From the lecture, I discovered that the word democracy partly originates from the word demes which means the small division of the bigger sections that Athens was divided into during the ancient time. The second half of the word is the Greek word Kratos which means the rule. Similarly to modern times, democracy means the rule of the people, which implies that the citizens of a certain region’s major political decisions are delivered collectively. However, there are also two main differences between Athenian and modern democracies.
The major and most palpable difference between the two systems is who was considered eligible to vote. In Athens, only adult men could influence the city’s political and administrative decisions, while women, children, and enslaved people did not have this right. Although most modern states also do not allow underage participation in the voting process, women and adults of all classes are eligible to express their civil will officially. Therefore, it can be concluded that modern democracies are generally more inclusive and representative than ancient ones.
Moreover, the prevalent number of modern democracies are representative, whereas, in ancient Greece, they were direct. It means that while citizens could directly vote for proposed laws and foreign policies in the past, individuals nowadays should elect representatives who would make legislative and policy-related decisions for them. Despite the fact that the original Greek way may seem fairer and more attractive, it is necessary to consider that, nowadays, this procedure would be nearly impossible. Indeed, in Athens, for instance, only approximately 30,000 residents had voting rights, whereas today, most countries have a population that is counted in millions and even in billions of citizens. For this reason, it becomes clear that voting for each bill would be associated with tremendous temporal and monetary investments compared to a representative system.
Nevertheless, in a conclusion, it can be argued that the gist of modern democracy is not different from the one in ancient Greece. The idea that postulates that people can and should be the bearers of political power still remains the same. Despite the fact that there are some differences between the old and the modern systems, they rather reflect the evolution of society than changes in the main principle of democracy.