Iranian Revolutionary Guard behind kidnapping of 5 Britons

[Josquius]

To those who doubt Britain's being a democracy in early US history I always just point to the American revolution. They were bitching about not having seats in parliament like Brits in Britain did. If Britain were not a democracy there wouldn't have been that complaint. Not relevant to anyone here of course, just a generality.

Which leads one to the question, how wide does the suffrage have to be for a polity to count as a democracy?

Pretty much anything, democracy isn't a flat yes or no tick box.
Assuming you mean a modern western liberal democracy though then I'd say it depends on the era.
Early 19th century Britain today would make Iran (before all this business of course)  look like a bastion of freedom and democracy (only talking about the voting system. Crazy Islamic law not included.).
For its time however it was up there with the most progressive and free societies going with a political system to match.
If we're going strictly off modern standards then Britain would not have had an 'acceptable' level of democracy until 1928 when women got equal rights. To say though that Britain before that wasn't a democracy is silly/

[grumbler]

I'm afraid not 

I was going simply by the restriction of the franchise to white male voters. The exclusion of women and (nearly all) black people tipped it for me. I'm vaguely aware of the other restrictions that have been mentioned but have no real knowledge of the details.

A, the restrictive definition of democracy.  Rather a difficult line to draw, given that suffrage is never universal.  It sure makes the argument that "no two democracies have ever gone to war" a lot easier to make if there have never been any democracies! 

I'm interested in your statements that : "Obviously, suffrage is never "universal."  Hell, American Indians didn't all have suffrage until 1939, and some people of Asian extraction didn't get it until 1952.
But those were citizenship issues (as was the lack of suffrage by free "black" men in some states).  All male citizens had suffrage by 1824, I think."

I think that if we apply that to Sparta back in 500BC then they were just as much a democracy as the USA........after all, all the male citizens of Sparta had the vote.

This was true of Athens, but I don't remember hearing of Spartan democracy.  What did they vote on?

Which leads one to the question, how wide does the suffrage have to be for a polity to count as a democracy?

Indeed.  My own assertion would be that, if the voter roles are broad enough to reflect the wil of the people as a whole, and voting is only restricted by consideration of the needs of the voting itself, then one can have democracy without universal suffrage.

As John Adams predicted by in 1776, giving women the right to vote simply gave married women two votes and married men none!

[grumbler]

Incidentally the British 1832 Reform Act actually took the vote away from many people. Prior to the act there were some boroughs where all hearth-holders were allowed to vote, and all rural freeholders in the county constituencies with land in excess of 40 shillings in value (a large sum 1000 years ago but not so much by 1832).

True, but the 18432 Act unquestionably increased the suffrage and reduced the power of the rotten boroughs (one of which had something like seven electors and two MPs!)

[ulmont]

This was true of Athens, but I don't remember hearing of Spartan democracy.  What did they vote on?

Laws proposed by the Council or Senate.
http://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/educational/lesson1.html

[grumbler]

This was true of Athens, but I don't remember hearing of Spartan democracy.  What did they vote on?

Laws proposed by the Council or Senate.
http://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/educational/lesson1.html

Okay, not really a "vote" as we know it, but more participatory than I had remembered.  The "elected by life by the citizens" thing is actually even more democratic, and is also more participatory than I remembered - I had remembered them as being appointed for life by the kings and priests.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Yes, at first blush it seems ridiculous to link the Spartans and democracy; but they did elect both the Ephors and the Gerousia; whilst the "Kings" powers were somewhat limited. Perhaps the major undemocratic element was the Lycurgan constitution itself, which was more or less sacred and very difficult to adjust even when it led to very adverse results.

Aristotle would, I think, regard most of our modern "democracies" as having mixed constitutions; with monarchical, aristocratic and democratic features. So, for Britain, we have a monarch, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. I have read that the founding fathers of the USA incorporated some of Aristotle's ideas on these matters in their constitutional arrangements.........makes sense to me.