Abstract
One of the commonest clichĂŠs in the study of ancient and modern democracy is the claim that the former is âdirectâ, the latter ârepresentativeâ. A few scholars have recently explored areas in which the Classical Athenian democracy had representative features, particularly the magistracies. These studies continue, however, to understand âpolitical representationâ according to the definition proposed by the political scientist Hanna Pitkin, that is, as âacting [on the part of the political representative] in the interest of the represented, in a manner responsive to themâ. In this paper I introduce the insights of the recent âconstructivist turnâ in studies of political representation to the analysis of Athenian politics in the hope of suggesting, in what will necessarily be a brief and incomplete exercise, how productive this exciting new paradigm can be for understanding the dynamics of ancient democracy. I first lay out the basic tenets of constructivist representation, particularly the notion of the ârepresentative claimâ as developed by the political theorist Michael Saward, and argue for their suitability for studying ancient Greek history and political thought. Next, I adapt the model of the representative claim to two episodes of Athenian democratic deliberation, showing how it illuminates processes of demotic will- and identity-formation. I conclude by briefly underscoring how approaching Athenian politics in terms of constructivist notions of representation restores an aesthetic dimension to ancient democratic debate, one that allows us to compare more productively the âdemosâ of symbouleutic oratory with its counterparts in poetry, sculpture, and other media, namely as a represented object fashioned for creative and rhetorical purposes.
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