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Democracy, ancient and modern
// antike & heutige Demokratie // démocratie, antique et moderne
just a few voices from ancient Athens, 5th-4th c. BC
SORRY, Seite in Aufbau // THIS PAGE IS STILL WORK IN PROGRESS.... MORE TO COME SOON!!!!
In the meantime, you could download my paper on Grassroots Democracy: the Athenian Experiment (in German!) which contains a long bibliography for further reading in English and German... Also, please scroll down for a bibliography on ancient and modern democracy. |
Meinungsfreiheit & den Argumenten anderer zuhören...
// Freedom of Speech & Listening to other people's arguments... Thukydides 2, 40, 2: "Denn wir sehen nicht im Wort eine Gefahr fürs Tun, wohl aber darin, sich nicht durch Reden zuerst zu belehren, ehe man zur nötigen Tat schreitet." Kollaboration, Team-Work, Synergieeffekte // Collaboration, team work, synergies Aristoteles. Pol. 3. 1281a40 - 1281b10: die Menge ist kompetenter als ein paar Wenige ("Oligarchie") oder selbst der beste Einzelne: "... Daß aber das Entscheidende eher die Menge ausmacht als die wenigen Besten (...) birgt vielleicht auch eine Wahrheit. Denn (...) die Vielen (...) wenn sie zusammengekommen sind, besser sind als jene Besten, nicht allerding als einzelner, sondern als Gesamtheit genommen (...). Denn da sie viele sind, kann jeder über einen Teil der Tugend und der Einsicht verfügen, und wenn sie zusammenkommen, kann die Menge werden wie einziger Mensch, der viele Füße, Hände und viele Sinneswerkzeuge hat und so auch im Hinblick auf die Wesensart und die Denkweise. Aristoteles, Pol. 3, 1286a24-31: "Und jeder Einzelne für sich ist sicherlich schlechter, wenn er mit dem besten Mann verglichen wird, aber ein Staat besteht aus vielen (...). Und deshalb beurteilt die Menge auch vieles besser als irgendein Einzelner. Zudem ist aber die Menge unbestechlicher als irgendein Einzelner (...). Das Urteil eines Einzelnen ist verdorben, wenn ein Einzelner von Zorn oder einer sonstigen Emotion übermannt wird; dort ist es aber schwer, daß alle Zugleich in Zorn geraten und Verfehlungen begehen." Aristoteles, Pol. 6, 1317a40-b17: Grundlage der demokratischen Staatsform ist die Freiheit (eleutheria). Zur Freiheit gehört, daß man abwechselnd regiert und regiert wird (...). Wo diese Gerechtigkeit herrscht, da muß die Menge (plethos) Herr (kyrios) sein. (...) So sind dann in den Demokratien die Armen mächtiger als die Reichen. (...) Ein anderes Zeichen der Demokratie ist es, daß man leben kann wie man will (...). Das Volk entscheidet, nicht die Behörden! // The People decide, not office holders Aristoteles, Pol. 1317b19-30: (...) alle Ämter werden aus allen besetzt, alle herschen über jeden und jeder abwechslungsweise über alle. Ferner werden alle Ämter durch Los besetzt (...) Keiner darf ein Amt zweimal bekleiden (...). Die Ämter sind alle kurzfristig (...). Richter können alle sein und können aus allen entnommen werden und richten über alles (...). Die Volksversammlung entscheidet über alles (...), die Behörden dagegen über nichts oder nur ganz wenig. |
Modern democracies: facade, passiveness, disenchantment and disenfranchisement
Demokratia crowns the Demos. 337/6 BC // "Demokratie" krönt "Demos", das Volk - Athen, 337/6 v.Chr.
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I am absolutely passionate about democracy, but "real" democracy!
Unfortunately, our modern "democracies" are really "oligarchies", dominated by specific elite groups in society. Today our "democracies" are merely a forum for "elite" competition, the contest between different party leaders who want to acquire sole power for 4 or 5 years, backed by influential financial magnates and lobbyists that really only want to make a profit. Moreover, our so-called "democracies" have aged rather rapidly: many MPs (as well as councillors and members of various other assemblies or parliaments at regional or local level...) have been in office for years, often decades; and how often do we see political dynasties, the 2nd or 3rd generation of politicians in the same family! Not to mention gender, age and ethnicity unbalance (and we don't want to mention lobbying here...) The gap between the people's "elected representatives" and the general public is widening. And the public has the feeling that their influence on political decision-making is more and more limited. We find members of parliament that are forced to follow party politics. Decisions are made by the leaders of political parties. On the other hand, the "people" are rather passive in modern "democracies": indeed, they don't have much chance for active engagement if politics are controlled by certain social groups (e.g., parties). Voters therefore just passively make use of their democratic rights; this is even more so the case in the context of outdated voting systems, like the first-past-the-pole in the UK, where many people choose not to vote at all since they consider that their vote makes no difference in their constituency... As a result, the general public across Europe is often tired of politics nowadays. There is a nice German word to describe this: Politikverdrossenheit, i.e. a certain "disenchantment" with politics... But democracy cannot survive like this! (Well, has it survived or is it just a facade today?). We need to re-invigorate our democracies, make them more democratic... Some 2,500 years ago, the Athenians developped what would be known as the first democracy (literally, the rule of the demos, the "people"). When Kleisthenes reformed the Athenian State, the term democracy/demokratia did not yet exist, but he developed a system that aimed to wipe out elite competition for power. It took some time before people realised that the "demos", the people, the common people, were ruling the state: by the mid-5th century BC the term becomes increasingly common, and with it the ambition to marginalise Athenian elites more and more. |
What can we learn today from ancient democracies?
