Classical and Empirical Theories of Democracy: The Missing Historical Dimension? (original) (raw)
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The Secret History of Democracy (Palgrave Macmillan), 2011
The notion that democracy could have a ‘secret’ history might at first seem strange to many readers. Indeed, the history of democracy has become so standardized, is so familiar and appears to be so complete that it is hard to believe that it could hold any secrets whatsoever. The ancient Greek practice of demokratia and the functions of the Roman Republic are foundational to Western understanding of politics; school textbooks introduce the Magna Carta and the rise of the English Parliament; Hollywood blockbusters recount the events surrounding the American Declaration of Independence; many best-selling novels have been written about the French Revolution; and the gradual global spread of the Western model of democracy has been a recurrent news story since the end of the Cold War. So pervasive is this traditional story of democracy that it has achieved the status of received wisdom: endlessly recycled without criticism by policy-makers, academics, in the popular media and in classrooms across the world. The central argument of this book is that there is much more to the history of democracy than this foreshortened genealogy admits. There is a whole ‘secret’ history, too big, too complex and insufficiently Western in character to be included in the standard narrative.
LOST IN TRANSLATION: THE ORIGINAL MEANING OF DEMOCRACY
2017
The article critically reflects on the main theories of democracy in 'the short 20 th century', ascertaining that the seemingly different and mutually exclusive discussions share a similar sentiment – political agora-phobia and a simultaneous 'privatisation' of the democratic idea, which strengthens the belief that democracy is not universally applicable because it is a matter of a very specific civilisational environment. The author continues by identifying the dissonance between the etymological origin or original meaning of democracy and its understanding today. He concludes that democracy actually never meant the rule (archos) of the people , but was born as an idea foregrounding the power or the capacity (krátos) of the people (dēmos). VODOVNIK, Žiga. Lost in translation : the original meaning of democracy. Teorija in praksa, ISSN 0040-3598, 2017, vol. 54, n. 1, pp. 38-54.
The Complex and Contested History of Democracy
The Edinburgh Companion to the History of Democracy (Edinburgh University Press), 2012
Democracy has never been more popular. It is successfully practiced today in a myriad of different ways by people across virtually every cultural, religious or socio-economic context. The forty-five essays collected in this companion suggest that the global popularity of democracy derives in part from its breadth and depth in the common history of human civilization. The chapters include exceptional accounts of democracy in ancient Greece and Rome, modern Europe and America, among peoples’ movements and national revolutions, and its triumph since the end of the Cold War. However, this book also includes alternative accounts of democracy’s history: its origins in prehistoric societies and early city-states, under-acknowledged contributions from China, Africa and the Islamic world, its familiarity to various Indigenous Australians and Native Americans, the various challenges it faces today in South America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia, the latest democratic developments in light of globalization and new technologies, and potential future pathways to a more democratic world. Understanding where democracy comes from, where its greatest successes and most dismal failures lie, is central to democracy’s project of inventing ways to address the need of people everywhere to live in peace, freedom and with a say in the decisions that affect their lives.
The Edinburgh Companion to the History of Democracy
Edinburgh University Press, 2012
Democracy has never been more popular. It is successfully practiced today in a myriad of different ways by people across virtually every cultural, religious or socio-economic context. The forty-five essays collected in this companion suggest that the global popularity of democracy derives in part from its breadth and depth in the common history of human civilization. The chapters include exceptional accounts of democracy in ancient Greece and Rome, modern Europe and America, among peoples’ movements and national revolutions, and its triumph since the end of the Cold War. However, this book also includes alternative accounts of democracy’s history: its origins in prehistoric societies and early city-states, under-acknowledged contributions from China, Africa and the Islamic world, its familiarity to various Indigenous Australians and Native Americans, the various challenges it faces today in South America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia, the latest democratic developments in light of globalization and new technologies, and potential future pathways to a more democratic world. Understanding where democracy comes from, where its greatest successes and most dismal failures lie, is central to democracy’s project of inventing ways to address the need of people everywhere to live in peace, freedom and with a say in the decisions that affect their lives.
1-The-Contested-and-Expanding-Meaning-of-Democracy.pdf
2018
The meaning of democracy has been contested, limited or expanded because it has been culturally situated and changed with changing historical and politico-economic conditions. Historically speaking, democracy can be hierarchical, exploitative and exclusive or egalitarian and inclusive depending on a specific social system. In most cases, the privileges of democracy were not equally shared within a population group or among different peoples, and what was democracy for one group could be slavery, stratification of class and gender, exclusion, oppression, colonialism and dictatorship for others. Starting from ancient times, certain peoples such as Athenians, which were culturally and geographical connected in a limited geographical space began to practice forms of democracy. Such people had the challenge of working with culturally, economically and geographically diverse populations on the principles of democracy, equality, and equity. However, people like the Oromo of Northeast Afric...
Towards a Universal History of Democracy
Global Intellectual History, 2023
Review of A Cultural History of Democracy, 6 vols., edited by Eugenio F. Biagini, London, Bloomsbury, 2021, 2016 pp., £440.00 (Hardback), ISBN: 9781350042933
Democracies, Ancient and Modern
This paper provides a critical survey of recent approaches to Athenian democracy. Typically, modern interpretations start from the assumption that Athenian democracy can be a useful resource for rethinking contemporary political issues. To be useful presupposes that it is well understood. Thus the results of new methods of historical-philological source criticism are brought forward to assist in the reconstruction of the ideology and cultural discourse that underpinned the working of Athenian democracy. What is highly problematic in this effort, the author concludes, is that by stressing the time-bound actualities of Athenian political experience, the historicist approach is eventually unsuited to produce paradigms worthy of emulation.
Democracy: Critiquing a Eurocentric History
Australian Political Studies Association (APSA) Conference, Canberra, 2015
This paper sets out an ambitious critique of contemporary political scientists, political historians and others concerned with the history of democracy. It argues that overwhelmingly the history of democracy relies on an overtly Eurocentric narrative that emphasizes the keystone moments of Western civilization. According to this narrative, democracy has a clear trajectory that can be traced from ancient experiments with participatory government in Greece and to a lesser extent in Rome, through the development of the British parliament, the American Declaration of Independence and the French Revolution, and then finally onto the triumphant march of the liberal model of democracy across the globe over the last 200 years, particularly under Western tutelage. Histories of democracy that focus exclusively on these events not only privilege Europe and its successful colonies, but also miss the broader human story of the struggle for and achievement of democracy. This presents us with a distinct challenge. For those whose heritage does not include a direct link to Greek assemblies, the American Congress or the French Revolution, the 'standard history of democracy' provides a distant and exclusive narrative, which limits one's ability to embrace democracy. This paper concludes by noting that, as democracy spreads out across the world today, political scientists not only need to break down the intellectual orthodoxy that democracy has exclusively Western roots, but also to embrace a more global view of democracy as a political practise that has been present at various times and in sometimes unfamiliar ways in the complex histories and rich cultural traditions of most of the people of the earth.