What's an acceptable alternative to democracy?

The main difference between ancient Athenian democracy and our own was nothing to do with all those things the textbooks usually tell us: the use of a lottery to choose most state officials (the fairest, most equal kind of selection after all); the participation of everyone -- well every male citizen -- in the decision making process, not just selected representatives, as in our parliament; and so on.

Much more important than these institutional distinctions was the simple fact that Athenian democracy existed in a world in which it was perfectly acceptable NOT to be a democrat. It was quite OK to think that oligarchy, for example, might be a better idea.  Suggesting that democracy might not always be the best political system wouldn’t have caused a nasty silence at parties. In fact most surviving Athenian writers fell firmly in the anti-democrat camp.

To be honest, I wouldn’t have fancied living under an oligarchy, especially if I was poor and so firmly excluded from that particular political process (I know, as a woman I’d have been excluded from every kind of ancient political system – but I’m leaving that on one side just for the moment). And I wouldn’t much have fancied getting caught up in the civil wars that periodically broke out between oligarchs and democrats. But having some viable alternative did at least keep democracy on its toes – and it kept “democracy” meaning something.

Unlike now, when all kinds of corrupt and corrupting versions of the system trundle on under the legitimating title of “democracy” . . . and when we're all "democrats", or claim to be.

This last week has certainly been a bad one for the D-word.

We don’t yet know how the terrible situation in Kenya will turn out, or whether the alleged “voting irregularities” will be proven and get called to account. One of the reasons we don’t know is that the courts in Kenya are still investigating similar allegations from the last election five years ago. True or not, they hardly seems to have stopped the regime in its tracks. Awful as it looks right now, the chances must be that this scandal will pass too, and that the western press will soon forget about it – while patting the Kenyans on the back for their commitment to “D”.

And then there is Pakistan. I can’t make my mind up whether Benazir Bhutto would have been a good thing for the country or not (her first period in office wasn’t  particularly auspicious, was it?). But let’s suppose she would have been. I am still waiting for someone to explain how this dynasty of Bhutto’s, passing power from one generation to another (and now to a teenager who ought to be concentrating on his degree), counts somehow as a bastion of democracy.

Or how passing it from Bush senior to Bush junior counts for that matter. Or from Mr to Mrs Clinton.

Students of ancient Athens now tend to look askance at the position of Pericles who, year after year in the middle of the fifth century BC was elected to the office of general (or strategos, one of the few Athenian offices which was elected not chosen by lot). Isn’t that a bit undemocratic, they ask , monopolizing office in that way? Maybe. But at least Pericles didn’t try to shoe horn his son, grandson or partner into the act.

As the son remarked over New Year, these dynasties look more like the Roman imperial family than Athenian democrats.

Comments

[Federico Gamberini]

For me the referendum facility (which can only be requested for the purpose of repealing laws, and only after 500,000 signatures have been collected in support) remains one of the valid aspects of Italian democracy. We can argue about the rights and wrongs of the 50% quorum, but as long as the quorum stands the possibility of opponents deliberately absenting themselves has to be accepted as a legitimate if not entirely chivalrous tactic. What it means in practice is that a referendum will only succeed if there is clear-cut support for it -and indeed, if you request a referendum it is then up to you to show whether you can muster enough support on the day.
I did say that the 2005 referendum was inquorate, and there may have been more than one reason for this -the article I referred to quotes some of them. In order for the referendum to have failed there will have been abstentions among the urban majority too, which means either that the urban dwellers also live in fear of the priest or that they acted according to opinion or apathy. I did say that the conscience of the abstainers may have been influenced by Catholicism -which is not quite the same thing as saying that they were "led by the pope", because I think that the interaction between feeling and custom is more complex than that; the "Catholic conscience" is broader and more flexible than the figure of the pontifex: it ought (for instance) by now to be a well-known fact that Italy has one of the lowest birth rates in the world. The pope and Church will have been factors, but not the only ones.

Back to the Italian village priest. I remain in the dark as to his powers of revenge. For what they are worth, a few statistics: 66% Italian Catholics in favour of divorce, 78% disagree with denying communion to the remarried, 66% disagree with denying same to politicians not supporting divine law, etc. (http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Cronache/2006/01_Gennaio/17/cattolici.shtml).

