POWER AND THE PEOPLE

In ancient Athens, democracy thrived because of engaged citizens.

Journalist Scott and classical scholar Makres, founding member of the Hellenic Education & Research Center in Athens, offer a spirited portrait of Athens from 621 B.C.E., when Draco wrote Athens’ first set of laws, to 322 B.C.E., when democracy was stifled under Macedonian domination. After 322, the authors write, “democracy effectively vanished from the world until the eighteenth century, when it returned in spirit with the revolutions in France and America.” What lessons can be learned from ancient Athens, the authors ask, that may be relevant to contemporary nations in which the “spirit of democratic engagement” is missing? In Athens, a tiny state of some 50,000 people, enfranchised citizens—adult males over 18—comprised only about 20% of the population, making political involvement easier than in large, diverse nations, such as India, the U.K., and the U.S. Still, the authors find some practices may be worth emulating: To ensure an informed electorate, assemblies were convened in the agora, where voters were “forced to hear the arguments both for and against any motion.” In contemporary Ireland, similar citizens’ assemblies were held prior to a vote on abortion, resulting in the astonishing outcome of ensuring abortion access in the predominantly Catholic country. A similar chance for communal deliberation may well have better informed the debate about Brexit. Today, Twitter can serve as the “modern equivalent of the agora: a space where people exchange views,” but the authors concede that social media also can intensify “demagoguery and the spread of dangerous misinformation.” Although the internet has the potential to bring power to the people, it has not solved the persistent problem of “vast, uninformed electorates.” Athenians had a name for someone “isolated from public affairs and ignorant”: idiotes. “Don’t be an idiotes,” the authors admonish.

A lively, insightful analysis of challenges to democracy.