The Social Science Encyclopedia

Authors: Kuper & Kuper
Summary: This short entry treats the term as the relic of a particular era, and of certain narrow social and political circumstances. "Majority rule" was used effectively as a rallying cry in a few societies, especially British colonies in Africa, during the era of decolonization from the 1950s to the 1970s. Wherever entrenched interests sought to delay full independence, the slogan "majority rule" helped mobilize popular forces against those interests. To emphasize the particularity of this usage, the entry notes that at other times and in other places, popular struggles against foreign control has been expressed in nationalist terms, or in the language of class conflict.