When you think of “Western” civilization, the first thing that comes to mind is
probably the term “democracy”. A system of government first coined by the ancient
Athenians back in the sixth century BCE. A system in which power resides not in a small ruling elite, but equally in each and every citizen. It is a tradition of fairness and equality that has been passed down to this day into our modern governments. However, one need only take a peek at the convoluted and extremely unrepresentive political systems we have today to see that this idea could not be further from the truth. From unrepresentive "winner-take-all" elections, to divisive political parties stifling diversity of voice and opinion. It is clear that our modern day political systems are in dire need of fixing. And although Athenian democracy too was far from perfect, perhaps we can leverage some of the ideas of an ancestors to fix our modern day politics.
Part One: Athenian Democracy
Much of what we know about ancient Athenian Democracy stems from a text titled The Constitution of the Athenians, commonly attributed to the Greek Philosopher Aristotle. The text describes the Athenian government prior to the constitution as a hybrid mix of Oligarchy and Monarchy. Each polis of Athens was governed by an elite office known as the Magistrate, who "...were elected according to qualifications of birth and wealth. At first they governed for life, but subsequently for terms of ten years. The first magistrates, both in date and in importance, were the King, the Polemarch, and the Archon" (Aristotle & Kenyon, Athenian Constitution). Power belonged not the the people, but to those fortunate few that were born in the right circumstances.
Greece during this period had a bit of a stability problem. There was vapid and widespread
social unrest, and opportunistic tyrants had been popping up and seizing power all over the
region. So in 594 BCE, the premier archon of Athens, a man named Solon, introduced
a series of political reforms that sought to increase the average citizen’s ability to
participate in government and reduce the widespread unrest. He created a new legislative assembly known as the Ecclesia, supposedly open to all free citizens of Athens. Unlike modern governments, the assembly consisted of individual citizens rather than representatives. These individuals could elect to participate in the assembly whenever they wished, and could vote on every issue independently however they desired. Laws were passed by a simple majority. There were still officials that ran the meetings and drafted the bills, but theoretically, every citizen that participated in the Ecclesia had equal say in affairs (Pomeroy et al., A brief history of Ancient Greece: politics, society, and culture).
However, this new direct democracy was far from perfect. The truth of the matter is, it was those already in power that decided to enact these reforms, and as such it was them that also decided who could take part in this new Ecclesia. They had no incentive to allow those they deemed unworthy the ability the participate, and allowed only a small handful the privilege of doing so. And what a small group it was. Those not granted access include: the lower classes, slaves, free-slaves, women, anyone under the age of 30, people without Athenian parents, and anyone that failed to pay a debt to the city (Athenian democracy). Far from granting power to all people, all these reforms did was slightly expand the size of the privileged group in charge. And, unfortunate as it may be, this is a fact of democracy that persists to our modern day.
Part Two: Modern Democracy
It is interesting to me that our modern western democracies are so often touted as the
“descendants” of the Ancient Athenian system, when they are in fact completely different. Perhaps the most blatant of which is the form the democracy takes. Modern democracies are representative rather than direct. Meaning that instead of each individual citizen having a vote on each issue, we instead delegate our voice to elected to representatives. The idea is that these representatives embody the collective voice of their constituency, and it therefore streamlines the political process without preventing anyone from having a voice. The problem with this notion is that it is blatantly incorrect. Many modern systems are "winner-take-all", meaning that all representation of a particular district is granted to the representative who receives the most votes, and no representation is given to the other parties. This can create some incredibly unrepresentitive situations, as just because someone receives the most votes does not mean they received the majority.
Take the results of the 2019 Canadian Federal Election for example. The results for the Prince Edward Island district of Egmont looked like this:
-Liberal: 39.73%
-CON: 34.36%
-NDP: 6.10%
-Green: 19.81%
(Results of the 2019 Canadian federal election by riding)
It is clear that the majority of individuals did not agree with the Liberal party's policies, at least not enough to vote for them. However because the Liberal party received the most votes of any party, the receive the representative and the other parties get nothing.
Often times, especially when there are more than two political factions, the combined total of votes received by the "losing" factions actually outnumber those received by the "winner". Meaning more people actually voted against a person than voted for them, however because of the "winner-take-all" system, none of the other parties receive any representation.
For all its faults, this is one problem the Athenian Direct Democracy did not have. All eligible citizens that elected to participate in an assembly had one vote. They had equal voice and opportunity in government, and every majority was a real majority. Perhaps the same approach might not be feasible for our modern forms of government due to the sheer number of people in a democracy, but there is something to be learned from our ancient Athenian ancestors. In order to improve our governments today, we should aim to make it as "direct" as possible. Perhaps by adding more representatives and seats, perhaps by implementing a method for individuals to participate directly in decisions beyond just simply casting a ballot for a political party. These are all possibilities worth looking into.
The idea of political parties are also a relatively modern addition to democracy that Ancient Athens did not have. Unfortunately this too comes with its own host of issues. The first issue with political parties is that it inherently limits what kind of voices and opinions can even be expressed in government in the first place. Before you even cast a single ballot, all of the possible candidates, issues, and platforms are already defined. You cast your ballot not for a particular issue, but instead for a political brand. Sure each party has, at least in theory, a platform that specifies their stance of particular issues. But what if your political opinions didn’t match any of the parties? What if you agreed with some things one party says, and some things from another? What if you felt strongly about wasn’t even in any party’s platform
to begin with? Unfortunately under our current political system you are fresh out of luck.
Political parties also inherently create a sense of tribalism and division. They turn voting from a medium where instead of individuals expressing what their opinions are, you are essentially forced to vote against what you don’t believe in rather than what you do. Politics has become a team sport of sorts where people vote against the "teams" they don't like rather than with the "team" they do. We certainly need to rethink the idea of political parties in our government. If not remove them completely, at least take some steps to reduce the "branding" and team mentality. When it was first conceived, democracy was far from the "team sport" it is today. Instead, it was a medium in which your average person could participate and have say in the laws and policies they lived under. Perhaps its time to make some strides back towards our roots.
Conclusion:
No one can say that our modern day political systems are perfect. Diversity of voices are limited, and often times representation is only granted to a small minority rather than to all. We claim that our democracies are direct descendants of Ancient Athens, but have twisted and changed the system so much that it is barely recognizable. As a citizen your voice is stifled and relayed through layers and layers of telephone; instead of directly voting on issues we vote for people we hope that express the same ideals that we do. It is time to learn some lessons from Ancient Athens, take some strides towards making our democracy more direct and actually representative, and transform politics from the slander-fest that it currently is, to a more unifying and transformative force for good.
References:
- Aristotle. (n.d.). Athenian Constitution (1081890849 821733797 F. G. Kenyon, Trans.). Retrieved November 26, 2020, from https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/athemain.asp
- Pomeroy, S. B., Burstein, S. M., Donlan, W., Roberts, J. T., Tandy, D. W., & Tsouvala, G. (2020). A brief history of Ancient Greece: Politics, society, and culture. New York ; Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
- Athenian democracy. (2020, November 24). Retrieved November 26, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy
- Results of the 2019 Canadian federal election by riding. (2020, November 22). Retrieved November 26, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2019_Canadian_federal_election_by_riding
- Cover Photo: https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/541628292667524951/
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