CALL FOR PAPERS: "DEMOCRACY AND ITS CRITICS: ANCIENT AND MODERN"
Ευαγγελία Σέμπου
The Political Thought Specialist Group of the Political Studies Association
of the U.K. will be holding a one-day conference on "Democracy and its
Critics: Ancient and Modern" in October 2011 in Oxford (the precise venue to
be confirmed; possible date: 22 October 2011). Below is an outline of the
aims of the conference and a call for papers. Interested participants should
contact either me or Dr. Zenon Stavrinides (secretary) via e-mail at the
addresses indicated below. Please send abstracts to BOTH Zenon Stavrinides
and me. An early expression of interest would be appreciated, as it would
help us determine numbers.
Best Wishes,
Dr. Evangelia Sembou
Convenor, Political Thought Specialist Group of the Political Studies
Association of the United Kingdom
http://www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/39/polthought.aspx
DEMOCRACY AND ITS CRITICS: ANCIENT AND MODERN
Most of the countries of the world are now democracies in that they have
representative governmental institutions controlled by freely elected
officials which operate under the rule of law and guarantee a wide array of
individual rights, including equality and non-discrimination, personal
liberty, freedom of expression, association and conscience, fair trials and
a variety of social benefits. If a country’s democratic system works
tolerably well, the large majority of its citizens would not want to live
under a very different political system, such as an absolute monarchy,
communism, fascism, one-party dictatorship or anarchism, and this provides
some indication of the relationship between citizenry and democracy.
Nevertheless, in the past century or so democracies have had their critics
and in some cases powerful enemies who have argued that democracy does not
provide society the security, economic development, welfare and the other
goods it ‘really’ needs. Some critics, for example, argue that modern
liberal democracy is not a ‘real’ democracy as power is actually exercised
not by the people, but by an oligarchy or a bureaucratic elite, and they
compare this system unfavourably with the direct democracy of Athens and
other Greek city-states in the 5th and 4th centuries BC where the body of
citizens actually participated, on an equal footing, in making decisions on
public issues. However, ancient democracy also had its critics, including
great thinkers like Plato and Aristotle. Similar republican forms of
government in ancient Rome also had their critics and enemies.
The aim of the conference is to bring together and encourage discussion
among scholars who are interested in the main features of ancient and modern
forms of democracy, and seek to assess the purposes and methods of their
governments by reference to the wishes and needs of the people.
Papers are invited that deal with any of the above issues. Please send an
abstract to BOTH Evangelia Sembou (evangeli...@hotmail.com) and Zenon
Stavrinides (z.stav...@leeds.ac.uk) by 30 April 2011.
Messages to the list are archived at http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/philos-l.html.
Prolonged discussions should be moved to chora: enrol via
http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/chora.html.
Other philosophical resources on the Web can be found at http://www.liv.ac.uk/pal.