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Message: <blockquote data-quote="haakon1" data-source="post: 4182393" data-attributes="member: 25619">Democracy is "new" within the history of our species, but only in the sense that steel is new.  It's been around a long time, in different variations.  The first democratic states (with slavery, and with no female subjects) were ancient Greek city states such as Athens, circa 2700 years ago.  These were direct democracies (the people vote), not republican democracies (the people elect representatives who vote).Democratic traditions sprang up independently in ancient Iceland (~1000 years ago).However, modern representative democracies all trace back to three related roots -- the English Civil War in the 1640s, the American Revolution starting in 1776, and the French Revolution starting in 1789, each of which sought inspiration in the democracy of the classical world.Most modern democracies copy some or all of their features from these three countries, mixing and matching in interesting ways.  For example, federal countries like Canada and Germany often US copy ideas like the Senate representing states from the US constitution, while imperially-inclined countries like post-Communist Russia often copy the French/US model of a strong, directly elected king-like President, but with the French addition of a weak Prime Minister elected from the lower house to deal with the more grubby affairs of day-to-day management.</blockquote>