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The Spread of Democracy and Their Challenges

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History and Politics of Well-Being in Europe

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Well-Being and Quality of Life Research ((BRIEFSWELLBEING))

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Abstract

First developed in ancient Greece is the idea of democracy which did not have its breakthrough immediately but was not lost; moreover, it was finally established in many countries of Europe and the world. When the French Revolution in 1789 enforced the demand for democracy, it was the beginning of the spread in European countries. First, the new democracies were incomplete because only men were allowed to participate in elections. Later on, the fight for universal suffrage was decided overall for women. In practice, democracy suffered from unexpected disappointments. Lowering of participation rates happened at national and at supranational elections. People did not develop high trust in the political institutions, and they expressed that they were not much satisfied with the way democracy works. Broad discussion of how democracy could be enforced on national and supranational levels continued.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The authors resume in respect to the democracy question: “As a general evaluation, we would conclude that the satisfaction with the democracy question is not too bad, in a comparative perspective similar multidimensional measurement takes place in all countries”.

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Correspondence to Wolfgang Glatzer .

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Glatzer, W. (2019). The Spread of Democracy and Their Challenges. In: History and Politics of Well-Being in Europe . SpringerBriefs in Well-Being and Quality of Life Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05048-1_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05048-1_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-05047-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-05048-1

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