Timeline for Democratic municipal government in autocracy?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
5 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Apr 14, 2020 at 17:14 | history | edited | Thucydides | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Dec 16, 2016 at 13:19 | comment | added | AlexP | That's how the Roman empire worked; imperial administration did not descend below province level; the cities were self-governed. Not that the were necessarily democratic: each city more or less used its own system with little interference from the empire. Also, in the long-lasting medieval Holy Roman Empire there were quite a few Imperial Cities, self-governing polities subordinated directly to the Empire; the last survivor is the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, a German federal city-state. | |
| Dec 16, 2016 at 3:04 | comment | added | Lorendiac | What Thucydides said is pretty much what I was thinking as soon as I saw the original question. History says it's quite possible to have an autocrat, or something fairly close to it (such as a very powerful, but not all-powerful, hereditary ruler) at the top of the pyramid . . . and simultaneously to have "locally elected officials" at lower levels in at least some of the individual communities within that monarch's realm. | |
| Dec 15, 2016 at 13:37 | comment | added | Shadow1024 | I'd add one more factor. It was not king vs. cities, it was quite often a king who actually didn't even mind some city autonomy, as there was another conflict in background - nobility vs. cities, thus according to old good divide et impera, king has a good reasons to keep cities not too weak politically. | |
| Dec 15, 2016 at 5:53 | history | answered | Thucydides | CC BY-SA 3.0 |