The Rise of Democracy in Britain Essay -- British Politics Papers

The Rise of Democracy in Britain The dynamic course of the nineteenth century set off a revolution within the realm of British politics. Foreign influence and domestic transformation created a situation where individual interests were forced into the public sphere for political reconciliation. The shift towards democratic government was largely unscripted because Britain had no written constitution to guide its path. Thus, Britain’s pursuit of democracy was not prescribed by any rules or written precedents. Instead, it was the outgrowth of an immediate national responsibility to fulfill the demands of the disenfranchised. Britain’s journey towards democracy cannot be explained without taking into account the many factors that spurred its development. The forces responsible for advancing democratic government in Great Britain were the diverse products of a unique set of evolving social, economic, and political structures. To understand the forces that propelled Britain towards democracy in the nineteenth century, one must first look back to the preconditions that fostered contemporary social change. The development of democratic government and the rise of capitalism are intrinsically linked. Necessary to the ideology of capitalism was the notion that the free individual was making a personal investment of labor or service and receiving the means with which to purchase property in return. Thus, a person of property was politically invested. Industrialization, however, changed the economic climate that had defined the way politics operated prior to the nineteenth century. Suddenly, society contained groups of people who were worki... ...tension that pushed forward the original reforms of 1832. This spirit of public demand for political representation would be essential in propelling the future advances of British democracy. As the political demands of the middle and working class came into the public sphere for the first time, the second track of political change arose. Political organizations placed their goal at giving public demands a parliamentary voice. The subsequent evolution of political parties and interest groups shaped the composition of Parliament and its attitude towards reform. In the final analysis, the influence of the public and the interests of the parties that had developed to represent their needs came together to push through the great nineteenth century reforms that later stood as buttresses to the structure of British democracy.