Except in Tunisia, which is the one success story from that time period. It's now a functioning democracy. Of course the real test is how it does over the long term, but at least so far it's an example of real change in the region.
Almost a decade later, possibly the cops on the beat shakedown situation has improved but general man on the street economic conditions are not improved in Tunisia. It is not apparently (yet) a success story.
No, if it was a failure the previous system and people would have remained in power. Though some did, there was an irrefutable change - whatever qualms one might have with the new regime.
> And in any case the reasons behind it had nothing to do with a desire for democracy
Each person has their reasons. The Group of Nine would certainly disagree with your claim.
This is prior to the Article I branch of government, Congress, abdicating much of its power and creating this myth of coequal branches of government, and when House districts were a lot smaller, and you and your neighbors has to decide between yourselves who was in charge of certain functions of keeping society going. You know, who was going to be the local Sheriff, who was going to run the local court, who was going to deliver the mail and so on. Many of these jobs were boring and without glory, but someone had to do them.
Had Madison’s Virginia Plan been implemented in full and the Connecticut Compromise wasn’t implemented, it would likely have been more democratic still.
Structurally, the United States constitution is overwhelmingly democratic, and especially for the time it was written and ratified. If it has grown less democratic at all, it is due to factors the signers and ratifiers of the Constitution could never have predicted that occurred in the 230 years since. No one could have foreseen Congress would abdicate much of it’s power and responsibilities in the 20th Century, or that the Industrial Revolution would lead to the single greatest explosion of the human population in history, or that we would choose to let in so many foreigners. Nobody thought each House member would be representing a district in the hundreds of thousands at a time when they thought one House member per 50K might be too few.
Is it democratic? Oh yes. It is the most democratic document of its time, and few legal documents written since then could plausibly claim to be more so.
My point was it is closer to the ideals.
TIL we coronated King George Washington I and established yet another divine monarchy.
I mean sure, the colonies ended up directly translating to states, and (some of) those colonies happened to have bicameral legislatures with a lower house consisting of elected representatives, but that's about where the similarities between the colonies and resulting states end. Any existing leadership that continued to lead during/after the revolution did so by democratic rather than autocratic means.
> it was a rebellion rather than a revolution.
Those terms are not mutually exclusive. It was a revolution implemented by rebelling against the British Crown.
I mentioned this already in my comment, but to clarify/reiterate:
- Governors (AFAICT) were not democratically elected (they were - if I recall correctly - appointed by the Crown, as was standard for colonial governments)
- The only democratically elected legislators (in the colonies that even had legislatures) were in the Lower House of each colony; the governor typically (if not always) appointed the Upper House's legislators himself (reflecting British Parliament and its House of Commons v. House of Lords, respectively)
Very different from how things operate post-Revolution, what with democratically-elected governors and state senators. If any of the former colonial leadership prevailed as the new state leadership, it was by democratic rather than autocratic means.
Definitely fair to draw comparisons, though; you're right that there are structural similarities on a state and federal level to the old colonial and imperial governments (respectively). My argument is that how the legislators and executives of those governments are appointed (i.e. democratically v. autocratically) is the big change, and one that would make the American Independence movement more of a revolution; the polities themselves were outright replaced, at least nominally, as the existing polities were rooted in the Crown's authority.
Contrast this with Canada or Australia, where (last I checked) the British monarch is still formally the head of state despite them being sovereign nations with independent governments and separate heads of government. I suspect that's closer to what you're envisioning (i.e. colonial governments continuing to exist as-is after gaining political sovereignty).
You're absolutely correct!
In case I was unclear eariler, I was strictly addressing questions of structure. Please accept my sincere apologies for my failure to make my self clear.
In more modern times, revolutions have pretty much resulted in more democracies than at any other time period.
If it's a domestic dictatorship, it will usually evolve into a democracy on its own.
If it's a foreign power oppressing an inherently democratic nation, a revolution might have good results. This is one way to think of the American Revolution, as well as the Eastern European liberation.
You should read up on the French Revolution. It led to phenomenal amounts of tyranny and war. The small flickers of democracy were soon extinguished.
Napoleon was, to put it somewhat mildly, not much of a democrat.
there have been quite a few "successful" revolutions.
When I say that "Revolutions don't produce democracies", I'm talking about violent revolutions. A "non violent revolution" is a contradiction on terms to me.
European history is not a secret. It was mostly gradual reforms over decades, ending in women's vote around 1920.
On another level, you can think of it as a rising middle class demanding and getting political influence proportional to their economical power.
I mean, we still celebrate July 1st as Canada Day. I like to joke that it’s “Dependence Day” since it celebrates the signing of the British North America Act, which, and I’m paraphrasing here, says “this whole Queen thing is working for us let’s keep it going.” As compared to the Declaration of Independence, which, well, you know the rest.