Abstract
Drawing on classical Athens the paper outlines the qualities and workings of direct democracy to provide a simple model of public choice in policy-making. In particular, the paper conceptualizes Athenian democracy as an institution which is founded on two pillars: public discourse and public ideology. The former refers to the reciprocal communication between citizens enabling, inter alia, the integration of diverse knowledge and the coordination of collective action. The latter refers to a pragmatic set of social values (i.e. emerged dialectically as a result of ongoing collective experiences) enabling to reduce diversity of thought and behavior and with it many of the collective-action problems that communities encounter. On the basis of these, direct democracy as an institution is able to internalize the costs and benefits of decision-making, to actively engage citizens in the political and policy-making process, to enhance the community’s knowledge base, and to deliver cooperative and innovative solutions to matters of public concern.
Keywords
- Collective Action
- Public Choice
- Public Discourse
- Direct Democracy
- Ordinary Citizen
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We wish to thank Prof. Josiah Ober and Prof. George Bitros for their useful comments. The usual disclaimer applies.
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- 1.
It seems that democracy was practiced again in Athens during the third and second centuries, until the Roman conquest of Greece, but sufficient evidence on its detailed workings over this period is missing.
- 2.
There is no consensus as to the actual number of Athenian citizens (and Athenian population consequently). Most scholars, such as Jones (1958), Hansen (1999) and Rhodes (2006), accept the established view that citizens were about 30,000 people. Others, such as Hansen (2006) and Arvanitidis and Kyriazis (2012) argue for a figure that lies well above the general consensus, estimating that Athenian citizens were about 50,000–60,000 people.
- 3.
It should be noted that participation in the Assembly was not compulsory. In addition, high opportunity costs (i.e. the time and income lost due to attendance) and decision-making costs (i.e. the costs of getting properly informed on the matter under discussion) would have made attendance less attractive to some citizens. This is probably why Athenians of the fifth century instituted a fine for those caught abstaining, with a squad of public slaves policing and marking with red color those citizens not being in the meeting place (Pnyx) (Aristophanes 1911) After the restoration of the democracy in 403, pay for Assembly attendance was introduced, promoting a new enthusiasm for Assembly meetings. However, only the first 6,000 to arrive (constituted, according to Hansen (1999) the required quorum) were admitted and paid, with the red squad now used to keep latecomers at bay (Aristophanes 2004).
- 4.
In the fourth century, however, some of these judicial powers were transferred to the courts.
- 5.
Although in principle all citizens could address the Assembly, in practice much (but not all) of the debate was carried out by a cadre of skilled statesmen known as rhetors or demagogues. However, the mass of ordinary citizens rule the Ekklesia through its control of public speech achieved by the hegemony of democratic ideology (or, as we term it, ‘public identity’, cf. below) and other formal and informal mechanisms (Ober 1993). Thus, in simple terms, the statesman “had to conform to his audience’s ideology or face the consequences: losing votes or being ignored” (Ober 1989: 43–44).
- 6.
The absence of parties and party platforms meant that there were nothing like party discipline in public votes on matters of policy. Athenian citizens were free to attend to and to follow or ignore the advice of a diverse range of would-be leaders of the moment.
- 7.
Institution defies easy definition; even within the school of Institutional Economics the word has never enjoyed a precise meaning. For the purposes of this research we define institution as a set of related rules, conventions, norms and habits in specific domains, which shape human agency and interaction.
- 8.
Which are possible due to intervisibility among citizens, offered by public discourse under direct democracy.
- 9.
Given the high potential value of latent and tacit knowledge, and the difficulty of bringing it to the surface in a systematic way, this constitutes a major advantage of direct democracy over other regimes.
- 10.
This resembles the application of the Condorcet jury theorem to politics, stating simply that “non-specialist” voters come to correct decisions under simple majority rule.
- 11.
Of course we do not mean here by all citizens. A public identity should be embraced and performed by a lot of people, but not necessarily by all of them or all the time (Ober 2008a). In these terms its strength lies on its ability to be open enough for the development and voicing of honestly dissident opinions and the incorporation of different viewpoints and mentalities that naturally exist within any community.
- 12.
That such a strongly embedded and stable public identity did exist in Athens (during the fifth and fourth centuries) can be inferred from the fact that it survived the catastrophic aftermath of the Peloponnesian War. In 404, an aristocratic regime (the so-called Thirty Tyrants) was imposed by Sparta which abolished democracy. This regime was brusquely ended a few months later (in 403) by a popular revolt (with the active participation of the aristocratic elite), and Athens returned to democracy until its defeat by Macedon.
- 13.
Despite the fears of certain members of the wealthy elite (i.e. aristocratic or rich citizens), in democratic Athens no attempt was ever made to coercively redefine property rights, redistribute private property, or to cancel debts (Jones 1958; Ober 1993; Bitros and Karayiannis 2008; Karayiannis and Hatzis 2012). The fact that the state was ‘credibly committed’ to the security of private property rights helps to explain why the regime, in contrast to others, was at once so cohesive and so stable. Yet, public identity had found other (non-coercive, moral) ways to encourage voluntary redistribution of wealth and to limit wealth inequality (cf. below).
- 14.
In classical Athens public education was provided in the form of subsidized theatrical performances (Kyriazis 2009). These performances taught to Athenians social values, ethical norms, mores and morals, history and religion.
- 15.
- 16.
It must be stressed again that Athenian citizens did not participate in political activity solely driven by economic motives (i.e. to increase or to safeguard their personal wealth). Rather, the public identity values of freedom, equality and loyalty (cf. above) were deeply ingrained in their identity, dictating their behavior and providing a measure of meaning to their life.
- 17.
A behavior which should have been enhanced by the accumulated educational experience of participating in public fora, teaming up with others in public ventures, and serving in the public offices.
- 18.
Keep in mind that knowledge is possessed by individuals, but is nurtured in social networks and reproduced by institutionalized processes, both of which were strong in the Athenian democracy (Ober 2008a).
- 19.
The pronoun “he” applies literally in the Athenian democracy (and so it is used here instead of the politically connect form “she”), because, as mentioned, citizens were only (native, adult) males.
- 20.
- 21.
Agency is bounded by informational constraints, structural uncertainty, the limited cognitive capacity of the human mind, and the structure of the social environment within which it functions (Simon 1956, 1959). The latter indicates that agents are self-consciously reflexive about their preferences and sensitive to societal norms, values and morals. Interestingly, Lanni (2009: 725) provides an excellent discussion of the Athenian legal system where compliance to society’s norms, values, etc. might be seen as a rational response, since Athenians “…could be sanctioned again and again for the same legal or extra-statutory norm violation in every future lawsuit”. On these grounds it was in one’s own interest to adhere to the societal norms throughout his life rather than risk that a violation would be (sooner or later) brought up in court.
- 22.
“Satisfied” means here that his ex-post welfare is the same as calculated ex-ante, or even higher, which are clear cases of the voter sticking with the new strategy. If the ex-post welfare is less than that expected ex-ante, the voter may still support the strategy, if he still regards that this welfare is superior to the welfare of the alternative strategies or if he expects some gains in the future (e.g. due to logrolling).
- 23.
Although there are good reasons to question its expedience (see Basu 2007).
- 24.
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Arvanitidis, P.A., Kyriazis, N.C. (2015). The Qualities and Workings of Direct Democracy: Lessons from Classical Athens. In: Bitros, G., Kyriazis, N. (eds) Essays in Contemporary Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10043-2_11
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