Religions 2012, 3(2), 407-423; doi:10.3390/rel3020407
Article

Towards a Global History of Voting: Sovereignty, the Diffusion of Ideas, and the Enchanted Individual

David Gilmartinemail
Department of History, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-8108, USA
Received: 25 April 2012; in revised form: 7 May 2012 / Accepted: 8 May 2012 / Published: 8 May 2012
(This article belongs to the Special Issue From the Renaissance to the Modern World)
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Abstract: This article suggests a framework for moving toward a global history of voting and democracy that focuses less on the diffusion of European ideas (however important those ideas were) than on embedding the history of voting within a worldwide history of ideas on sovereignty. The article posits a general framework for such a history focusing on a “conundrum of sovereignty” grounding legitimate rule in a space imagined as simultaneously within and outside worldly society. Rooted in a “secular theology” such ideas shaped in the 19th and 20th centuries the establishment of systems of mass voting (including the secret ballot), and the sovereignty of the “people” both in Europe and other parts of the world alike, in the process producing an image of the individual voter as an “enchanted individual.” The article looks at developments within Europe and in India in these terms.1
Keywords: voting; democracy; sovereignty; elections; people; conundrum; Europeanization; India; secret ballot; influence; secular theology; enchanted individual

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MDPI and ACS Style

Gilmartin, D. Towards a Global History of Voting: Sovereignty, the Diffusion of Ideas, and the Enchanted Individual. Religions 2012, 3, 407-423.

AMA Style

Gilmartin D. Towards a Global History of Voting: Sovereignty, the Diffusion of Ideas, and the Enchanted Individual. Religions. 2012; 3(2):407-423.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Gilmartin, David. 2012. "Towards a Global History of Voting: Sovereignty, the Diffusion of Ideas, and the Enchanted Individual." Religions 3, no. 2: 407-423.

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