Polity Atlas
BookPrimary source

Considerations on Representative Government

John Stuart Mill · 1861

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Type
Book
Author
John Stuart Mill
Accessed
2026-09-01
Reliability notes
URL is chapter 8, 'Of the Extension of the Suffrage'.

Claims citing this source

4 claims
TheoryComparative analysis finds that proportional systems with small district magnitudes, a category that includes Irish-style STV, can combine reasonably proportional outcomes with limited party fragmentation and local accountability.EstablishedMill proposed that all should vote but that individual mental superiority could justify more than one vote, tested directly by a national examination if one existed and otherwise by occupation, professional status, university degrees or certificates. He said he did not wish to be bound by his particular proposals.EstablishedMill rejected plural votes based on property except as a temporary makeshift, and held that plural voting must never let its beneficiaries outweigh all the rest of the community.EstablishedFrom 1893 to 1919 Belgium combined universal male suffrage with plural voting: up to two extra votes for some owners, fathers and holders of university or secondary-school certificates. This differed from Mill's scheme, which excluded property as a basis.