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A mathematical model of Athenian democracy

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Abstract

It is shown that the representative capacity of democratic institutions selected by lot (=lottery), as it has been practiced in Athens in 594–322BC, is quite high. For this purpose, People’s Assembly, Council of 500, Committee of 50 with its President, juries, and magistrates are evaluated with indicators of popularity, universality, and goodness. The popularity is a spatial characteristic of representativeness, the average percentage of the population whose opinion is represented on a number of questions. The universality is a temporal aspect of representativeness, the frequency of cases (percentage of questions) when the opinion of a majority is represented. The goodness is the specific representativeness, that is, the average group-represented- to-majority ratio. In particular, it is shown that the size of Athenian representative bodies selected by lot was adequate to guarantee their high representativeness. The background idea is the same as in Gallup polls of public opinion and in quality control based on limited random samples.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hans Boeckler Foundation, 40476, Duesseldorf, Germany

    Andranik Tangian

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  1. Andranik Tangian
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Correspondence to Andranik Tangian.

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Tangian, A. A mathematical model of Athenian democracy. Soc Choice Welfare 31, 537–572 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-008-0295-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-008-0295-y

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