Richard:
you say everyone in Italy must have an identity card: are you sure? I am not sure myself. The situation is too unclear to allow categorical assertions (unless you can provide evidence), but then there is the fact that ID tends to become compulsory in practice if not in law, etc....

[Dave]

Richard

Absolutely, although that was what I was Implying by "directly". You are supposed to have a court order or somesuch to tie the name to the paper, and these are notoriously difficult to obtain, since the evidence you need to prove wrongdoing is within the ballot box you wish to open.

Incidentally, there is nothing to stop anyone voting twice, if they own qualifying property in two constituencies. Basically, Harry Jones, frequently seen round Stepney market, votes in London before rushing off to his little manor in the Cotswolds. Since the govt frequently kindly call County Council elections on the same day as the General election, Harry, now calling himself Harold Arbuthnot de Vere Jones, legitimately enters the polling station to excercise his right to vote for a County Councillor, is given two papers (since he "forgot" to mention he had a GE vote elsewhere) casts his 2 votes and walks out. No way of proving it unless you stop him in mid vote, because after the paper's in the box you're stuffed.

You may think this is laughable, but in any consituency with a large number of 'holiday homes' it's a serious problem. Some Cotswold villages have no-one in them in October except on the Thusday of an election, when everyone turns up to vote.
As long as the polling register is held at District Council level, the Data Protection acts inhibit searches for double voters and the judges will not let the papers be checked, there is a problem.
I'm not sure the disease is any worse than any cure, though.

I would argue that the whole problem with modern democracy is that it needs constant vigilance. Anyone who thinks that the demands of democracy can be overridden merely because their cause is good and true (which may be the case) will IMV reap so much more than they sew.

[Richard]

Peculiarly enough, the extent to which British electoral law "rejects any voting paper which may in any way directly identify the voter" depends on how you choose to define "directly". In fact, when you go to the polling station, what happens is that one official takes a paper, and shows it to the other official, who writes the number of the ballot paper next to your name before crossing your name off (so that you can't vote twice). So it is possible for an electoral official to link your ballot paper back to your name on the roll from the polling station. At the same time, it is indeed the case that a paper with an identifying mark like a name or signature counts as invalid. And of course there is nothing to stop somebody who knows your name and address from turning up and claiming to be you, thereby stealing your vote. This used to be common in Northern Ireland, I believe ("vote early, vote often"), but now there are stricter rules there (although the rest of the UK remains as I describe). Italian friends are astonished... (but of course it is easier to demand ID of voters there, since everybody must have an ID card - but that's another story!).

Best wishes,
Richard

[Dave]

'It's true that the referendum was inquorate'. My case is made. Surely one of the major protections of modern democracy is that the voter should indicate their wishes in secret in order not to be identifiable. That's why UK legislation forbids the simple show of hands for a strike ballot and (in a national ballot) rejects any voting paper which may in any way directly identify the voter. Not voting in order to make a ballot inquorate is not democracy. It doesn't matter if I agree or disagree with any answer to the question asked, the underlying objective of those opponents led by the pope, as admitted, (!) was to make the ballot invalid. Some democracy.
As to what a vengeful priest can do; I suggest a look to the immediate past is sufficient to obtain many examples from round the world.

[F.Gamberini]

Dave Gayler:
I presume you are referring to the 2005 referendum on various fertility issues (www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1653037,00.html -). It's true that the referendum was inquorate, but how many village Italians failed to enter the polling station makes no difference, because the majority of the population live in urban areas. So it may just be the case that people acted according to conscience -a conscience which may indeed be influenced by catholicism and which you don't have to agree with, but you have to allow the possibility that other people may independently not agree with you. What exactly was the "vengeful village priest" going to do to them, anyway?

