Representative democracy, bound up with a strong legal system of rights, is helpful in preventing excesses of the state in terms of offences committed against the citizen and maintaining legitimacy that way. However, if such offences were committed on a large scale in a non-democratic country there still remains the threat of popular unrest and revolution which helps to keep the regime in check. ... Democracy is also supposed (in an ideal world) to be largely meritocratic and so one would hope the best people for the job would rise to the top while the general vote is supposed to represent th...

• Word Count: 2466
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: Graduate

The Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917 and the Rice Riots of 1918 energized radical thought, and there were movements calling for universal male suffrage1, the social, economic and political liberation of women, and the end of the existing social order entirely. Why then, by the end of the decade, had the tide of democratic process receded, and how had Japan's conservative and authoritarian elements reined back power from the hands of the people? This essay will attempt to answer these questions by looking at the respective movements trying to attain democratic rule, and on the oppo...

• Word Count: 2458
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: Graduate