Political Thought
I NTRODUCTION
How do we define democracy?
Problem: the term democracy is used in very di erent contexts and has multiple
meanings
- As a descriptor: a democratic regime, decision, assembly, etc.
- As an indicator of political legitimacy: (this is not democratic! )
- As a decision model (democracy in the workplace)
But the expectations are not the same at these di erent levels: we defend democracy in
politics and accept tyranny in the workplace
Etymology: the power of Demos, demos-kratos
Abraham Lincoln’s famous de nition: “government of the people, for the people, and by
the people“
Problem: There are multiple questions left:
- Who are exactly “the people”? What is the border of the demos?
- How does it use its authority?
- Over who ? The non-citizens ? The non-humans? Children?
- Why is the demos sovereign?
- And what does it mean (referendum ? Elections? Citizen assemblies?)
- Is it a good form of government?
- Can the majority impose its rule to the minority(-ies)?
Democracy as a sovereign will?
Democracy is a regime in which the people make their own laws (directly or indirectly),
but is it enough to de ne democracy? Is what people want always right ? – the question
of limits and hubris
Example: majority votes to ban religious freedom, or tax massively the rich?
The fear of democracy (Plato): people are incompetent
Majority decides to consume and not care about environmental damage?
What about other liberties? Free markets?
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, General Question: are there things that the sovereign people cannot do? Is there an
“antidemocratic” use of democratic power?
Democracy and human rights
Complement: add the guarantee of human rights and basic liberties
Is it enough to de ne democracy by recognizing these rights and the nature of these
rights?
Example: Classical England: King with strong powers but a bill of right
Republicans and Neorepublicans: freedom as non-domination
Another sense of the idea of people sovereignty: there is no superior power/authority able
to veto a “democratic” decisions. It is not enough to have rights and liberties. The idea of
democracy also calls for a form of popular sovereignty.
Provisional de nition
Democracy is Sovereign Power vested in the people + Individual liberties and Human
Rights
Negative and positive aspects of this de nition
Yet, this de nition is only the beginning of our problems: how do we translate this on an
institutional point of view? What kind of equality do we need to make democracy work?
Voting is not the only way. Do we need some kind of economic equality? How can
inequality be a threat to democracy?
Di erent examples: the Iroquois nations, Inuit, USSR, and Western democracies (?)
What are the institutions of a democracy?
- Could we say that direct democracy is “more democratic” than indirect democracy
for instance?
- What makes a political system “democratic”? Which inherent features?
- What is the “democratic ideal”? Why is it normative ?
Do the principles of democracy imply something in terms of economic distribution?
Rousseau: no citizen should be rich enough to buy another one, or too poor to be forced
to sell himself to another
(In)equality
Why is inequality a problem for democracy? Economic inequalities convert into political
inequalities (wealthy people can buy political power)
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,Inequality of what?
- Equality is not identity
- Rights - do we all have the same rights? In theory and in practice
- Gender - equal pay is not a principle yet
- Discrimination of minorities
- Opportunities?
- Wealth inequality or income inequality? Wealth is holding wealth, income
P ART 1: THE INVENTION OF D EMOCRACY
Reminder:
Democracy: provisional de nition
- Positive aspect: power in the hands of the people: correlation between what people
want and what the government does
- Negative aspect: rights to limit this power
In Athens? The idea that people have rights is modern.
Inequalities: are they a condition of democracy?
Athens’ golden age:
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, 1.1. Democratic institutions in Athens
Why did the Athenians invent democracy?
The relation between representations and political organizations.
A particular social-historical imaginary: poetry, religion, language, cosmology. There is not
one de nition of the truth
Athens was an empirical power, it was very wealthy. The center of all trade. Metropolitan
e ect. People need to have free time to engage in politics.
Example: Parmenides “On Nature”: Come on, I shall tell, and you listen and keep well the
narrative (muthon), What the only roads of inquiry there are to conceive: The rst one, that it
is and that it is not possible for it not to be, Is the path of persuasion, for it accompanies
truth (aletheia); The other [second road] that it is not and that it ought (khreon) not be,
This I declare to you to be an entirely unlearnable path; For you would not know the non-
being, for it is not possible, Nor could you declare it.” (fragment II)
Speci c mythology and ‘apolitical’ distant gods
Heteronomy: heteros = the other, is a social construction: reason, god, ancestors,
nature,… When you start questioning the laws, you start questioning the other.
Autonomy: the law of the self: there is no god, no social authority, no heaters (other. You
need to do your law on your own. The only way is to get together and decide the laws.
Everybody must have an equal voice.
A triple birth: philosophy, politics, democracy (Castoriadis)
Athen’s institutions: the origins
7th century bce Draco Written law If the law is written,
there is no place for
dispute. Harsh law,
almost everything
was sentenced by
death (a draconian
law)
650-558 bce Solon Con ict between New code of laws,
eupadrites and demos. because it was too
He cancels all personal harsh
debts and abolishes
enslavement for debts.
