Abstract
Among the many forms of community that Europe has experienced over the centuries, one of the most recent is that of parliamentary democracy. The adoption of the idea of power exercised by the demos, generally referred to as the nation, evolved over the course of the 19th century, culminating in the system of universal suffrage. This was considered the norm in the Europe that was emerging after the catastrophe of the Great War. However, in the short period between the two world wars, the democratic experiment proved vulnerable to serious setbacks. After 1945, with Europe split in two, the democratic system triumphed on the side of the free world, while remaining a desire beyond the reach of the other, less fortunate, part of the continent. Although the end of the Cold War brought the fulfilment of the democratic dream, after a few decades this system is still not immune to the dangers. The vagaries of democracy over the last hundred years remain a challenge to historians.
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