DEMOCRACY THEN AND NOW

Dr. Michael Scott

From the University of Cambridge

Rio de Janeiro
6, 8, 14, 16 and 17 December 2010

From 4pm to 6pm

CLICK HERE FOR THE LIST OF SELECTED APPLICANTS

This course is designed for undergraduate students in History, Social Sciences, Law, International Relations or Economics & Business from FGV-Rio and FGV-SP.

At the end of the course a number of students will be selected based on performance to participate in a trip to Greece organized by FGV to take place in 2011. Costs of the trip will be covered by FGV.

SUMMARY OF COURSE:

1. To understand why democracy emerged and flourished in ancient Athens in the context of the many other types of political organization in the ancient Greek world.
2. To understand the nature of ancient Athenian democracy and how it changed over time.
3. To understand how democracy was facilitated by, and impacted upon, other aspects of Athenian religious, military and social life.
4. To explore how the model of relations between Athens and its neighbors, its military alliances and conflicts affected the way we see the role of democracy in contemporary International Relations.

The first lecture will examine the origins and development of democracy in ancient Athens, its institutions, ways of doing business and its relationship to the development of Athenian religious and social life, as well to that of the Athenian empire during the 5th century BC. The first seminar will focus on key ancient texts (both literary texts and inscriptions) that offer positive opinions and insights into what democracy is. The second lecture will focus on democracy in transition from the end of the 5th century through to the end of the 4th century BC. It will seek to assess how much, and why, democracy changed through this period, and how it dealt with the challenges posed by the changing nature of the wider Greek world around it and the relations between Athens and its neighbors. The second seminar will again focus on ancient texts and this time on the critics of ancient democracy. The final lecture will seek to sum up the nature of Athenian democracy, place it in the wider context of the many different types of political organization across ancient Greece and trace the evolution of democracy from the end of the 4th century BC via Rome to the modern world and the 21st century. It will end by offering some thoughts on why the study of Athenian democracy can still be of use for today.

This course will assume no previous knowledge of ancient history, nor of ancient Greek or Latin. All texts studied will be in English translation, with discussion of the important Greek/Latin words if applicable.

Preliminary list for the course (before the first class):

Cartledge, Paul, The Cambridge Illustrated History of Ancient Greece (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

Morris, Ian, Raaflaub, Kurt, Castriota, David, Democracy 2500? Questions and Challenges (Dubuque: Kendall Hunt Publishing, 1998).

Rhodes, P. J. (2004). Athenian Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

Click here for the preliminary list for the whole course.