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How Well Did The Institution Of Democracy Secure The Ability Of The Athenian ...
How well did the institution of democracy secure the ability of the Athenian demos to control affairs, and is it fair to describe it as a tyranny of the majority?
The manner in which Athenian democratic institutions were both developed and utilised illustrates a clear attempt by Athenian society to perpetuate democratic principles among its citizens.. It is contended that throughout the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, the ability of the demos to control political and legislative affairs was evident. The analysis set out below develops this proposition in greater detail.
The second aspect of the question posed in the title invites a more circumspect consideration. The term tyranny is one that must be examined carefully; further to the central proposition of this paper that the demos maintained effective control over the Athenian democracy, the relationship between the demos and the population at large was rarely tyrannical, either in fact or in the light of modern analysis. The checks and balances so purposefully advanced in the evolution of Athenian democracy placed political power in the hands of the majority. Tyranny, with its connotations of deliberate unjust exercises of political authority and despotic rule were at best occasional results of the Athenian system. The question of tyranny by the majority is considered from both a contextual and a modern perspective in this dissertation.
The point of commencement in the analysis of Athenian democracy is an understanding of both the democratic institutions and the power relationships that they bore one to another. At the height of the period described as that of ‘radical democracy' in Athens (508 322 BCE; Blackwell, 2003, 1) the demos was a multi-faceted structure where democracy (within the limits of citizenship requirements, contemporary cultural and social values) was well defined. Aristotle, although not enamoured with all things democratic in his society, observed that villages were colonies of households and that the city-state was a fundamental partnership of its villages his assertion that ‘every state is composed of households' has a democratic tone. (Aristotle, Ath.Pol. 1252b).
The Athenian demos reflected Aristotelian perceptions of the city-state. It was firstly connected to the local administrative or village unit (deme); from each deme came the citizen males over the age of 18 years who were added to the Assembly list and permitted to enter and vote. In modern terms, the demos was constituted as a ‘grass roots' democratic assembly.
In the opposite direction, the demos was the Assembly of citizens who were afforded strict one man, one vote rights within its organisation. The relationship between the Assembly, the Council of 500 (the Council), the Areopagus and the People's Court was dynamic, in the sense that all institutions were active components of the democratic society.
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