Athenian Democracy Essay

Nowadays, in modern developed countries, the Internet and Information Technology (IT) is part of our daily life and is being used by almost everyone, with over three billion people having access to the Internet (Sanjay Acharya, 2014) and 8 in 10 people being users of smartphones (Rowinski, 2015). Today IT provides the information systems that support modern decision making processes (James A. O’Brien, 2003; Kroenke, 2008), connects people with the information they need and has a strong impact on society as a whole (Hayes & Sharma, 2003; Polack, 2009; Tucker et al., 2003). IT plays an important role in democracy and how democracy can be implemented in a modern society. However, democracy has been criticized for being inefficient and dysfunctional

He was the one that introduced the principle of equality for all, the “isonomia”. (44 the history of democracy w) Athenians develop a system of popular rule. Although the Athenian democracy was a form of direct democracy it excluded a large part of the population, as women, slaves, foreigners and non-landowners were not allowed to vote. (Grinin, 2004)(Lape, 2009). The main institution of the government was the Assembly “Ekklisia” where decisions were made by vote using the raise of hands and the majority of votes prevailed, as in the later democratic systems. The power of Assembly was limited and the agenda of the subject of discussion were set from the Council of Five Hundred, which was composed of representatives chosen by a lottery. The number of representatives were specified according to the population of each of the 139 demes, small territorial entities that were created by Cleisthenes. At last one of the most important political institution together with the Assembly were the Courts, that had unlimited power to control all the other political power influence in Athens. They were composed of jurors that were citizens over 30 years old chosen by a lottery from a pool that was chosen once per year from a lottery too. (reference b