Democracy: Theory and Practice (from Pericles to Populism)

Democracy is conventionally taken today as a synonym for good government. Social scientists routinely turn to it for testing the progress of regimes that have not yet graduated to democratic life (“democratization”), for capturing the regression of liberal democracies into illiberal practices (“democratic backsliding”), and for describing regimes that have survived a close brush with authoritarianism (“democratic front-sliding”). However, throughout most of the history of Western political theory and practice, the term ‘democracy’ was a pejorative label for mob rule. Almost uninterruptedly until the 19th century, when representative government and modern constitutionalism crossed paths on both sides of the North Atlantic, it described a regime doomed by factions and anarchy and inevitably prone to demagoguery and tyranny. Driving this course are two key sets of questions. First: how did the term ’democracy’ change its meaning over time, from the ancient Greeks who coined it and the Romans who borrowed it to the early modern and modern thinkers who discussed it, up through our present? Second: how have these competing accounts of ‘democracy’ affected the practice of democracy and its relationship with constitutional government? How has the question of who counts as part of democracy’s demos been addressed? And what institutions and procedures have been championed across the centuries to organize political communities according to democratic principles? In tackling these questions, we will read and discuss the work of major representatives of historical and contemporary political thought who assessed democracy’s shortcomings and potential, examined the relationship between its theory and its practice, and offered enduring resources for thinking about democracy’s future in our present.