DIRECT DEMOCRACY AND MINORITY RULE: Athenian Assembly and its Relation to the Demos (original) (raw)

Since only a minority of the Athenian citizens attended any given meeting of the People's Assembly, it was vital that the decisions of the Assembly would be seen as legitimate and binding by most Athenians, including those who disagree. Some categories of the citizenry could be significantly over- or under-represented at a particularly fateful ekklêsia. Accordingly, democracy's smooth functioning was predicated on the notion of essential unity of interests and behaviour of all the major groups of Athenians. I will argue that, whilst different political orientations of various groups of citizens are frequently discussed in non-democratic sources, ignorance of these differences was an important feature of Athenian democratic ideology. Exceptions were limited to extreme situations and/or small groups, unlikely ever to have a majority at any meeting. In principle, this ideology of harmony of interests could be a useful device regardless of the actual socio-political situation. I argue, however, that generally these democratic assumptions were consistent with historical reality, both in the fifth and the fourth centuries. For this purpose, several critical points in Athenian history will be examined, where opposing interests and styles of political behaviour are sometimes said to have come to the fore.

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