The institutional and economic foundations of regional proto-federations

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may Abstract:In the present paper we analyse for the first time as far as we know, the ancient Greek regional proto-federations, of free-democratic city-states. We examine their political institutions and policies, like common defense and external policy, military organization, representative federal bodies like popular assemblies, parliament, generals as military and political commanders, federal finance ministers etc., as well as their economic institutions and policies: Common currency, federal budget and federal revenues. We address in more detail as a case study the Aetolian Federation (Greek: Sympolitiae). Lastly, we compare this particular proto-federation with some of today's federal states and the European Union (EU) and conclude that in some respects the proto-federation was more advanced than the EU, and thus can serve as a benchmark in addressing current European issues.

The Achaeans and the Europeans: An Interdisciplinary Comparison of Federations

“…The citizens of the Greek federations and more specifically, in our case, the Achaean one, were willing to fight to preserve them because they perceived a community of interest and an increased personal welfare (mainly due to no barriers in commercial activity between city-states, which benefited all sides) from belonging to them (Mackil 2013;Economou, Kyriazis, & Metaxas, 2015;Economou & Kyriazis, 2016). Thus, our policy suggestions for the EU, if it is to progress towards becoming a true federation, is to introduce more democratization in the form of binding popular initiatives and referendums (direct democracy) and the direct election of its political leadership (such as the International Journal of Social Science Research ISSN 2327-5510 2016 President of the European Union and the European Union commissioners).…”

Essays in Contemporary Economics

“…by Hansen's Polis) to see if similar links between military developments and democracy can be established. A particular interesting example would be the examination of the Phoenician maritime city-states like Tyre and Sidon and their form of government, or the Greek protofederations that mainly emerged during the fourth century BC, such as the Achaean and the Aetolian Leagues (see Economou et al 2013;Kyriazis and Economou 2013c).…”

On the Institutional Roots of Swiss Democracy

“…Among cantons there was a federal parliament (known as Tagsatzung or Diet) since 1412 and in each canton existed one cantonal parliament (known as Landsgemeinde). Reference [63] point out that the bottom up 13 federations are more likely to emerge if the constituent members are more or less symmetrically in power and they face strong external enemies. Switzerland had powerful external opponent -the Habsburgs and the Burgundy -and showed a degree of symmetry in terms of power of constituents, excluding the fact that they were divided into urban and rural (geographical criterion of differentiation).…”