Democracy, literally, rule by the people. The term is derived from the Greek dēmokratiā, which was coined from dēmos (“people”) and kratos (“rule”) in the middle of the 5th century bc to denote the political systems then existing in some Greek city-states, notably Athens.
Fundamental questions
The etymological origins of the term democracy
hint at a number of urgent problems that go far beyond semantic issues.
If a government of or by the people—a “popular” government—is to be
established, at least five fundamental questions must be confronted at
the outset, and two more are almost certain to be posed if the democracy continues to exist for long.
(1)
What is the appropriate unit or association within which a democratic
government should be established? A town or city? A country? A business
corporation? A university? An international organization? All of these?
(2)
Given an appropriate association—a city, for example—who among its
members should enjoy full citizenship? Which persons, in other words,
should constitute the dēmos?
Is every member of the association entitled to participate in governing
it? Assuming that children should not be allowed to participate (as
most adults would agree), should the dēmos include all adults?
If it includes only a subset of the adult population, how small can the
subset be before the association ceases to be a democracy and becomes
something else, such as an aristocracy (government by the best, aristos) or an oligarchy (government by the few, oligos)?
(3) Assuming a proper association and a proper dēmos,
how are citizens to govern? What political organizations or
institutions will they need? Will these institutions differ between
different kinds of associations—for example, a small town and a large
country?
(4) When citizens
are divided on an issue, as they often will be, whose views should
prevail, and in what circumstances? Should a majority always prevail, or
should minorities sometimes be empowered to block or overcome majority
rule?
(5) If a majority is
ordinarily to prevail, what is to constitute a proper majority? A
majority of all citizens? A majority of voters? Should a proper majority
comprise not individual citizens but certain groups or associations of citizens, such as hereditary groups or territorial associations?
(6)
The preceding questions presuppose an adequate answer to a sixth and
even more important question: Why should “the people” rule? Is democracy
really better than aristocracy or monarchy? Perhaps, as Plato argues in the Republic,
the best government would be led by a minority of the most highly
qualified persons—an aristocracy of “philosopher-kings.” What reasons
could be given to show that Plato’s view is wrong?
(7) No association could maintain a democratic government for very long if a majority of the dēmos—or
a majority of the government—believed that some other form of
government were better. Thus, a minimum condition for the continued
existence of a democracy is that a substantial proportion of both the dēmos and the leadership believes that popular government is better than any feasible alternative.
What conditions, in addition to this one, favour the continued
existence of democracy? What conditions are harmful to it? Why have some
democracies managed to endure, even through periods of severe crisis, while so many others have collapsed?
Democratic institutions
Since
the time of the ancient Greeks, both the theory and the practice of
democracy have undergone profound changes, many of which have concerned
the prevailing answers to questions (1) through (3) above. Thus, for
thousands of years the kind of association in which democracy was
practiced, the tribe or the city-state, was small enough to be suitable
for some form of democracy by assembly, or “direct democracy.”
Much later, beginning in the 18th century, as the typical association
became the nation-state or country, direct democracy gave way to representative democracy—a
transformation so sweeping that, from the perspective of a citizen of
ancient Athens, the governments of gigantic associations such as France
or the United States might not have appeared democratic at all. This
change in turn entailed a new answer to question (3): Representative
democracy would require a set of political institutions radically
different from those of all earlier democracies.
Another important
change has concerned the prevailing answers to question (2). Until
fairly recently, most democratic associations limited the right
to participate in government to a minority of the adult
population—indeed, sometimes to a very small minority. Beginning in the
20th century, this right was extended to nearly all adults. Accordingly,
a contemporary democrat could reasonably argue that Athens, because it
excluded so many adults from the dēmos, was not really a democracy—even though the term democracy was invented and first applied in Athens.
Despite these and other
important changes, it is possible to identify a considerable number of
early political systems that involved some form of “rule by the people,”
even if they were not fully democratic by contemporary standards.
Prehistoric forms of democracy
Although
it is tempting to assume that democracy was created in one particular
place and time—most often identified as Greece about the year 500 bc—evidence
suggests that democratic government, in a broad sense, existed in
several areas of the world well before the turn of the 5th century.
It is plausible to assume that democracy in one form or another arises naturally in any well-bounded group, such as a tribe,
if the group is sufficiently independent of control by outsiders to
permit members to run their own affairs and if a substantial number of
members, such as tribal elders, consider themselves about equally
qualified to participate in decisions about matters of concern to the
group as a whole. This assumption has been supported by studies of
nonliterate tribal societies, which suggest that democratic government
existed among many tribal groups during the thousands of years when
human beings survived by hunting and gathering. To these early humans,
democracy, such as it was practiced, might well have seemed the most
“natural” political system.