535-538 bce Peisistratos The “good” tyrant Problem: when he
died, the situation
got complicated
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, 507 bce Cleisthenes’ Isomnia (everyone needs Most important
to be judged in the same reform: he forced
way) and isegoria people to work
(everyone must have the together.
same ability to speak)
Cleisthenes created 150 demes = communities, he divided them into cities, hills and
coasts. Afterwards, he created 10 tribes, they had to be composed of one demes of the
city, one of the hills and one of the coast. In the end, you have 500 people in the boule:
di erent regions and di erent interests. He brought people together who would normally
never talk to each other. It’s a way to make sure people build something together.
Athens’ institutions:
The Boulè:
- Council of 500, 50/tribe
- Turns each pritany.
- Prepares the work for the Ekklesia.
- Sort of permanent administration
- You had one chance out of two to become member of the Boule
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,The Ekklesia:
- 6000/40-60k citizens
- Supreme power
- Regular + exceptional meetings. Free to go, never forced
- Ostracism: the power to exclude people
- Public vote, everybody had the right to speak, but was not easy, the older and wiser
took precedence. Raising hands to vote (not anonymously)
- At some point, people got paid to go, which made some people only go for the
money
- Can only vote on laws proposed by the Boule
Also various courts and tribunals, most important:
The Areopagus:
- Elected body
- Among wealthiest citizen
- Constitutional court, could send laws back to Ekklesia to revote (counterpower)
- Less and less power
The Helaia
- 5000 helaiasts
- 1000 juries for courts
- Not permanent, called when necessary
Taxations
How did taxation work in Athens’ direct democracy?
- Importance of free contributions (liturgy, theatre plays,…)
- Mostly indirect taxation on (imported) goods, on trade and on strangers. They had to
pay taxes to sell on the Athenian market
- Indirect taxes on mining activities, port, land (in some cases)
- Monetary resources: interests, creation
- Exceptional direct taxes on wealth and property (war)
- No tax on labour or wealth as such
Noticeable characteristics Athens
- Check and balance between the institutions
- Democracy at di erent levels: direct participation (the Boule) and sortition (you got
randomly selected to go to a tribunal) vs election
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, - A way of thinking of politics: is it political art? Or a political common sense? Politics
is a common sense and everyone has it
- A real ½ chance to become a ruler at some point
- Isegoria and isonomia
- The relation between the laws and the people: citizen-soldiers
- Pericles and the importance of generals/military
- The law is the law of the people: denunciation is a virtue. If you vote for the law, you
have to make everything possible to be able to respect the law
Critics
- Slavery: politics in Athens was only possible because people had free time thanks to
the slaves
- The exclusion of women and strangers
- A real equality? Equal ability to participate?
- Based on an imperial domination and exploitation of silver?
- The fall of Athens: a democratic drama?
- Hubris as the excess of con dence of the demos in its own judgement
The end of Democracy in Athens
Peloponnesian War:
- 431-420: Nicias peace: the war ends with a compromise
- 415: Sicilian Expedition: the demos decided to exploit Sicilia (good resources).
Expedition turns out to be a big disaster.
- 415-404: Sparta sees Athens is weak because of the Sicilian fail and Sparta defeats
Athens.
Sparta didn’t know what to do with Athens so they created a new regime: the thirty
Tyrants (8 months). It only lasted 8 months (revolt)
General amnesty and restoration of democracy. Sparta didn’t care about the politics, they
cared about the fact Athens was no empirical power anymore. General amnesty never
works, people don’t forget.
Athens after 404:
- Fallen empire but cultural hegemony
- Economic crisis
- Democracy with Misthoi (indemnities): people got money for going to the Ekklesia, it
lost the essential (only the poor went to the Ekklesia)
- A new rise? But something is lost…
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, De nitive fall: 338 BCE: Battle of Chaeronea
521: Justinian closes the Schools of Philosophy. People forgot what democracy was like
Comments on the fall of Athenian Democracy
- Philosophical Question : how can people who have known democracy forget the
democratic spirit ?
- Democracy is the regime where everything is possible, but everything is not equally
good
- The Demos has no guarantee of acting in a “good” way (or that its decisions will
cause the expected e ects)
- Importance of the democratic imaginary as a condition of democracy
- Need for being aware of the dangers of democracy
- Hubris and the need for self-limitation
- Examples : Graphè para nomon, Ostracism, but also tragedy, or culture
- What is the current hubris ? What are our self-limitation mechanisms?
