Democracy, Ancient and Modern - Anchoring Athenian Democracy

What was Athenian democracy? What made it thrive, adapt, and eventually unravel? Consisting of three expert meetings and an advanced postgraduate course at the Dutch Institute in Athens, this project offers a multidisciplinary exploration of one of the most ambitious, influential, and (in)famous political systems in human history. Athenian democracy is remembered for its radical political inclusivity among its male—though not its female—citizens, but this project asks deeper questions: How was it sustained over nearly two centuries? What internal contradictions and external pressures shaped its evolution? And why does this ancient system continue to speak to us in a time of rising authoritarianism and democratic erosion?

The institutional transformations associated with Kleisthenes (508/7 BCE)—selection by lot, mass participation, new accountability—were not created ex nihilo but deliberately anchored in older civic and religious frameworks: tribal structures, cultic calendars, ancestral law, ritualised decision-making, and collective responsibility within the polis. Democratic change thus reconfigured familiar practices rather than abolishing them, securing legitimacy by embedding innovation in recognisable traditions. Later receptions, from Polybius and Cicero to Enlightenment and modern theorists, constitute further acts of anchoring. Democratic ideas are repeatedly re-embedded in new contexts through selective appropriation. Democratic innovation thus emerges as a longue durée process in which past practices remain active resources.

* The meeting will be in English.

Program April 10

NB: Two more Expert Meetings will follow, in June and November.