Download The Democratic Mirage: The Athenian Model and Contemporary

DET NORSKE INSTITUTT I ATHEN
ΝΟΡΒΗΓΙΚΟ ΙΝΣΤΙΤΟΥΤΟ ΑΘΗΝΩΝ
NORWEGIAN INSTITUTE AT ATHENS
TSAMI KARATASOU 5, GR-117 42, ATHENS, GREECE
TEL: 210 92 31 351, 210 92 41 420. FAX: 210 92 15 993, E-MAIL: [email protected]
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Invitation to Lecture
The Democratic Mirage: The Athenian Model and
Contemporary Practice
Dr. P. Stuart Robinson
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology, Political Science and Community Planning,
University of Tromsø
The Modern appropriation of the language and ideology of democracy depended heavily
on the well-documented and conceptualised ‘democratic experiments’ of ancient times. Hence,
from the Italian Renaissance onwards, Classical Greece became ever more deeply ingrained in
Western social and political thought as the metaphorical ‘cradle of democracy.’
Such a narrative projects an image (or paradigm) of democracy onto the past, which is,
at least partly, a misleading reflection of the present. Together, the curatorial efforts of
monuments and museums, and the scholarly interventions of political theory and ‘science,’
propagate the popular view of classical Athens as the model of direct democracy from which
modern forms of representative government are ultimately derived.
The ancient Athenians are thus romanticised and a formalistic tendency of democratic
praxis revealed, to make procedure the measure and arbiter of substance. Forms of collective
decision-making are thus riven from the broader context, which might illuminate their meaning,
becoming empty vessels to be imaginatively – or carelessly – filled with egalitarian or liberal
content.
Such a conception of the past contributes to a dangerous complacency regarding the
present. Contemporary political practice bathes in the reflected glory of an idealised historical
prototype, and the connection between decision-making forms and `democratic values,’ more
broadly conceived, is taken for granted rather than interrogated. There is a case to be made for
an approach to politics in general and democracy in particular – past and present – which
embraces more explicit constitutional thinking, not just in the sense of the juridical identity and
governing principles of the polity, but also that of the substantive expression of a broader social
identity and its associated – and always contestable – values.
Wednesday, November 2 at 19:00 h
at the premises of the Norwegian Institute at Athens
Tsami Karatasou 5, 5th Floor (Koukaki)
Refreshments will be served following the lecture