I. The importance of history
a) Understanding origins
II. Ancient Athens and democracy
a) Pericles praises Athenian democracy
·
Respects majority
·
Equality under law
b) Reforms of Solon
 Cancelled debts and freed slaves
o Cancelled all debts, particularly in the agricultural sphere
o He freed slaves at the current moment, but did not abolish slavery
 Rearranged classes
o Re-divided the political system (constituencies) into 4 new classes
 Try to break up the power from existing nobility
 Arranged by agricultural income and not heritability
 3 of the 4 classes could run for office, but all 4 could vote
o Created a situation where all citizens could participate in politics
o Dealt with social unrest – dampened social struggled
c) Reforms of Cleisthenes
 Demokratia – rule by the people (‘direct democracy’ today) - Switzerland
o Athens needs to move forward as a republic and break up the noble
privilege
o White pebble yes, black pebble no
o would meet every 9 days to vote on societal issues
o creates a new political ideology
o citizens take a direct role
 Assembly and Council
o Creates a council of 500 – plan political direction of the city
o Assembly of the citizenry was up to 20,000 people
o But normally would get numbers between 2000-5000
 10 Tribes
o Divided classes again into 10 tribes
 Where each of the tribes would put forward 50 people to take part
in the council of 500 – council members could only serve for 1 year,
twice in their lifetime
 Ensured virtually every citizen in Athens would be involved in direct
political participation
d) Athens and exclusion
 Women, slaves and ‘foreigners’
o Citizenship did not include women, slaves, children and foreigners
o Should we consider Athens an extraordinary democratic event then?
o In Athens, to be a citizen meant to be a free male, above the age of 20
o However, don’t want to downplay the fact that it was radical
II. Citizenship and Athenian Democracy
 Has an enhanced notion of citizenship that is peculiar to the ancient time
 Citizenship involves active belonging
 As citizens, we have the right to vote, participate, etc. – but we don’t have to if we
don’t want to
 Included a clear set of duties
o Public rights and obligations…not private
 Brings up the notion of civic virtue
a) Civic virtue
 Duties and the polis
o Key to a health private life was a healthy policy
o The good life was synonymous with a healthy political life
b) Citizenship and equality
 Equality as the basis for freedom
o Equality has an enhanced meaning in Athens
 Achieves a set of power relations that had never been achieved
before
o The peasantry never had it good
 Very limited rights – especially in political participation
 Subject to extreme exploitation
o In Athens for the first time, peasants were able to participate in the political
proceedings
 Limit excessive land ownership
 Limit the use of slavery
o Meaningful equality was a condition of freedom