ATHENIAN (DIRECT) DEMOCRACY

Athenian (direct) Democracy and computer

Athenian (direct) Democracy and computer

Introduction

Direct democracy comprises a form of democracy and theory of civics wherein all citizens can directly participate in the political decision-making process. Some proposed systems would give people both legislative and executive powers, but most extant systems allow input into the legislative process only.

Over the last century we have witnessed a revolution in communications that has moved much of the public discourse and agenda-setting from the individual and community level to the mass level. As communication technologies and their use by people continues to evolve there are indications that this trend is now reversing with some notable globalization exceptions. With computer-meditated communications, people are reclaiming their communications power from mass institutions. This paper is a concise guide geared toward those who want to build citizen-based efforts that work to ensure that this shift toward many-to-many communication increases the capacity for citizen participation in democracy.

Citizen-based electronic democracy is about creating the online public spaces for interaction among citizens and organized interests (that are for the most part only focused on using electronic communication to further their own goals.) In a simple sense, we are creating an open and on-going town hall meeting where ideas, agendas, personalities, interests, and beliefs may mix dynamically. We are creating an arena for public expression, development of opinion, and accountability.

History

Direct democracy was first experimented with in the ancient Athenian democracy of ancient Greece (beginning circa 508 BC (Finley, 1973)), which was governed for two centuries by a general assembly of all male citizens, by randomly selected officials, and one elected representative charged to command the army of the city (strategos).

The restrictive conditions for citizenship in Athenian democracy (only male citizens could participate) and the small size (about 300,000) of the Athens city-state minimized the logistical difficulties inherent to this form of government[2].

Also relevant is the history of Roman democracy beginning circa 449 BC (Cary, 1967). The ancient Roman Republic's "citizen lawmaking" -- citizen formulation and passage of law, as well as citizen veto of legislature-made law -- began about 449 BC and lasted the approximately four hundred years to the death of Julius Caesar in 44 BC. Many historians mark the end of the Republic on the passage of a law named the Lex Titia, 27 November 43 BC. The presence of citizen lawmaking in Rome's governance was a strong, contributing factor to the rise of Rome, and its Greco-Roman civilization, to a greatness all out of proportion to the rest of the ancient world.

The formation of political parties is considered by some to be a "necessary evil" of representative democracy, where combined resources are often needed to get candidates elected. However, such parties mean that individual representatives must compromise their own values and those of the electorate, in order to fall in line with the party platform. At times, only a minor compromise is needed. At other times such a large compromise is demanded that a representative will resign or ...