What’s Wrong with Democracy? The Peculiar Power of Kratos

Abstract

In this paper, I reconstruct the notion of kratos as a unique and distinguishable mode of political power. My claim will be that kratos encapsulates a specific problem for democracy, in both ancient and modern contexts. Using examples from 5th- and 4th- century Attic tragedy, Old Comedy, and forensic oratory, I show how kratos was used in Athenian cultural and political discourse to convey the irrefutability of a claim, the recognition of prevailing over another, and the sense of having the last word, all of which makes kratic power dependent upon its continued demonstrability. Although the agency of the dēmos is now largely mediated through representative mechanisms, the peculiarly kratic drive towards ‘winning,’ with all its inherent instability and vacuity, remains indispensable for democratic legitimacy. In focusing critical attention on kratos and the pathology of winning, I hope to shift discussion from what divides ‘elites’ from the ‘masses,’ to a problem shared in common.