[Dave Gayler]

Leaving aside the essential differences between Athenian 'democracy' and current models, one of the fundamental pillars on which any democracy rests is the ability of the individal to be informed. To make an informed choice with whatever source of information the voter selects. During the second half of the 20th Century this pillar was eroded until it virtually no longer exists.
Have you ever seen a media report of any matter in which you have been personally involved which has been anything other than laughable? Accuracy is beyond hope, truth would be nice.
Another minor point is that our democracy rests on the secret ballot. One way for the tyrants of this world to destroy the secret ballot is to demand their supporters do not vote, then claim the ballot is invalid because too few votes were cast. Of course they can also then see who did brave the gauntlet and actually cast their vote, so they can readily ostracize, villify or murder them, safe in the certainty that they are not 'one of us'.
Was it not the current pope who called for the faithful not to vote in the fairly recent Italian referendum on abortion? I wonder how many village Italians dared to enter the polling station under the vengeful eye of the local priest.
IMV anti-democracy comes in many guises.

[PL]

Concerning Tony Francis's inquiry, here is the relevant part of the definition of "tribe" in Merriam Webster's unabridged Second International (far superior to its dumbed-down Third International) dictionary:
"Tribe […] fr. L. tribus […] 2 Anc. Hist. a.
In ancient Rome, one of the three divisions of the Roman people, the Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres, traditionally of Latin, Sabine, and Etruscan origin respectively. Later (under Servius Tullius, according to Roman accounts), the tribes were constituted on a territorial basis, four belonging to the city and sixteen to the country. The number was increased in the republican period, but never exceeded thirty-five, Cf, CLASS, n., 1. See CURIA, 1 a; GENS 1."

[Tony Francis]

Concerning PL's comments on the derivation of the word tribe: it is correct this word referred to the three divisions of Roman society. These were Etruscan, Sabine and Latin.
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabine
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etruscan_civilization
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Rome
This was news to me. Can anyone expand on the information in these articles?

[mary]

I didnt mean to -- but I dropped the ball with the "the husband" point. But Michael Bulley seems to get it in one... an ironic parody of "the wife" and a little bit more.

[PL]

I realized that, Nick. I was just being ironic.

[nick]

I am pretty sure the poster depicted with the article is one of the anti-Vietnam war images so it is probably a B-52 carpet bombing American ally Cambodia to prevent its use as a corridor between north and south Vietnam.

Ordered by Nixon and Kissinger - surely the strangest choice for a Nobel Peace prize.

[Tony Francis]

The picture is of a B-52 H. The LA on the tail identifies it as one stationed at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana. B-52 H and G models can be identified from B-52 D's which were used extensively in Vietnam by having a much shorter vertical stabilizer (8 feet shorter). The Wiki article indicates B-52 Fs were deployed in Vietnam. However, the B-52 D was utilized to a much greater extent. The B-52 G and F have been destroyed in accordance with various disarmament treaties.
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-52_Stratofortress

[Tony Francis]

Since the silouhette is of a B-52, with an avionics blister in front, it is likely one from the post Vietnam, post Cold War Era. Hence that airplane would not have contributed to the defeat of Nazi Germany. It was manufactured, at least in part in the same factories in Kansas which built B-17's which did destroy Nazi Germany. What government, be it democracy, or any other kind is not established except through violence? What government maintains itself, except through utilizing the policing power of the state?

[PL]

Let's go back to etymology. "Tribe" is cognate with "tres", "tria", "three", etc. The population of Rome in earliest times was divided into three parts, and so divided into "tribes", particulary with regard to their conTRIBUtions to the state and its war machine.
Apropos war machines, that's a nice picture above. Would it be one of the planes that smashed Hitler's armaments factories? As another contributor mentioned, democracy usually is brought about by violence --- sad to say.

[dr venables preller]

As I understand it, a tribe is a group of people descended from the same ancestors within a lesser timeframe than might be applicable to a wider ethnic group.

Social behaviour can be more cohesive than in larger groups, with loyalities and vendettas of historic origin of great significance.

If the term is used more in connexion with third world or primitive societies, that could be because tribes are more likely to remain discrete and readily identified in that context.

Think family, extended timewise.

[Richard]

"It's not tribalism," says Fran Saban, "it's just that we [they] here are different from them there." It's clearly the case that there are political (and cultural) differences between Scotland and the rest of the UK (though I think that the differences between North and South Britain are equally significant: Newcastle perhaps has more in common with Glasgow than with Reading), but I fail to see why FS's arguments show that this is not "tribal"...

