ABSTRACT
After reviewing the empirical findings, this chapter proceeds to discuss two entailed implications. The first concerns the observation that the early achievement of nearly universal white adult male franchise in the United States, well before other nations, signaled democratic advancement but not profound convulsions to the conditions of economic production or the hierarchies of social dominance. The means of insertion of actors into political life have consequences for the organization and articulation of interests. Property qualification repeal in the United States was more approved than extracted, sought by the disenfranchised but awarded on conditions deemed favorable to the grantee. Its strategic purpose was to add votes. The formerly disenfranchised were thus brought into mainstream politics in a manner consonant with, and subsidiary to, continued control by the incumbent ruling group. The second implication concerns the generalization of our findings across episodes of democratic expansion and contraction in the United States through the present day. Using multiple examples, we argue for continued relevance, with less than sanguine conclusions. Elected politicians, prey to popular opinion, have a strong incentive to manage the channels through which that opinion is expressed. Politicians are ever expert at manipulating the system that regulates them. The inclusive, effective, mass electoral franchise is a prerequisite for responsive and responsible governance. In politics, however, critical transformations often advance in conjunction with far more pedestrian motivations.
