Part 1 - The appearance of Democracy - birth and infancy in Greece

Democracy is both a theory - a set of ideas and principles, and, a collective form of self-determination expressed as practices and structures.  These two components are highly interrelated and as we will see, influence each other significantly. Put trenchantly by Thomas Mitchell regarding the ideals of Democracy, “Their realization is the end, the procedures and institutions are the means.”

Democracy did not develop because someone thought it was a nice idea. Throughout most of recorded human history, early glimmerings of what we call Democracy nearly always occurred as part of resistance against an established power structure ,or, out of the desperation that results from anarchy or general cultural/social breakdown. Put more simply, Democracy’s components developed due to the problems of power and disorder.  And, far more often than not, these early movements towards Democracy were crushed. 

A further question arises: given that issues of power and disorder are universal in human history, why Greece? While the answer most likely will never be entirely clear, the most likely answers all revolve around geography and climate.  That is, the area’s mountainous topography, including many isolated valleys and offshore islands, a benign climate, and a calm and accessible Mediterranean Sea, facilitated the development of a particular form and size of society. This sort of context meant that many, relatively small centers of power developed.  How small? Nearly 80% of the Greek poleis (city-states) were under 80 square miles in size and only 10% were larger than 200 square miles. Athens, one of the five largest, was about 1,000 square miles.  It is worth noting how this compares to the present day.  Liechtenstein, a micro-state of today is 62 square miles and it is no surprise that it is doubly landlocked in the Alps between Switzerland and Austria. Athens was about the size of Luxembourg and smaller than the U.S. State of Rhode Island.  Population of the poleis, is more difficult to estimate but it is thought that Corinth with 35 square miles had a total population of about 70,000 in the 5th century BC.  Athens, far and away the most populous of the Greek states, may have had a total population of 250,000 in the 5th century. The population of Rhode Island is well over 1,000,000.  

Despite the geographically bounded small size, a Polis could become substantially developed through access to the sea and offshore islands. This meant it was possible to grow and develop through trade and the establishments of outposts around the mediterranean sea. The result was that wealth could be generated which resulted in a ruling group of very powerful families.  And with this, significant extremes of wealth and poverty since non-citizens (slaves, indentured workers, and women) were kept dependent and subservient and not given any opportunity to build wealth. Finally, since each polis was self-contained and some at least quite wealthy they had the means and motivation to resist the efforts of a despot to consolidate the area. The result of these factors meant that large kingdoms did not develop.  People and families were close to each other and knew each other - there was not some distant source of power. So, what happened was personally and keenly felt and seen.  I believe that this made it more vexing for those without power than it might have been if they were part of a larger imperial state.  So, the rich and poor in a space constrained polis were “stuck with each other” and knew each other.  This generated more resistance which then had to be controlled in some manner by those in power. 

But, why does it matter to understand something that happened in a small (by today’s standards) Greek city-state well over two millennia ago?  Thomas Mitchell answers this question as follows:  “The place of Athens as the progenitor of the ideological foundations of democracy, and the first paradigm of a remarkably stable democracy based on them, will always make the Athenian experience a crucial aid to a better understanding of the merits, challenges, and weaknesses of democratic systems.”  As we will see, the struggles around the initial development of Democracy are the same struggles facing the world today. This is both consoling (we have lots of company), instructive (history is a teacher),  and discouraging (Democracy is very difficult to build and sustain).