Commentary on Melissa Lane, ‘Rethinking Offices: Athenians ...



Commentary on Melissa Lane, ‘Rethinking Offices: Athenians, Plato and Aristotle on popular magistracies and political knowledge.’Keith Sutherland, Department of Politics, University of ExeterMelissa Lane’s argument that Athenian democracy was proto-Schumpeterian is certainly provocative. Her paper takes issue with three widely-held beliefs regarding 4th century Athens derived from the work of M.H. Hansen:There was no effective property franchiseHansen acknowledges the Solonic prohibition on the thetes holding office but cites Aristotle to demonstrate that the prohibition no longer applied in practice (Ath. Pol., VII, 4; XLVII 1). Professor Lane argues that these two citations are ambiguous and could equally well be taken as indicating that the exception proves the rule. However the thetes constituted the numerical majority in the assembly (Hansen, 1999, p.126) so it’s hard to understand how, in the absence of such a large class, it would be possible to find sufficient numbers for the council, given the lifetime prohibition on serving more than twice. Rhodes (1972, pp. 4-6) confirms that the council could not have functioned unless the thetes provided a large slice of the membership. The council was a collective magistracy, so there is no particular reason to think that a different principle was in operation for most other archai.Sortition was the rule, election the exceptionGiven the received view – from Aristotle to Montesquieu – that sortition was the appointment method characteristic of a democracy, it’s difficult to understand Professor Lane’s focus on the election and inspection of officials. Indeed her interpretation of Aristotle’s chapter on the ‘wisdom of crowds’ is that the many are better than the few in the selection process. However the pre-selection dokimasia was largely box-ticking, focusing primarily on the formal qualifications and conduct of potential office-holders, so it’s not clear why this should require the cognitive diversity generated by popular democracy. During questioning, Professor Lane claimed that some 100 or so (out of 700) magistracies were elected. The history of Athenian democracy from its Solonic origins to the age of Demosthenes shows an incremental shift from election to sortition, but by the 4th century few magistracies were reserved for election.‘Rule and be ruled in turn’ cashes out as rotation in office holdingProfessor Lane denies Hansen’s claim regarding rotation in office-holding; popular involvement is via the deliberation and judgment that were characteristic of the courts, where juries were subject to rotation. Professor Lane describes this in Schumpeterian terms – the judgment required to select and hold to account political officials. However the assembly, and the fourth-century legislative courts (nomothetai) were the primary legislative bodies in which citizens deliberated and exercised their judgment directly. Given that the courts provided for much wider rotation than the magistracies, it’s equally plausible that Aristotle’s ‘rule and be ruled in turn’ referred to the direct judgment of citizens over the legislative process rather than just selecting the best officials to judge on their behalf. Indeed Aristotle’s phrase presupposes rotation of some sort, the direct antithesis of Schumpeterian democracy.Out of the three Greek-derived terms for forms of government (monarchy, oligarchy and democracy), the first two are based on the stem for political office (arche) whereas democracy alone is based on the stem for power (kratos). The difference between monarchy, oligarchy and democracy is not just numerical – as democracy is an entirely different type of politics (otherwise the corresponding term would be demarchy, not democracy). This would suggest that the Greeks viewed democracy as sharing judicial and legislative power (either directly or by large-scale rotation as jurors), rather than taking it in turns to hold office; in Professor Lane’s words: ‘the laws should be kurios while a group of people [archai] should also be kurios over particulars or matters arising in gaps in the law’. This is a lot closer to Rousseau than Schumpeter, as the sovereign people should be concerned with general principles, the (delegated) magistrates with particular applications. If this is so then it matters little whether the magistrates are appointed by lot, preference election, merit or even a (hereditary) ‘prince’ – the system is democratic so long as the sovereign legislature includes the whole citizenry, either directly or by large-scale allotted juries (‘ruling and being ruled in turn’). This view would certainly accord with Professor Lane’s redirection of focus from individual archai to law-making institutions and has the added merit of being applicable, in principle, to large-scale modern states, where rotation of office-holders is no longer feasible. Although the citizen in a modern state can no longer hope to rule and be ruled in turn, sortive ‘representation by proxy’ would enable the rule of people like herself (Fishkin, 2009). Rather than redescribing Athenian democracy in Schumpeterian terms we would be better served seeking ways to apply the ‘Athenian option’ in modern democracies (Barnett and Carty, 1998). Although both approaches are equally anachronistic, grave-robbing might be a more acceptable alternative than seeking to redescribe ancient practices with modern concepts.ReferencesA. Barnett and P. Carty (1998), The Athenian Option: Radical reform for the House of Lords (London).J. Burnheim (1985), Is Democracy Possible? (London).J. Fishkin (2009), When the People Speak (Oxford).M.H. Hansen (1999), The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes (Bristol).P.J. Rhodes (1972), The Athenian Boule (Oxford).J. Surowiecki (2004), The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few (London). ................
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