Toward Political Participation and Capacity: Elections, Voting, and Representation in Early Modern Scotland

Abstract

Democratic forms of government have advanced across the world since 1945, a remarkable achievement given the massive challenges faced by democratic states in the twentieth century. Along with democracy has come a greater trust in elections to hold government accountable and to change government rather than merely bestowing a form of legitimacy on the state. Yet one of the recognized problems facing contemporary liberal states and advocates of democratic reforms in states without democratic traditions is how to progress beyond formal procedural elections to genuine participatory elections, thus building meaningful democratic engagement and capacity. The model adopted in many postcolonial states often arbitrary constructs of imposing forms of parliamentary democracy has a checkered history, given the failure of representative institutions to retain control over governing parties and the military. Although there are successful examples in the democratizing of West Germany and Japan at the end of World War II, the record of imposed democratic constitutions is problematic. A more recent example in Afghanistan suggests that for democracy to flourish it needs deeper roots than national elections and that security, basic governance, and the rule of law are prerequisites for its survival. 1 An explanation for the difficulties encountered by those external agents aggressively promoting liberal values has been the absence of the structural conditions in which democracy might thrive, including adequate capacity across a broad range of political and civic institutions and informal associations. 2 Discussions about the historical roots of democracy focus on concepts such as the emergence of the public space and ideas about the formation of so-1 S. Worden, "Afghanistan: