Democracy without political parties: the case of ancient Athens

Abstract

Political parties, formal, durable and mass organizations that inform voters on public policy issues, nominate candidates for office and fight elections for the right to govern, are ubiquitous in modern representative democracies but were absent from the direct participatory democracy of ancient Athens. The paper investigates how the political institutions of Athens may explain their absence. The arguments explored include voter homogeneity; the conditions at the start of the democracy, characterized by single constituency configuration of the demos, simple majority voting and lack of organized groups; the irrelevance of holding public office for determining public policy; appointment to public posts through sortition; and voting on single-dimension issues. The paper then discusses how in the absence of parties voters became informed and how political leaders were held accountable by the courts.

Trends in Theorizing Sortition

“…A democracy based exclusively upon sortition effectively denies the existence of such divisions, and so is “anti-political” in a dangerous way (Cordier supports this conclusion with an analysis of the Icelandic experience with sortition). Tridimas (2019) approaches the problem from a different angle by considering the historic experience of the Athenian democracy, which notably had no organized political parties. Tridimas investigates the institutional conditions that prevented the emergence of parties – including sortition – and considers how political leadership functioned without them.…”

'n Herbeoordeling van Niccolò Machiavelli se die-doel-heilig-die-middele-benadering tot regeer-kunde

“…Demokrasie soos mens dit vandag ken, het dus nog nie bestaan nie. Die burgers van Florence het selfs nie eers, soos in antieke Athene, deelgeneem aan beperkte direkte demokratiese verkiesings van hulle regerings nie (Tridimas, 2019;Hatzis, 2016;Fleck & Hanssen, 2013). Die tradisionele regeringsvorm van die tyd was erflike aristokratiese elites of ander veroweraars wat meegeding het om soveel moontlik grondgebied en die mense daarop as absolute heersers te besit en te regeer (Boutier & Sintomer, 2014:7;Gagiano, 1987:170).…”

Religion without doctrine or clergy: the case of Ancient Greece

“…9 This is also mirrored in that certain offences were punished by excluding the guilty person from religious rites (Bowie, 1995). 10 It bears noting that the institutional landscape of Ancient Greece lacked not only a clerical body, but also other governance organizations commonly found in contemporary societies, like professional judges, legal experts and political parties; Tridimas (2019) explores the absence of the latter in the context of direct democracy.…”