it had no place at all.

​

Sorry if this seems pedantic, but was there really a drastic shift from monarchy to democracy across the world as a whole after the 1700s? Could any historians assess the accuracy of that claim?

I'm assuming the question refers to the emergence of democracies in France and the United States, but this is still a very small minority of the world's population. Furthermore would a monarchy be viewed as an antonym for democracy? For example, the monarch of the United Kingdom had power, but so did parliament and the democratic system underpinning the contemporary democracy in the UK.

I assume OP will be asked to clarify but if any historians can answer these claims broadly to any extent it would be appreciated.

Follow-up question:

Was democracy unpopular per se (in that, even the "people" didn't want it), or was it simply not feasible (in that, the people who wanted it didn't have the power to resist autocratic rulers)?

Follow up: did protection of property rights have anything to do with the dislike of democracy? Was democracy equally popular between different social classes?

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