I believe that ancient Athens was not a true democracy. In a democracy all of the people are able to vote, and have a choice on who runs their city. In ancient Athens only the men were able to vote. Their government was Demokratia, and this excluded the women, the children, the metics, and the slaves. Even though their government was ran by the people themselves, only the men in the city could vote. Only the men truly had a say, and ran ancient Athens. Some people believe they were more democratic than us today, but I think they were never a true democratic government.
When you look at the literal definition of democracy in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, there is a decently large explanation. When looking at this definition and trying to decide whether the Athenian democratic system was truly democratic, one would have to go with the answer no. While it has been stated that Athens is the “cradle of democracy”, and that it was better than any of the other governments in the world, it was still a work in progress. The Athenian democracy, while it did give more power to the people, still left a lot of citizens out. The current American democracy may have steamed from Athens, but they do not really have that much in common.
What is democracy? For a long time, historians have kept this question in mind while studying laws and methods of the Ancient Athenians. After investigating the given evidence, it can be determined Ancient Athens did not always vote on important matters and only a small majority of the population could vote. Because of this, Athens cannot be considered democratic.
Democracy is a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state. I do not believe that in the 4th to 5th century BCE ancient Athen were democratic for many reasons.
Democracy did not originate with the founding of the United States. The term "democracy" comes from two Greek words: "demos" meaning the people and "kratia" meaning power or authority. It is defined as being a government by
Never before have there been so many democracies in the world or so many competitive elections conducted at national, subnational and region levels. Democracy is now prescribed as inseparable from good governance and an antidote to corruption. The key aspects of what makes Australia a democracy being the electoral role, Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), referendumsm, the rule of law
Democracy is a form of government in which power lies with the people. This means that the people of the said community can either rule directly or indirectly by electing officials to make decisions for the betterment of the people. Democracy is an aspect that can be included in many different governments including, republics, monarchies, and theocracies. In America today, democracy is something we take pride in. This form of government had to start somewhere, however, and ideas of democracy can be shown in many early documents written by some of the first peoples to colonize the Americas.
The Democracy of Athens meant that the people rule themselves. It was easy for the Athenians to see who the people are due to the population number at the time. Therefore, they could easily make decisions. The biggest difference between Athenian democracy and almost all other democracies is that the Athenians had a direct democracy rather than being representative. The city-state of Athens, 5th century Athens to be precise, is the inventor and first practitioner of democracy. One of the earliest known democracies was in Athens, a city-state in southern, ancient Greece. In Athens, the ruler Draco tried to make many reforms in the city state. Draco organized laws by putting them in a written code, letting everyone know what the laws were and
Democracy, a form of government, allows the people in their own nationality to vote for people in order for them to become representatives as a result to vote on new laws that would affect their own nationality. One of the many states of Greece, ancient Athens was indeed not truly democratic as a result of not inclusive, other than male citizens, to gain authority in ancient Athens, ¨Demokratia was ruled by male citizens only, excluding women, free foreigners(Metics) and slaves.¨(Document D), therefore ruling Athens was only accessible to male citizen since since women, free foreigners(Metics), and slaves were not allowed to rule as a result of not being male citizens.
Democracy, in short, is a government for the people, ran by the people. Democratic ideals refer to standards and persons who look to not only expand democracy, but expand it to the whole of the population. Democracy was the keystone to the budding America; it was what set her apart from other nations. However, citizens looked to improve the coverage and quality of democracy. Throughout the early 1800s to around 1850, reform movements began to sweep the nation. Change was brought upon the nation both by force and by personal whim, but did the perpetrators really want to expand democratic ideals for the public or to benefit themselves? The validity of the statement is only partially true. Reform movements in the years 1825-1850 had good intention
Democracy is the modern day standard for governmental systems. However up until 500 BCE, the concept of Democracy was a foreign concept, and the great civilizations of that era were run by monarchs, aristocrats, and religious leaders of sorts. The term, Democracy, stems from the Greek word ‘demokratia’ which means rule by the people and it wasn’t until around 500 BCE in Athens where the first examples of democracy originated. While Athens is widely regarded as the first historical example of a democratic system, some scholars believe that the Roman Empire’s republic system was more democratic than that of the Greek. As I will come to
Nowadays our world is changing hourly – its political, social and economic global picture depends on the decisions (more or less important, but still important), which are taken every minute. Sometimes it seems that all significant events have taken place, moreover it was a long time ago. At the same time we forget that there are areas of life, our daily lives, which have been completely different recently. In modern Western societies the right to receive education and to vote for women is natural part of life, contrast to the Third world counties, where women still do not have opportunity to take part in decision-making and influence various spheres of life in their countries. Skeptics may wonder: “What is so special about the fact that women are allowed to vote?” I believe that despite all controversial views this event was a huge shift for social change and future breakthrough in this area. For the American feminist movement such impetus was the successful story of the suffrage movement during the First World War, including the adoption of the 19th Amendment.
A democracy is a form of government that is ruled by the people and controlled by the people. For example, here in the United states which is a democracy, everyone is allowed to vote and have land. Also, everyone is allowed to practice a religion of their choice. Athens was truly democratic because everyone had the equal justice, people were voted into office, and one’s social class did not determine what a person could become.
It is important to keep in mind the difference between a Democracy and a Republic, as dissimilar forms of government. Understanding the difference is essential to comprehension of the fundamentals involved. It should be noted, in passing, that use of the word Democracy as meaning merely the popular type of government--that is, featuring genuinely free elections by the people periodically--is not helpful in discussing, as here, the difference between alternative and dissimilar forms of a popular government: a Democracy versus a Republic. This double meaning of Democracy--a popular-type government in general, as well as a specific form of popular government--needs to be made clear in any discussion, or writing, regarding this subject, for the sake of sound understanding.
Before all let define democracy, so it is defined as a type of government where people exert the sovereignty. As far as democracy is concerned, critics of democracy, such as Thucydides and Aristophanes, both are pinpointing on that the demos in which that they thought that it could be too easily swayed by a good orator or popular leaders the firebrand and get carried away with their emotions.