1.2. Aristotle’s Politics
Biographical elements
- Born 384 BCE - death 322 BCE. At this time, Athens is under the in uence of Sparta
- After the akmè of Athenian democracy. Technically, there was still a democracy
- Student of Plato (who was student of Socrates: the philosopher of democracy in
Athens). Plato shows the theory of the best polis theoretically (heaven). Aristoteles,
on the other hand, says we don’t have to start with theories, but with practical things
(earth) -> comparative politics: he travels a lot, from practical experience, we draw
conclusions
- He founded the Lyceum
- He traveled a lot in Asia Minor and Turkey
- Teacher of Alexander the Great
- Other political works: Nichomachean Ethics (what is a sense of justice), The
Athenian Constitution (description of the institutions of Athens)
The Manuscript: diverse origin
- Date of composition?
- The method: observation and description
Aristotle’s interlocutor? Who is he talking to? The nomothete = the founder of a city.
Aristotle loves to categorize things -> three branches of sciences. Criterion for this
classi cation: the nality of each:
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, - Contemplative science: concerned with the truth: physics, metaphysics. What do we
see?
- Practical science: concerned with what we have to do and what we want, happiness
and virtue. How should we act? What does our human nature tell us to do and what
is the right thing to do?
- Productive science: the art of making beautiful objects adapted to their ends
Politics: what does justice require in terms of political organization? What is the goal of
politics? We need to think about our humane nature: what does de ne humans? From
this answer, we need think about the best form of political organization. There is a form of
hierarchy between the branches of sciences.
Key concept: finality
Means and ends (telos): most things are related to an end
Finality in natural sciences: the seed and the tree
Teleological perspective: telos - logos. First we need to know the destination of things
and then we can judge is this is right or not. We have to accomplish what we’re designed
for.
The nality of men?
The nality is everywhere according to Aristotle. The seed and the tree: if you have a
seed, eventually it’ll always become a tree. Every kind of natural being has di erent
stages of development. The start and the end are determined, but all stages are
in uences by information and in uence. Virtue is a possibility for every individual. Wether
you develop it or not depends on yourself. There are di erent ways to become a tree,
according to the environment in which you plant the seed -> every individual is able to
have a virtuous life, but the social environment will make you become virtuous or not.
Man is by nature a political animal (1253a1) -> to become a virtuous man, leaving
according to his nature, men have to live in a political organization. The polis is the only
place where a man can accomplish its nality and live according to its nature, but also in
politics and economy: not only to live, but to live well according to one’s nature
The goal of the polis is to create the perfect environment to let people ourish. It’s not to
dominate, as in Sparta. Education leads to a virtuous life. You have to see the relation
between the citizen and the city as a circle: the goal of the city is to provide the best
conditions for the individual to ourish and the goal of the individual is to be a citizen in
the city, to contribute to organizing the city, to participate. Individuals are created by
society, and the society is created by individuals
Many implications: money is only a mean related to an end and limitless accumulations is
not virtuous
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, Key concept: virtue/excellence (arétè)
- Arétè has multiple meanings:
- Virtue
- Adapted to its nature
- And excellence.
-> a virtuous life is an excellent life, in accordance with men’s political nature
- The supreme good is to live a happy life characterized by the accomplishment of
virtue, in accordance with man’s political nature
- Virtue as the middle way between two extremes (courage: cowardliness <->
impulsivity, temperance, etc) -> Aristotle is a man of compromise and in-between
- Virtue is universally distributed (everyone is able to be virtuous), but it’s realization
depends on the social and political context
- Virtue is possible only under virtuous laws (in a polis)
- Hence the importance of political philosophy (architectonic science): the goal of
Aristotle’s politics is to nd the ideal politeia (constitution)
- A crucial role for (public) education
- Goal of the politics: nd the ideal constitution
What de nes a polis (city-state)?
“Evidently, then, a city-state is not [5] a sharing of a common location, and does not exist for
the purpose of [4] preventing mutual wrongdoing and [3] exchanging goods. Rather, while
these must be present if indeed there is to be a city-state, when all of them are present there
is still not yet a city-state, but [2] only when households and families live well as a community
whose end is a complete and self-su cient life. But this will not be possible unless they do
inhabit one and the same location and practice intermarriage. (1280b30)
What de nes the city is the fact that people not only want to survive, but they want to live
well. What is the best way to live?
Goal of the city: encourage the virtuous life by its institutions (= supreme good)
“Even if the end is the same for an individual and for a city-state, that of the city-state seems
at any rate greater and more complete to attain and preserve. For although it is worthy to
attain it for only an individual, it is nobler and more divine to do so for a nation or city-state”
(EN I.2.1094b7-10).
Goal of the individual: to live a virtuous life (and therefore a happy life).
It’s reserved to (male) citizens
Circularity between the individual’s and the city’s telos
To live a virtuous life for an individual also means being politically virtuous and contribute,
as a citizen to the creation (or amelioration) of virtuous political institutions. These virtuous
political institutions will in turn provide an adequate political context to allow other
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