The Project of Democracy

This article is an address given at the May 2002 Maine Town Meeting sponsored by the Margaret Chase Smith Library in Skowhegan. Alexander Keyssar chronicles the advances and contractions of democratic political rights in American history. While on balance, this is a story of progress, it is not, Keyssar argues, unilinear, nor one that is completed. Although arguably late for the world’s “greatest democracy,” by the 1970s the United States had achieved universal suffrage. Today, however, the tug between democratic and anti-democratic forces continues. The contest is no longer over voting rights but over the procedures and rules governing elections (i.e., election reform and redistricting). Keyssar argues we must continue to fight for the expansion of democratic rights; it is an ongoing project, one in which we will never be finished

Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?

The Ohio State University Mershon Center for International Security StudiesAlexander Keyssar is Matthew W. Stirling Jr. Professor of History and Social Policy in the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. An historian by training, he has specialized in the explanation of issues that have contemporary policy implications. His current research interests include election reform, the history of democracies, and the history of poverty.Mershon Center for International Security StudiesOhio State University. Moritz College of LawEvent Web Page, Streaming Vide

Franchises lost and gained: post-coloniality and the development of women’s rights in Canada

The Canadian constitution is to some extent characterised by its focus on equality, and in particular gender equality. This development of women’s rights in Canada and the greater engagement of women as political actors is often presented as a steady linear process, moving forwards from post-enlightenment modernity. This article seeks to disturb this ‘discourse of the continuous,’ by using an analysis of the pre-confederation history of suffrage in Canada to both refute a simplistic linear view of women’s rights development and to argue for recognition of the Indigenous contribution to the history of women’s rights in Canada. The gain of franchise and suffrage movements in Canada in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century are, rightly, the focus of considerable study (Pauker 2015), This article takes an alternative perspective. Instead, it examines the exercise of earlier franchises in pre-confederation Canada. In particular it analyses why franchise was exercised more widely in Lower Canada and relates this to the context of the removal of franchises from women prior to confederation

Inventing America : a history of the United States

This book contains a history of the United States which includes inventing Americaxxvii; 560 p.; ill.; 26 c

Inventing America : a history of the United States

This book contains a history of the United States which includes inventing Americaxxvii; 560 p.; ill.; 26 c

Inventing America : a history of the United States

This book contains a history of the United States which includes inventing Americaxxvii; 1086 p.; ill.; 26 c