Democracy in Canada is a constant, reoccurring, once each 4-year event where the Canadian citizens choose who should represent them as decision-maker in the government. It is the backbone of how the Canadian government functions and how national decisions are made. However, this system is not perfect. When it fails to represent its citizens’ will, Canadians often look back into history and try to find a historical event or framework to support their proposal. This proposal could be anything from law-reform to changing the way election is held. Athens Democracy is a very commonly used ancient political framework in political discussions among Canadian citizens.
The interest of this blog post is about a basic function and a promise that democracy claims to bring and have.
Democracy can provide citizens, the basic unit in a political system, a way to influence the laws/rules being applied to themselves.
To have a better understanding of modern democracy, we can look back in time to learn how Athens’ Democracy works and not works.
Athens's political system consists of 3 major decision bodies. They are Ecclesia, Boule, and the Courts. All three of them combined would complete an entire cycle of discovering a problem in the current legal system, making a law to settle this problem, and enforcing the law. The Ecclesia is a citizen assembly that is held regularly to let citizens discuss deliberations which they can approve or disapprove. All citizens are allowed to join and at least 6000 citizens should attend to make it function. The Boule is a council consist of 500 men chosen by a lot with age and property restrictions. One of their most important duties would be drafting deliberations for its citizens to discuss and approve on. The Courts are the governing body that enforces the law by jugging the defendant guilty or not guilty, its members are also selected by a lot.
It is not hard to conclude that the lottery is a very important aspect of Athenian Democracy. Lottery decides more than half of the legislative process in ancient Athens. Objectively, a lottery is a way to let the entire citizen population participates in the political system. Wealth, social status cannot influence the members of the governing body. The governing body would also be an accurate representation of what population would react to any real-world event. However, it also produces completely unprofessional decision-makers in the government. A randomly selected jury is a representation of the population’s opinion on the case, not an objective judgment for the case.
In the Canadian democratic process, citizens do not involve in the legislative process directly, instead, Canadians voted for their desired candidate to make decisions on behalf of their interests. Once every four years, Canadian would participate in the democratic system on election day. This would inevitably create a kind of job which requires the dedication of one’s professionalism into politics. These people are called Politian. Politicians are not necessarily a representation of people’s interests. The only political function that can hold them accountable for their actions is an election. This means as long as Politian portray themselves as a representation of citizens’ interests. They could act however they want in the system when they are elected. However, this election process allows citizens to choose the most attractive presenter to represent them. Thus, some degree of professionalism would eventually develop to provide this kind of candidate.
Comparing Athens System with Canadian System, we can see the differences between lottery oriented democratic government and election oriented democratic government. Lottery is a better solution to represent citizens in the democratic government. However, it produces a lot of unprofessional decision makers who can barely do well on their occupations. Lottery also puts the burden of decision making and on every citizen. The election on contrast is not a very good way to represent citizens’ ideas and interests. However, it creates professionalism in the government which means more professionals who are good at their jobs. By the statement in the first part of our essay, we can see the lottery is a better political process to ensure every citizen has a way to influence the laws being applied to them. However, the result may not be the desired outcome because of unprofessional decision making.
The Lesson of Athens Democracy taught us the basic function of democracy can be ensured by lottery. However, this would come at a great cost of a decrease in professionalism in politics. When citizens choose to let the government represent the public, the public must be also aware that they need to make good decisions about their future.