Jean Jacques Rousseau On Direct Democracy

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In Sweden, during the Age of Liberty the power of the state moved from monarch to the parliament where the people were paying taxes, like the farmers were represented in parliament and their power were limited, plus the people that were not paying taxis did not had the right to vote. In 1755 the Corsican Constitution give the right to women and all men above 25 to vote. (56,57 reference democracy w) Jean-Jacques Rousseau that he was sometimes more radical democrat than Locke, in his most important and influential work “The Social contract” (1762) addressed that a democracy is not compatible with representatives and that the moment the people allows themselves to be represented, they are no longer free or exist. Rousseau was a strong supporter of direct democracy and believed that if a political association is not small enough to practice direct democracy then they will be replaced by a nation-state association and as a result will stop been democratic. Furthermore, he wrote that “it is against the natural order for the many to govern and the few to be governed and that where are people of gods then the government is democratic, so perfect government is not for men”. On the other hand, in a footnote on the Book III chapter 15 he wrote that democratic governments can be more strong and viable when they join all together in confederations. He was one of the main democratic theorist that influence the French Revolution, but he never solved the problem of size or scale of