Posted by Democracies and one-party states. Europe’s mediaeval Parliaments were devised as a way of formalising the European notion that the king must consult with his more important subjects. Only very gradually did they democratise. Dropping this complex system onto a society with very different traditions mostly fails.
Britain was not even loosely democratic until the 1880s, when about 60% of adult males at the core of the British Empire got the vote.
One-Party states in countries without a Parliamentary tradition are often a better way of expressing the actual Will of the People.
Gwydion Madawc Williams 