29-07-2025
What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Regime Question'
Author: Amel Ahmed
The regime question—often boiled down to 'democracy or autocracy?'—has been central to democratic politics from the start.
This has entailed not only fights over the extent of the franchise but also, crucially, ongoing struggles over core principles of democracy, the 'rules of the game.'
In this timely study, Amel Ahmed examines the origins and development of the regime question in Western democracies and considers the implications for regime contention today.
She argues that battles over the regime question were so foundational and so enduring that they constitute a dimension of politics that polarized political opponents across the regime divide.
Ahmed investigates four historical cases in the study of democratic development: the United Kingdom between the Reform Act of 1832 and World War II (1832–1939), Imperial and Weimar–era Germany (1876–1933), the French Third Republic (1870–1939), and the US before World War II (1789–1939).