Surely the real point is that "tribal" is frequently used in a dismissive way. This is what leads people to call third world societies "tribal" but to avoid using the same word of societies closer to home.

So FS just means "take our differences seriously rather than belittling them: leave words like 'tribal' for describing other people's situations."

Feeble attempt to attach this to the topic: perhaps we would be better to distinguish the people of the hills (Scotland, northern England, Wales) from the people of the plains (central and southern England), as happened in archaic Athens before Peisistratus took power as a tyrant (dictator). But that leaves out the people of the coast, which doesn't seem to fit any British region/nation very well (Cornwall?). Never mind...

[I am the other way around from FS: a Scot living in (southern) England]

[abc]

Murder is another answer, of course.

[abc]

The other answer, I guess, is wise counsel. Who has successfully stepped down and been transferred to a fitting position? Blair?

[Mary]

Lots of comments and questions here. Here's a first shot on the temporary-ness of ancient power. Good point. Both Athens and republican Rome put huge store by limited tenure of office just a year, and shared with fellow magistrates. For the most part, the internal policeman worked...but by the end of the republic Caesar (among others) was trying to hold office end to end. And no, the mechanisms for dealing with it were not adequate. In Greece . . . well, that is what 'tyranny' was, honestly: holding office longer than you should and on your own. Violence was one answer.

[Tony Francis]

It has been said that the one good thing about the US political system is not the virtue of its politicians. Rather, it is the fact that no one gets very much power, and when they do, they don't get it for long. It is amazing how inter-related many of the Presidential families have been. At least half can claim to descend from the English Monarchy. Edward I and Edward III appear to have sired the greatest number:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Presidents_by_genealogical_relationship
In fact, there is a long list of US political families which have waxed and waned in power through the years:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_political_families
Even Kansas politics is notoriously inbred. Our present Governor is the daughter of an Ohio Governor, and married into a politically powerful family in Kansas:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Sebelius
The Sebelius family was Repubican, but the present governor ran as a Democrat. As they say, power trumps ideology every time. A career in national Democrat politics was predicted for her. Unfortunately, a series of local blunders may have forestalled it,

[nick]

So just how did Athens, and the other proto-democracies, deal with the problem we see so often today (Kenya and Pakistan particularly at the moment) of leaders not relinquishing power?

The USA has fixed terms which I think work better than our system of the ruling party calling an election only when it feels it can win.

[abc]

Antony Alcock is right. And when she is not projecting, it'll still be Beard arguments to the death pit so we'd better be grateful, behaving like citizens, to have experienced it all a little.

[Michael Bulley]

Taking up Anthony Alcock's point, I shouldn't think Mary Beard has the same attitude as pompous men at the nineteenth hole who talk about "the wife". So, is "the husband" ironical vengeance on behalf of women thus denigrated? But then, what about her son? Does "the son" result from analogy with "the husband" or, like some ancient parent, does she see offspring as equivalent to inanimate possessions? Or is it because she does not want to sound over-possessive? Or because she regards "husband" and "son" as titles? Does she see herself that way? Has she a secret longing to write something like "Yesterday I bought the self a new pair of shoes"? I think Mary Beard should come clean and tell us!

[dr venables preller]

Paolo: Could it not be that it is the short passage of time since independence from colonial rulers, (along with the tribal, ethnic and cultural divides also inherited) which might compare unfavourably with countries which have had several centuries in which to stabilise with the 'civilising' effect or not of a 'democratic'
format?

It will be interesting to see whether reversion to regional identities in the UK results in an improved democratic local model within an overall federal-style structure for enhanced stability, rather than reliance on traditional methods of coercion for minorities.

When the Welsh Parliament was set up, some will remember the great perception of the local housewives, who lost no time in declaring it to be 'no more than a glorified talking-shop.'

The 'pacification effect' of what Americans sometimes call 'jawboning' is frequently underestimated, not to mention the saving over military resources.

