World History as the Story of Democracy

World History as the Story of DemocracyReynald Trillana * Executive Director * PCCED * @reytrillanaThe Story of DemocracyPolitical institutions are transmitted across time culturally and are subject to intentional design.

Democracy, like all other human inventions, has a history.

Democratic values and institutions are never set in stone; even the meaning of democracy changes through time.Embedding Civic Knowledge in World HistorySUBJECT CONTENTDISCUSSION POINTSI. Heograpiya ng Daigdig Ang Pagsisimula ng mga Kabihasnan sa Daigdig How transition from hunting-gathering societies to tribal societies established social organization/political orderThe necessity of politics and government

II. Pag-usbong at Pag-unlad ng mga Klasikong Lipunan sa Europa

The ideals of classical democracy.The democratic values of political equality, participation, and deliberation.Republicanism/RepresentationMixed Constitution/Separation of Powers

Embedding Civic Knowledge in World HistorySUBJECT CONTENTDISCUSSION POINTSAng Daigdig sa Panahon ng Transisyon The disappearance of democracyFeudalism; Absolute governmentPaglakas ng Europa The Rise of Liberal DemocracyCapitalismAng Unang Digmaang PandaigdigIkalawang Digmaang Pandaigdig

The waves of democratizationThe Necessity of Politics and GovernmentRETHINKING POLITICSthe process and activity of ruling complex societies without the use of undue violence.

It has the humanizing and civilizing task of resolving conflicts

Classical DemocracyAthenian population---250,000

30,000 on average were citizens - the adult males of Athenian birth and full status

5,000 might regularly attend about 40 meetings of the popular Assembly (ecclesia)

By the time of Aristotle (fourth century BC) there were hundreds of Greek democracies. Greece in those times was not a single political entity but rather a collection of some 1,500 separate poleis or 'cities' scattered round the Mediterranean and Black Sea shores 'like frogs around a pond', as Plato once charmingly put it. Those cities that were not democracies were either oligarchies - where power was in the hands of the few richest citizens - or monarchies, called 'tyrannies' in cases where the sole ruler had usurped power by force rather than inheritance. Of the democracies, the oldest, the most stable, the most long-lived, but also the most radical, was Athens.

The origin of the Athenian democracy of the fifth and fourth centuries can be traced back to Solon, who flourished in the years around 600 BC. Solon was a poet and a wise statesman but not - contrary to later myth - a democrat. He did not believe in people-power as such. But it was Solon's constitutional reform package that laid the basis on which democracy could be pioneered almost 100 years later by a progressive aristocrat called Cleisthenes.

There were no proper population censuses in ancient Athens, but the most educated modern guess puts the total population of fifth-century Athens, including its home territory of Attica, at around 250,000 - men, women and children, free and unfree, enfranchised and disenfranchised. Of those 250,000 some 30,000 on average were fully paid-up citizens - the adult males of Athenian birth and full status. Of those 30,000 perhaps 5,000 might regularly attend one or more meetings of the popular Assembly, of which there were at least 40 a year in Aristotle's day. 6,000 citizens were selected to fill the annual panel of potential jurymen who would staff the popular jury courts (a typical size of jury was 501), as for the trial of Socrates.

Only adult male citizens need apply for the privileges and duties of democratic government, and a birth criterion of double descent - from an Athenian mother as well as father - was strictly insisted upon. Women, even Athenian women, were totally excluded - this was a men's club. Foreigners, especially unfree slave foreigners, were excluded formally and rigorously. The citizen body was a closed political elite.

7The Ideals of DemocracyPericles Funeral Oration (431 BC):

Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority, but of the whole people. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty . . .

The Ideals of DemocracyHere each individual is interested not only in his own affairs but in the affairs of the state as well: this is a peculiarity of ours: we do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all.

The Ideals of DemocracyWe Athenians, in our own persons, take our decisions on policy or submit them to proper discussions: for we do not think that there is an incompatibility between words and deeds; the worst thing is to rush into action before the consequences have been properly debated.

Ideals of DemocracyPolitical equality

Citizen participation

Deliberation

The Romans and RepublicanismPeople would elect representatives from their own areas, and these representatives would be members of a larger body which would govern the entire society

Correspondence between the acts of the government and the interest of the governedThe Romans adopted many of the Greek traditions and culture in the process called Hellenization (the Greek term for Greece is Hellas; it was the Romans who called it Graecus). Rome was a republic for the first 500 years, and an empire for the next 500 (roughly from 500 BCE to CE 500). As a republic, it had a 300-man Senate from the aristocratic class (patricians) who guided the state; and it had the popular assemblies of the common people (plebeians). The Senate and the assemblies selected the most powerful people -- the consuls -- two people who ruled for one year. Because of the sheer geographic and population size of the Roman republic, direct democracy as practiced under the Greeks became impractical. Thus, the idea of representation was promoted. People would elect representatives from their own areas, and these representatives would be members of a larger body which would govern the entire society. This eventually led to combining the features of a democracy, aristocracy and monarchy. The idea of this mixed constitution was advanced by another great Greek historian and philosopher who studied Roman politics -- Polybius (204-122 B.C.)

12Mixed Constitutions=Separation of PowersThe Disappearance of DemocracyDismissal of the viability of democracy as a political form

Feudalism and Absolute Rule

Capitalism Rises, Democracy ReappearsIn the 17th century, 80% of Europeans lived in communities of under 3,000 people, rural communities without much contact beyond their vicinity.

Its economy, culture and politics were basically subsistence and parochial.

The discovery of the New World in 1492

The development of European interests in India and Africa, and

The sudden opportunities that offered for capital profits on a grand scaleEuropeans started to become rich, very rich. A vastly accelerating trade resulted in the creation of a robust middle class; and the rise of cities.

Capitalism Rises, Democracy ReappearsCapitalism Rises, Democracy ReappearsThose that are considerably wealthy did not possess political power

No taxation without representation

Ideals of Liberal DemocracyElections that are reasonably fair, and free.

A set of rights such as freedom of expression, of speech, of association, of information, of religion, and the right to property

Rule of law

Constitutionalism

Rule of Lawa principle of governance in which all persons, institutions and entities, public and private, including the State itself, are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced and independently adjudicated, and which are consistent with international human rights norms and standardsRule of LawIt requires, as well, measures to ensure adherence to the principles of supremacy of law, equality before the law, accountability to the law, fairness in the application of the law, separation of powers, participation in decision-making, legal certainty, avoidance of arbitrariness and procedural and legal transparency." (United Nations, 2004)

ConstitutionalismConstitutions limit the powers of governmentEstablishing, defining, distributing the powers of governmentBill of rightsPower of amendmentSumming UpThe Story of DemocracyFirst wave of democratization (1828-1926) had its roots in the American and French Revolutions

Second wave of democratization (1943-62) resulted from the Allied occupation of several countries)

Third Wave- started in 1974 where democratic regimes replaced authoritarian ones in more than 30 countries in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

The first reverse wave (1922-1942) this began with the rise to power of Mussolini.

The second reverse wave (1958-1975) mostly regime transitions to authoritarian/military dictatorship that started with the 1962 military intervention in Peru.

23Disillusioned DemocratsKenneth Newton and Pippa Norris, for example, found out that of all 17 nations surveyed, all public institutions in these countries suffered considerable declines in the way people trust them.

A Strong Democracya modern form of participatory democracy that rests on the idea of a self-governing community of citizens united by civic education and who are made capable of common purpose and mutual action by virtue of their civic attitudes.Benjamin Barber