For more than two thousand years, "democracy" had referred to chaos,
violence, irrationality and the tyranny of the mob. Almost all the principal founders of
what we now call the "democratic" systems of the United States and France openly
and proudly proclaimed their opposition to "democracy." "Democracy" was a term
which, for them, had a disparaging connotation. Thus, the term "democracy" was an
effective weapon for undermining the legitimacy of a political actor, faction or
platform.
Despite this inauspicious beginning, political leaders gradually became
defenders and promoters of "democracy" (around 1830-40). The shift may be
explained by the birth of the official parties in the United States and by the
introduction of Universal suffrage (for adult males) in France. The word "democracy"
was consciously employed to induce the people into believing that the politicians
cared about representing their wishes and interests. In both cases—the United States
and France—political factions competed for control of the term "democracy" and
even openly acknowledged the existence of this semantic competition. It may be said,
therefore, that it is mainly due to successful propaganda that we use the label
"democracy" today to characterize the American and the French regimes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/12823 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Dupuis-Déri, Francis |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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