[Fran Saban]

You don't have to look very far to see the results of an oligarchy (of sorts) failing to deal with a shift to a more democratic process. In Scotland, Scottish Labour are still in denial over the outcome of the Holyrood elections in May and, probably moreso, in total shock at the drubbing they received in Local Council elections where the system moved to STV thus giving a fairer reflection of the wishes of the electorate.

And yes, I know STV is not perfect and a neither is a parliamentary democracy but the Scottish results, in ousting of a party that felt it had Divine Right to rule in this land have been refreshing.

And, a note to Paulo: Scottish Independence is not a reversion to tribalism but a sensible approach to recognising very clear political differences between us (although I am English, I live in Scotland) and the right-of-centre consensus now prevailing across England. You may wish to read the SNP manifesto from May and note how (with a small R) radical it is in comparison to anything G Brown is suggesting.

Slainte

[nick]

In terms of US political dynasties I referred to the Kennedys in an earlier post. I had always been led to believe that Joe Kennedy's master plan was for JFK to serve three terms and then be succeeded as president by first Robert and then Edward leading on hopefully to a second generation and establishing the Kennedy "monarchy"

[anthony alcock]

Democracy has become a consumer product. You can buy it, but you don't have to use it.
Mary, your use of the definite article attached to members of your family is almost the exact opposite of the possessive adjective in Yorkshire, where it carries the stress. As Parky used to say several decades ago when I last watched British telly. "Welcome to MY show".

[Paulo]

Dear Mary

You, or someone, needs to be reminded that all our modern Democracies were born out of civil war or simply war. The British in the 17th century, the issues being the corruption of the Monarchy and of course religion. Bitter and hard it was, shall we say a sort of crucible. Out of it came the Whigs and the Tories, who have been fighting it out ever since behind closed doors. The Eighteenth century gave us the French Revolution, but French Democracy was born of Napoleon, the outsider from Corsica. Then the American civil war, bitter and hard, whose issues included whether and where and how to maintain slavery. That matter remained alive in the 1960's, and it may not have died. The Nineteenth Century otherwise was fairly democracy-free, but it took two world wars to produce the German and Italian democracies, and the Portuguese (the outsider from Mozambique) and Spanish came within living memory. Meanwhile the Irish fought their own civil war about the North and their degree of submission to Britain. The German democracy was born of Hitler, and I do not have to continue about Russia or Japan or, for God's sake, Poland. I think I am now beginning to understand what the EC is all about, and perhaps Gordon Brown is too.

Two things follow: if Pakistan and Kenya still have problems of corruption and religion and "tribalism" to sort out, that is because the Constitutions the British ("we") dumped on them at "Independence" just don't make sense locally. Observers would better shut up and watch.

Secondly, the imminence of Scottish independence means that we, or you, or they, have reverted to tribalism. Leaving Mr Brown where?

Paulo

[Jackie]

Emma G made a very valid point. If democracy means, in effect, rule by the people, how can we have a democracy when turnouts are so low? For us it is rule by the activists. But the sad thing about the developing nations is that the problems are, partly at least, due to our own arrogance. 'We' (as in Western Empires) arbitrarily drew the lines on the maps, taking no account of the tribal people who lived there, and, in our arrogance, thought that the political system that worked for us must be the best. Cultures and systems that had worked for generations were cast aside, and our own form of government imposed. What can we expect except chaos, and it is the people living there who pay the price.

[Johan Adam Wong, Malaysia]

Mary, I might have something here to help you make your mind up about Benazir. I read somewhere that in a media interview, when asked her if she would mind travelling third class by train to show solidarity with the nation's poor, she responded with fire and brimstone in her breath and pounded the poor journalist with the point that she's a Bhutto, and Bhuttos don't travel third class. Hope this helps.

[paul potts]

Michael Bulley

The quote I heard from Gandhi (your mi-spelling was probably OK phonetically) was much snappier. When asked what he thought of Western civilization, he replied, "Yes, it would be a good idea".

[Serge]

Happy New Year, Professor :)

. . . It is all correct, but what IS that acceptable alternative to "D"?

