Low-Tech Democracy.

[Polydamas]

There is a book entitled The Secret History of Democracy which covers more democracies than the usual selective list of European ones.

Originally Posted by malloyd

So? What's wrong with voting for whoever you think will best defend the interests of your village?

It's a barrier to a really efficient direct democracy, where you expect the voters to make choices on complicated issues for the good for the nation. For a representative democracy where government paralysis isn't necessarily considered a bad thing, it might be a virtue. As long as there is enough time between each election and the representative body meeting for all the elected representatives to travel to the same place, there don't seem to be any particular limitations on that.

The representative principle is rare in our world, and the voters at least need to be able to follow what their representatives are doing. I am skeptical that a large democracy could work without printing, and probably without electrical communications. Something the size of England or the Aegean might work without either ...

I would also think about how ordinary people keep the moneyed, leisured elites in check. Aristocratic feuding, and aristocrats trying to squeeze more money and power out of everyone else, ended quite a few ancient democracies.