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The Athenian democracy was not perfect, but work-in-progress, constantly being improved upon, trying to correct faults, aiming to make the demos ("people") the real sovereign.
But despite certain faults, Athens can still provide some important food for thought for our society today. If it had continued, perhaps women would also have received the same rights as men in Athens' democratic institutions (but it is worth noticing that women usually only got a vote in our modern democracies after the 1st World War, sometimes much later, and they are still often disadvantaged in elections). On this website, I can of course only mention a few aspects that I find worth noticing... Democracy should be founded on a bottom-up society, not top down: at the moment, "national" parliaments often have just too much power, and regional and municipal/urban authorities are frequently limited in their power and ther financial abilities... Instead, we should start at the local level (e.g., parish, suburb, village, city), the institutional level (e.g., in a company, office, university,...), and the smaller the group of people involved, the easier it is to add some useful aspects of Athenian-style democracy. At the local and institutional level, this is where many decisions should be taken, while national and supra-national parliaments can build on the regions and create basic frameworks that facilitate life. Athens tells us a lesson on team work, the synergy effects when different people work together, and avoiding giving too much power to individuals. But Athens also shows us that one tried to elimante possibilities of corruption as much as possible, through annuity, selection by lot, changing chairmen (rotation), checking office holders, and many more. More to come...
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Re-thinking and re-invigourating our democracies...
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Since selection by lot was so important in the concept of Athens' democracy, one developped a maschine to speed up the process of selecting the jurors, the so-called κληρωτήριον (Kleroterion), allotment device // In Athens Demokratie entscheidet das Los, denn eine Wahl hielt man für undemokratisch und oligarchisch. Um die zufällige Auswahl von Richtern zu beschleunigen entwickelte man die Losmaschine (κληρωτήριον) // machine à tirer au sort les jurys (Agora Museum Athens)
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Athenian Democratic Paradigms
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Further Reading
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Antike Quellen // Ancient Sources Aristoteles, Pol. 6,2,1317a40-b17 u. 1317b18-1318a3 Aristoteles, Athenaion Politeia (cf. download Ath Pol). Thukydides 2,37-38.40 Plutarch, Perikles Demosthenes Xenophon Ps.-Xenophon Just a very small selection of interesting and important works: Bleicken, J. 1995. Die athenische Demokratie (4.ed.) Paderborn. Dowlen, O. 2008. The Political Potential of Sortition. A study of the random selection of citizens for public office. Exeter. Eder, W. (ed.) 1995. Die athenische Demokratie im 4. Jh. v. Chr.: Vollendung oder Verfall einer Verfassungsform. Stuttgart (see e.g. chapter by W. Eder on pp. 11-28). Finley, M. I. 1973. Democracy Ancient and Modern. London, = Antike und moderne Demokratie. Stuttgart 1980. Manville, B. - Ober, J. 2003. A Company of Citizens. What the World's First Democracy Teaches Leaders About Creating Great Organizations. Cambridge, MA., Harvard Business School Press. McGLew, J. F. 2002. Citizens on Stage. Comedy and political culture in the Athenian democracy. Ann Arbor 2002. Morris I. - Raaflaub, K. (eds) 1998. Democracy 2500? Questions and Challenges. Dubuque, Iowa. Ober, J. 1996. The Athenian Revolution. Essays on ancient Greek democracy and political theory. Princeton. Ober, J. 2005: Athenian Legacies: Essays on the Politics of Going On Together. Princeton. See for example chapters on "Classical Athenian Democracy and Democracy Today" (pp. 27-42), "The Athenian Debate over Civic Education" (pp. 128-156), etc. Raaflaub, K. 1985: Die Entdeckung der Freiheit. Zur historischen Semantik und Gesellschaftsgeschichte eines politischen Grundbegriffes der Griechen. München 1985 = The Discovery of Freedom in Ancient Greece. Chicago 2004. Raaflaub, K. - J. Ober - R.W. Wallace (eds) 2007. Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece. Berkeley. Rhodes, P.J. 1992. "The Athenian Revolution". In CAH V.2, pp. 67-75. Rhodes, P.J. (ed.) 2004. Athenian Democracy. Edinburgh. Ruschenbusch, E. 1979. "Die soziale Zusammensetzung des Rates der 500". ZPE 35 (1979) 177-80. Samons II, L. J. 2004. What's wrong with democracy? From Athenian Practice to American Worship. Berleley 2004. Walter, U. 1993. An der Polis teilnehmen: Bürgerstaat und Zugehörigkeit im archaischen Griechenland. Stuttgart. |