I remember reading many years ago a short story by Guy de Maupassant, "A Dinner and Some Opinions"; one of the 'opinions' was (as I remember it), there's no real difference between democracy and despotism, because chances for a capable person to be elected to power and chances of an equally capable ruler to come to power are virtually the same. No?

[ushekim]

Another loaded Western term, "universal value," seems to justify the notion of democracy as somewhat necessary. One does not really know whether the so-called democratically elected Maliki leadership in Iraq is a true democracy or a Shia patsy, or that the U.S. Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore has "democratically" elected the worst President (Mailer's description) into eight diastrous years of governance. The measurement of "democracy" is indeed elusive.

Aside: How come your blog is now situated above Stothard's? Another democratically manipulated utilitarianism?

[Michael Bulley]

Sorry about the misspelling. Gandhi.

[Paul Leopold]

G.K. Chesterton replied to the proposal of government by "the wise few" by pointing out the impossibility of finding them. In practice you will get "either the few whom the foolish think wise or the very foolish who think themselves wise". C.S. Lewis went further, saying he was a democrat not because he believed most men wise enough to rule themselves, but becuase he believed no men good enough to be entrusted with unchecked rule over their fellows. ("Man" of course embraces "woman".)

[Ann]

I certainly can't speak for ancient democracies, but I don't know that modern democracies have ever been less 'dynastic.' John Quincy Adams, the 6th US President was the son of the 2nd. FDR and Teddy Roosevelt were 5th cousins. Barbara Bush, wife of George and Mother of W, is the great-great-granddaughter of the 14th president.

You could probably make a pretty good case for modern democracies (at least the US) being basically oligarchies.

[Xjy]

Freedom, Democracy and God are all Humpty-Dumpty words, meaning what their users want them to mean. All the unpleasant riders are filtered out - eg Freedom from English Monarchical Tyranny (except for the slaves) etc around 1776.

Animal Farm and 1984 were very preoccupied with this problem of language manipulation. Brave New World reintroduced the once-a-slave-always-a-slave system by using scientific preconditioning. But the problem is not language (thought) or predestination (being), but who gets to control how much of social wealth (production first, then distribution) and how.

Ignoring the class analysis of social history, and the way class position determines this power (or lack of it) over social wealth leaves us wallowing around in semantic quibbling or gene-hunting, while the beneficiaries of the system go on getting richer and stronger. Until of course they implode as is happening nowadays, cos the world can no longer tolerate their misuse of people and resources.

Instead of being blindly bulldozed into the future by the present capitalist system, it would be better to take over the controls of the production machine and drive it clear-sightedly into the future we want for ourselves. And since we're all being shoved arse-first into a jungle full of barbed-wire, booby-traps and mines, it's not just a "better" choice but the only one to give us/humanity any chance of survival.

Any discourse (even Mary's!) predicated on the permanence of our present institutions is ipso facto blinded, as these institutions present themselves as omnipotent and omniscient and eternal as a matter of course. After all, they would, wouldn't they? Any ruler does.

So kudos to Mary for raising the (however remote) possibility of society being constituted on other foundations. And to Aristotle for giving us such an unsentimental palette of political principles giving rise to various constitutions. The debt of the underdog (in social terms the working class) to classics and classical strength of analysis and argument remains huge and is growing even today. It's way past time we became conscious of it again.

[Gi]

The Bhutto boy being made political heir immediately made me think of Octavius and his assumption of Caesar's political heritage (while Caesar's will only made him heir of a personal fortune, since Caesar's position was, in republican times, not transferable).

Young Bhutto said that the best revenge for his mother's assassination was to keep fighting for democracy.

Very nice. We'll see what happens next.

(Mongolian horses? Cute.Makes you think, doesn't it, that perhaps we can go nuclear after all?)

