A Phenomenology of Democracy

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Classical Antiquity. This article has two objectives. First, and in particular, it seeks to reinterpret the ostracism procedure of early democratic Athens. Since Aristotle, this has been understood as a rational, political weapon of collective defense, intended to expel from Athens a disproportionately powerful individual. In this article, by putting emphasis on the materiality, gestures, and location of ostraka-casting, I propose instead that the institution can more fruitfully be understood as a ritual enactment of civic unity. Second, and more generally, I hope to explore the frames within which early Athenian democracy is placed: while Greek kingship and tyranny (i.e. "primitive" polities) have been very successfully explored through anthropological and crosscultural comparison, Greek democracy for the most part has remained in the domains of the institutional historian and political theorist. Taking a phenomenological and comparative approach, this article asks how the citizens of early democratic Athens experienced and comprehended their new sovereignty and the invented procedures of mass decision-making through which it was expressed.

A Fondrakö text: Cultural religious tradition and social integration of community

“…As the constitutional institution, fondrakö has a legal aspect (which has to be complied with) and punishment (the consequence due to violation). Its position is equal with the senate in a political institution that holds the power and highest sovereignty in the community behavior control (Bond, 2015) and the people democracy (Kosmin, 2015). All legal products that have been stipulated in fondrakö are binding in the macro and micro level, and demand high compliance.…”

“Ostracism”, the People’s Way of Protecting Democracy From Tyrants in Ancient Athens

“…The person who was found dangerous for the regime and exiled would be able to return after 10 years, when he completed his sentence, and when he returned, he would be able to get his rights back. With this, it is also aimed to transform the exiled person into a harmonious citizen (Kosmin, 2015).…”

Pruning of the People: Ostracism and the Transformation of the Political Space in Ancient Athens

“…In doing so, these theorists ignore the broader reformative projects and effects inherent to the Athenian practice of ostracism. In short, expulsive theorists are overly focused on a single result of the procedure, to the exclusion of the equally important contextual "before" and "after" of both the community and the ostracized individual [32] (p. 124). In turn, this narrow focus on the supposed immediate benefit of removing harmful individuals from the community might call into question the overall sustainability of other militant mechanisms they seek to introduce.…”

“…For this reason, Kosmin suggests that ostracism served as a "rite de passage" that "transform[ed] a dangerous or treacherous politician into a safe member of the Athenian community" [32] (p. 124). In this way, the ostracized subject can be contrasted with another expelled individual-the pharmakos, who, unlike the ostrakismenos, was not permitted to rejoin the community.…”