was becoming more forceful. Indeed, between 1877 and 1920, most
countries of Western Europe removed the remaining barriers to uni-
versal male suffrage, under pressures from the rising working class,
and against the wishes of conservative social forces and political
parties.^17 At the beginning of the twentieth century, some democracies
broke down and turned to authoritarianism, but in democracies the
conflict over the right to vote continued, first to include women, and
then other excluded groups. In most democracies, women acquired
the vote around the time of the First World War, but the process was
neither easy nor uniform. In Switzerland, for instance, one of the first
democratic countries, this right was not established until 1971.
Similarly, blacks in the United States were not allowed to exercise
fully their right to vote until 1965.^18
The object of the conflict was democracy, but the principle at stake
was equality. It was indeed to achieve fully the political equality
promised by liberalism that the left sought reforms, and its political
success was closely tied to the actual equality that existed in a country.^19
On the other side, arguments were defined around the recognition of
merit, the protection of property, the importance of traditions, and
the risks of disorder and anarchy.^20 Through this basic opposition, the
left and right as we now know them gradually took shape.
Peace and war
From the outset, this debate between the left and the right had inter-
national implications. The fight over democracy was also a conflict
about the nature of the world order. On the left, proponents of
equality and popular rule championed national sovereignty, coope-
ration among free peoples, and peace. On the right, defenders of the
status quo preferred a stable international order governed by the most
powerful states, by military strength, and, when necessary, by war.
(^17) Ibid., pp. 83, 90, and 140–41. (^18) Ibid., p. 122.
(^19) Pierre Rosanvallon,Le sacre du citoyen: histoire du suffrage universel en
France, Paris, Gallimard, 1992, p. 18; Tilly,Contention and Democracy in
Europe, pp. 211–12; Carles Boix,Democracy and Redistribution, Cambridge
20 University Press, 2003, pp. 10–12.
Geoff Eley,Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850–
2000 , Oxford University Press, pp. 30–31.
The rise of the modern state system (1776–1945) 89