[Emma G]

What seems to me to be the most glaring gulf, is between the so-called firmly established democracies of the West, and the developing/emerging democracies of the less wealthy nations - which in many ways are more reflective of the ancient political systems than the western nations which are always so keen to see themselves as direct descendants of some idealised, white-robed Ancient Greek proto-democracy. How democratic is it really, when the difference between having one government or another is so little that voter turnout is often less than half those who are eligible? Are we all so fat and comfortable that any engagement with politics is seen as an irrelevance? How luxurious is it for us to choose whether or not we can be bothered to wander down the road to vote? Given the lack of choice you highlight between democracy as opposed to any other system, the only choice that remains is whether or not to participate - and when so few people choose to be involved, the democratic mandate claimed by the government becomes ever less credible. It always makes me feel shameful to see images similar to those coming out of Kenya and Pakistan at the moment, and not so long ago in Burma (which in many ways is so much worse and even more complex) when so everyone seems to be so deeply committed and involved in the politics of their country, often at considerable risk. In a similar situation in the UK, would anyone really care enough to risk their own skin? I'd like to think so, but I suspect probably not.

[Nick]

I think we are still caught in the post-Cold War American triumphalism where the prevailing intellectual climate is that capitalism and democracy have "won" and debate on the topic is over. I guess Fukuyama's "End of History" still stands as the great example of this. While I personally support both capitalism and democracy, I agree the political climate is the lesser for not even considering positions from outside that fairly narrow range of opinion.

[Paracelsus]

How odd : at some of the dinner
parties I attend (of Oxonians,
mostly classicists) the anti-
democrats tend to be in the
(perfectly respectable) majority -
phanero-oligarchs, if you will.
You are, nonetheless, absolutely
right about the insidiousness of
calling every system which
features a ballot-box a
"democracy", when the word is
merely a fig-leaf for the real
operation of power. While Pakistan
and the US are prime examples,
let's not forget the UK, where
Brown is likely to leave office
without having won a single
election before either party or
country.

[Candadai Tirumalai]

To find a political dynasty in the White House one would have to go back to the earlier years of the American Republic when John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams were Presidents but their terms were separated by 24 years, much more than the eight years which intervened between Bush 41 and 43. And like Bush 41 and unlike 43, the Adamses, father and son, were one-term Presidents.

[nick]

One of the problems with democracy as we know it today is that it requires a willingness on the part of governments to willingly hand over power if they lose an election. This does not always work well even in the long established democracies in the west (the watergate affair springs to mind) the dynastic intentions of first the Kennedys and now Bush and Clinton show that even in the US the system can be and is manipulated. It is no surprise that in other countries with a much shorter history of democracy that leaders have been unwilling to surrender power once they have it. I am no classicist but I seem to recall that similar problems afflicted the Roman empire at various stages of its history.

How did the Athenians solve this problem?

[DemetriosX]

It should be noted that most of those oligarchies in ancient Greece were still democratic under the modern definition. They simply limited the franchise based on property qualifications. Such qualifications were not uncommon in the US at its inception and only slowly faded away. I believe the same is true for Britain. Yet we would not say that those societies were not democratic.

Extreme oligarchies like the 400 or the 30 were very rare and had a tendency to be short-lived. Either they quickly turned into tyrannies (in the Greek sense) or the franchise was soon widened. Even Sparta had democratic features, though the franchise was very narrow and it was easy to lose it. (Sadly, we don't know much about the political organization of the rest of Lakedaimonia. What voting rights did the perioikoi have? They must have had some, at least internally.)

[Michael Bulley]

A judgement on democracy might have to wait until it's tried, as Ghandi said of western civilisation. I'm for it in principle, but is the practice, if ever it comes, bound to be a good thing? The answer's yes if the majority of people are intelligent and benign, but what if they're stupid and evil?

[Oliver Nicholson]

One does not need to look as far afield as ancient Athens for political dynasties. Watch the hereditary principle at work in the Labour Party: Shirley Williams, Mandelson, Lady Jay, now, one gathers, even the son of J. Prescott, who hopes to inherit his father's seat at Hull.
The beauty of the House of Lords was that the natural hereditary principle was recognised and then neutralised. One duly became Lord Stansgate on the death of one's father but was then able to exercise only restricted political power as a peer. The great abuse of the House of Lords over the past generation has been the failure of the Labour Party (and Mr. Heath) to commend to Her Majesty the names of new Labour peers whose descendants will eventually people the red benches.
Yours provocatively, but with Best Wishes for the New Year,
OPN