Democracies and Republics Between Past and Future

From the Athenian Agora to e-Democracy, from the Roman Republic to Negative Power

Carlo Pelloso

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000358735
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Altertum

Democracies and Republics Between Past and Future focuses on the concepts of direct rule by the people in early and classical Athens and the tribunician negative power in early republican Rome – and through this lens explores current political issues in our society.

This volume guides readers through the current constitutional systems in the Western world in an attempt to decipher the reasons and extent of the decline of the nexus between 'elections' and 'democracy'; it then turns its gaze to the past in search of some answers for the future, examining early and classical Athens and, finally, early republican Rome. In discussing Athens, it explores how an authentic 'power of the people' is more than voting and something rather different from representation, while the examples of Rome demonstrate – thanks to the paradigm of the so-called tribunician power – the importance of institutionalised mechanisms of dialogic conflict between competing powers.

This book will be of primary interest to scholars of legal history, both recent and ancient, and to classicists, but also to the more general reader with an interest in politics and history.

1 The need for new paradigms

1.1The crumbling constitution

It is not surprising that a variety of the symptoms of the crisis affecting our contemporary political reality are found in dystopian and apocalyptic narratives. The sick liquidity of today’s world bodes well for ‘antidotes’ that are as solid as they are disturbing: these narratives do not predict the transformation of the world to a new and other reality but the altered and exaggerated state of current affairs.¹

Many authors have created futuristic settings by drawing inspiration from current events to inform their themes, plot development and characterisation, particularly since the end of the Cold War and the rise of capitalist democracy. The reality of our hi-tech world, devoted to our private lives, as opposed to the public sphere, and enmeshed in a totalising market, has become a prolific source of inspiration for movies and novels. Under the surface of more or less baroque scenarios, which are transfigured together with our anxieties, fears and expectations, two opposing pictures clearly emerge: a shining world of greedy corporations and a charred world of post-technological hunters.

On the one hand, dystopian works present the disturbing reality of the current Western order under a perfected authoritarian or totalitarian rule; on the other hand, apocalyptic literature explores the deterioration of our known reality beyond recognition after the breakdown of the current order and triumph of anarchy. These two hypothetical worlds erode all of the distinguishing traits of our ‘critical’ era and project civilisations, which are founded on the extreme amplification of the liberalisation of trade and commodification of natural resources, on the expansion of human roles, on enhancements in digital technology and genetic science and on the return of governmental authorities to their police powers, along with mistrust in politics and individualism. The fear that new economic Leviathans shall devour the post-Westphalian sovereignties with increasing ferocity is melded with the exploitation of Margaret Thatcher’s neoliberal dictum “there is no such thing as society. There is [a] living tapestry of men and women…and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves.”²

All in all, the literary portrayals of our society depict the democratic ideals of freedom and equality as unattainable; there is no autonomous body of ‘the people’ and ‘the power,’ whether institutionalised or de facto, is totally unrestrained. Is it possible to prevent utopia and dystopia from overwhelming our lives? What efforts can we make to improve ‘democracy’ through radical, yet feasible, institutional reforms? Is a frontal assault on both over-domination and apathy conceivable? Can we lay the foundations for a future world where the inert mass shall be replaced by an active people?

1.2Post-democracy

Conferences entitled “Representation and Renewal” or “Is the Party Over?”³ well attest to the growing political and legal interest in retrospectively analysing and better comprehending the current crisis with a view to overcoming it;⁴ however, some authors have already projected their sight beyond the corpse of democracy towards a ‘post-democratic’ future, among them, Colin Crouch.⁵ According to Crouch, the democratic golden age of the liberal and representative democracies of Western Europe and North America have long since passed. Globalisation, deregulation and the loss of collective organisation...