the losers don’t, or will there be protections of the minorities to ensure they are not
trampled politically? (Of course, middle-aged wealthy White men, who dominate all
elective office, are the statistical minorityof all voters. By a landslide.)
Perhaps the most eloquent document in world history to address this problem is
the Bill of Rights—the first set of amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The founders
worried about the tyranny of the majority and, through our Constitution, put into
place a wide variety of protections for individual rights. Thus, even if you disagree
with the majority, you have certain basic rights (free speech, ability to practice your
religion, to dissent, and the like) that no majority can take away.
Discrimination does not, however, explain what happens in countries with mul-
tiple electoral systems, combining “winner take all” (the U.S. practice) with propor-
tional representation (or PR). In a proportional representationsystem each party
would receive a proportion of the legislative seats and thus would be more likely to
govern “from the center” and build coalitions. This would tend to increase minority
representation because coalitions of minority groups can form a majority. Countries
that use proportional representation elect many times more women to their legisla-
tures than winner-take-all systems (Rule and Hill, 1996). Proportional representation
also drives the need for a coalition government. To muster the required votes, the party
with the most seats must align itself with one or more of the smaller parties. There
are always efforts to make democracies more democratic. They are always being
reformed and always in need of reform.
Citizenship
One question that characterizes all systems is: Who gets to participate? Who decides?
To participate in the political process, you must be a citizen. Throughout most of
human history, people were born into a tribe or cultural group, and they belonged to
it forever, no matter where they happened to live. In ancient Rome, only people of
Roman ancestry could become citizens. It didn’t matter that your ancestors had lived
in Rome for five generations, or that your first language was Latin; citizenship, and
with it the opportunity for political participation, was forever beyond your grasp. Well
into the twentieth century, Jews were excluded from citizenship in most European
countries, even if their ancestors had lived there for 500 years.
The idea of universal citizenship didn’t take hold until the nineteenth century
(Holston, 1999; Jacobsohn, 1996; Steenbergen, 1994). When the United States was
founded, a Black person counted as three-fifths of a White person for statistical pur-
poses, but Black men were denied suffrage(the right to voting and representation)
until 1865. Women (Black and White) didn’t acquire suffrage
until 1920 (Figure 14.1).
By the twentieth century, most nations recognized two rights
to citizenship: the right of blood, whereby you become a citizen
automatically if your father or mother is a citizen, regardless of
where they happen to be living; and the right of territory, whereby
you become a citizen automatically if you are born in a country,
regardless of where your parents live. For instance, if you are born
in Helsinki to American parents, you could embrace either
Finnish or American citizenship, or both, becoming a dual citi-
zen. Most countries allow foreigners with no right of blood or
right of the territory to become naturalized citizens, but there are
restrictions: Usually you must speak the language and have a job
or vital skills that will make you attractive to employers. Some-
times you must meet nationality and racial quotas (the United
POLITICAL SYSTEMS 467Citizenship is the foundation
of political participation. In
the United States, the number
of naturalized citizens has
been steadily climbing, to
702,589 in 2006. A natural-
ization ceremony in Miami,
2007.n