Democracy Approved: The Birth of Universal Democracy in the Grand Duchy of Finland

• In Event: Political Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Nations and Nationalisms (Table 1)

Abstract

As a result of the Great Strike of 1905, in 1906 The Grand Duchy of Finland became the only polity in the world to adopt a truly universal suffrage without categorical restrictions by race, gender, or class. This occurred at a time of near universal defeat of democratic revolutions across the world, and while Finland was still under imperial Russian Rule. In this paper, we ask how this was possible? To do this we trace the process of Finnish democratization from 1905 till 1918. We argue that Finnish democratization can only be understood by situating it in its imperial context. More specifically, while Finland had the beginnings of a labor and feminist movement, overall the Great Strike of 1905 was a very similar cross-class movement of the kind that were so soundly defeated elsewhere. However, falling under Russian sovereignty meant that the consequences of Finnish democracy would always be sharply limited, thus mollifying and neutralizing ruling class opposition. In making this argument we show how scholarship on empire and democracy can be brought together, and the importance of integrating bottom-up and top-down perspectives on democratization.

Authors

• Juho Topias Korhonen, Indiana University Bloomington

• Keenan Wilder, Brown University