When the lengthy period of hunting and gathering came to an end and humans began to settle in fixed communities,
primarily for agriculture and trade, the conditions that favour popular
participation in government seem to have become rare. Greater
inequalities in wealth and military power between communities, together
with a marked increase in the typical community’s size and scale,
encouraged the spread of hierarchical and authoritarian
forms of social organization. As a result, popular governments among
settled peoples vanished, to be replaced for thousands of years by
governments based on monarchy, despotism, aristocracy, or oligarchy, each of which came to be seen—at least among the dominant members of these societies—as the most natural form of government.
Then, about 500 bc,
conditions favourable to democracy reappeared in several places, and a
few small groups began to create popular governments. Primitive
democracy, one might say, was reinvented in more advanced forms. The
most crucial developments occurred in two areas of the Mediterranean,
Greece and Rome.
Classical Greece
During the Classical period (corresponding roughly to the 5th and 4th centuries bc),
Greece was of course not a country in the modern sense but a collection
of several hundred independent city-states, each with its surrounding
countryside. In 507 bc, under the leadership of Cleisthenes, the citizens of Athens
began to develop a system of popular rule that would last nearly two
centuries. To question (1), then, the Greeks responded clearly: The
political association most appropriate to democratic government is the polis, or city-state.
Athenian
democracy foreshadowed some later democratic practices, even among
peoples who knew little or nothing of the Athenian system. Thus the
Athenian answer to question (2)—Who should constitute the dēmos?—was similar to the answer developed in many newly democratic countries in the 19th and 20th centuries. Although citizenship in Athens was hereditary, extending to anyone who was born to parents who were themselves Athenian citizens, membership in the dēmos was limited to male citizens 18 years of age or older (until 403, when the minimum age was raised to 20).
Because data is scanty, estimates of the size of the Athenian dēmos
must be treated with caution. One scholar has suggested that in the
mid-4th century there may have been about 100,000 citizens, 10,000
resident foreigners, or metics,
and as many as 150,000 slaves. Among citizens, about 30,000 were males
over 18. If these numbers are roughly correct, then the dēmos comprised 10 to 15 percent of the total population.
Regarding question
(3)—What political institutions are necessary for governing?—the
Athenians adopted an answer that would appear independently elsewhere.
The heart and centre of their government was the Assembly (Ecclesia), which met almost weekly—40 times a year—on the Pnyx, a hill west of the Acropolis. Decisions were taken by vote, and, as in many later assemblies, voting
was by a show of hands. As would also be true in many later democratic
systems, the votes of a majority of those present and voting prevailed.
Although we have no way of knowing how closely the majority in the
Assembly represented the much larger number of eligible citizens who did
not attend, given the frequency of meetings and the accessibility of
the meeting place, it is unlikely that the Assembly could have long
persisted in making markedly unpopular decisions.
The Acropolis and surrounding ruins (foreground), Athens.© Neil Setchfield—Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images
The powers of the Assembly were broad, but they were by no means unlimited. The agenda of the Assembly was set by the Council of Five Hundred, which, unlike the Assembly, was composed of representatives
chosen by lot from each of 139 small territorial entities, known as
demes, created by Cleisthenes in 507. The number of representatives from
each deme was roughly proportional to its population. The Council’s use
of representatives (though chosen by lot rather than by election)
foreshadowed the election of representatives in later democratic
systems.
Another important political institution in Athens was the popular courts (dikasteria; see dicastery), described by one scholar as “the most important organ of state,
alongside the Assembly,” with “unlimited power to control the Assembly,
the Council, the magistrates, and political leaders.” The popular
courts were composed of jurors chosen by lot from a pool of citizens
over 30 years of age; the pool itself was chosen annually and also by
lot. The institution is a further illustration of the extent to which
the ordinary citizens of Athens were expected to participate in the
political life of the city.
In 411 bc, exploiting the unrest created by Athens’s disastrous and seemingly endless war with Sparta (see Peloponnesian War),
a group known as the Four Hundred seized control of Athens and
established an oligarchy. Less than a year later, the Four Hundred were
overthrown and democracy was fully restored. Nine decades later, in 321,
Athens was subjugated by its more powerful neighbour to the north,
Macedonia, which introduced property qualifications that effectively
excluded many ordinary Athenians from the dēmos. In 146 bc what remained of Athenian democracy was extinguished by the conquering Romans.
0 comments:
Post a Comment