Abstract
Political participation is universally acknowledged as the core element of democracy since classical antiquity. The Greek noun ‘demokratia’ has become the etymological basis for naming modern political systems in hundreds of languages worldwide, despite its sharp breaks and discontinuities from modern representative democracy. Originally being devised by its Athenian inventors as a form of government or a system of rule it has, since the last three centuries, been overwhelmingly dominating western societies and civilization, reaching a widespread appraisal and almost cosmopolitan legitimacy. Prior to the French Revolution, however, it was the Spartan tradition and the Platonizing republic that allured the imagination of political elites and the world of intellectuals. The Athenian democracy was largely considered by its detractors as ochlocracy (mob rule), anarchy, orderlessness and anomie. With the French Revolution of 1789, democracy acquired a distinctive political momentum and was first invoked in a fundamentally transformed way to depict a grand plan for ‘democratisation’, practical as opposed to utopian – i.e., refashioning politics and society in their entirety in order to put into operation the principles of popular self-rule and the sovereignty of the demos, reconciling individual freedom and the pursuit of one’s own good with public order, in accordance with the ideals expounded by the thinkers of the Enlightenment.
We come of a tribe that asks questions, and we ask them remorselessly, to the bitter end.
Jean Anouilh, Antigone (1944)
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Notes
- 1.
As A. Weale puts it, “[d]emocracy – it would seem – has ceased to be a matter of contention and has become a matter of convention”, Democracy, 2nd ed. (Macmillan: New York), p. 1.
- 2.
See Fontana (1992).
- 3.
Dunn (2005). As A.H.M. Jones argued, “The Athenian Democracy and its Critics”, The Cambridge Historical Journal, 11.1 (1953), pp. 1–26, there was no democratic political theory in antiquity. Cf. Farrar (1988). For a most recent fully-fledged discussion of the theory and practice of Athenian democracy see, Osborne (2010).
- 4.
The words demos “people” and kratos “rule” are conjoined together to mean, literally, rule by the people. See Ober (1994).
- 5.
Schumpeterian liberal constitutionalists like A. Przeworski define minimalist democracy – which is desirable – as a system in which rulers are selected by competitive elections. Only if considerable restraint is imposed on popular control democracies will act in responsible ways. See Adam Przeworski (1999), Joseph Schumpeter [1942] 1962.
- 6.
- 7.
Mouffe (2005). See also J. Habermas’ model of “discursive democracy”, with focus on the normative requirements of a noncoercive public discourse that are crucial to establishing an ideal democracy, “a self-organizing community of free and equal citizens”; Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996), p. 7.
- 8.
For an extensive discussion on the revisionist literature see Li and March (2008).
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
Mény and Knapp (1998), and Thomson (2011). Cf., however, Dinan (2010) on the reforms designed by the EU to make it “more accountable, appealing, and comprehensible to its citizens” (Introduction). The Treaty of Lisbon, which completed the process of ratification and came into force on December 1st 2009 tried to minimize the effects of the democratic deficit, stating in the Preamble that the aim of the treaty was “to complete the process started by the Treaty of Amsterdam [1997] and by the Treaty of Nice [2001] with a view to enhancing the efficiency and democratic legitimacy of the Union and to improving the coherence of its actions”.
- 12.
Weale, Democracy, p. 3 and Featherstone (1994).
- 13.
A Eurobarometer survey of EU citizens in 2009 showed that support for membership of the EU was lowest in Latvia, the United Kingdom, and Hungary, but the Eurozone crisis will naturally boost Euroscepticism, so the results would be quite different in 2012. For a broad perspective on Euroscepticism see, Krisztina Arató and Petr Kaniok (2009), and Brack and Costa (2012).
- 14.
Rusila (2012).
- 15.
See Schmidt (2006), who prefers the denomination “a regional state in the making”.
- 16.
- 17.
- 18.
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/glossary/democratic_deficit_en.htm Emphasis on “ordinary citizen” is added because it was the foundational principle of ancient Greek participatory democracy (See the “Protagorean Myth”, in Plato’s Protagoras.)
- 19.
According to Dinan, Ever Closer Union, pp. 4–5, “[f]or some people, the EU is anathema precisely because it involves the sharing of sovereignty”, to add that opponents of “European integration naturally exaggerate the threat that they think the EU poses to national identity, independence, and interests”. In the UK, for instance, Eurosceptics are extremely concerned with the apparent loss of Parliamentary Sovereignty due to the expansion of EU powers and the growing number of legislative powers delegated by the sovereign “Crown” to the EU. See Gifford (2008).
- 20.
Ètienne Balibar, Guardian, 23 November 2011 talks about the “citizens” revolt against the dictatorship of markets that instrumentalise governments’. The core problem is “sovereign” peoples submitting to a supranational structure. Recent Spanish civil unrest over new austerity measures (Summer and Autumn 2012) does not only threaten fragile eurozone but also poses dilemmas about the very idea of European political union, EU policymaking and democratic politics.
- 21.
See the discussion in Marden (2003).
- 22.
About the “precariousness of democracy in the EU”, see H. Spiegel, “Die Bürokratie frisst ihre Bürger”, Frankfrurther Allgemeine Zeitung, 25 March 2011: “Die Europäische Union ist auf dem Weg, ihre Bürger zu entmündigen. Aufhalten können sie dabei nur wir Europäer”. See also Howarth and Loedel (2003).
- 23.
See e.g., DeBardeleben and Pammett (2009) for recent discussions and bibliographical guides.
- 24.
- 25.
- 26.
Carothers (2006).
- 27.
Törnquist et al. (2009).
- 28.
Citizens’ engagement is the core element of all definitions of democracy, thus the decline of voting turnout and disengagement is often interpreted as the main malady of modern democracy: As S. Verba, S. and N.H. Nie, put it “where few take part in decisions there is little democracy”. See Participation in America: Political Democracy and Social Equality (New York: Harper Row Publishers, 1972), p. 1.
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Demetriou, K.N. (2013). Introduction. In: Demetriou, K. (eds) Democracy in Transition. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-30068-4_1
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