%0 Journal Article
%T Towards a Global History of Voting: Sovereignty, the Diffusion of Ideas, and the Enchanted Individual
%A David Gilmartin
%J Religions
%D 2012
%I MDPI AG
%R 10.3390/rel3020407
%X 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
%K voting
%K democracy
%K sovereignty
%K elections
%K people
%K conundrum
%K Europeanization
%K India
%K secret ballot
%K influence
%K secular theology
%K enchanted individual
%U http://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/3/2/407