List Of Democracy And Election-related Topics
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to democracy. Democracy – form of government which allows people to participate equally—either directly or through elected representatives—in the proposal, development, and creation of laws.Larry Jay Diamond, Marc F. Plattner (2006)Electoral systems and democracyp.168. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. Nature of democracy Democracy can be described as a(n): * Institution – structure or mechanism of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of individuals within a given human community. Institutions are identified with a social purpose and permanence, transcending individual human lives and intentions, and with the making and enforcing of rules governing cooperative human behavior. ** Government – the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the bureaucracy who control a state at a given time and to the system of government by which they are organized. Types of democ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Popular Initiative
A popular initiative (also citizens' initiative) is a form of direct democracy by which a petition meeting certain hurdles can force a legal procedure on a proposition. In direct initiative, the proposition is put directly to a plebiscite or referendum, also called a ''popular initiated referendum'' or ''citizen-initiated referendum''. In an indirect initiative, the proposed measure is first referred to the legislature, and then if the proposed law is rejected by the legislature, the government may be forced to put the proposition to a referendum. The proposition may be on federal level law, statute, constitutional amendment, charter amendment, local ordinance, obligate the executive (government), executive or legislature to consider the subject by submitting it to the order of the day. In contrast, a popular referendum that allows voters only to repeal existing legislation. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pericles
Pericles (; ; –429 BC) was a Greek statesman and general during the Golden Age of Athens. He was prominent and influential in Ancient Athenian politics, particularly between the Greco-Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War, and was acclaimed by Thucydides, a contemporary historian, as "the first citizen of Athens".Thucydides, s:History of the Peloponnesian War/Book 2#2:65, 2.65 Pericles turned the Delian League into an Athenian empire and led his countrymen during the first two years of the Peloponnesian War. The period during which he led Athens as Archon (ruler), roughly from 461 to 429 BC, is sometimes known as the "Age of Pericles", but the period thus denoted can include times as early as the Persian Wars or as late as the following century. Pericles promoted the arts and literature, and it was principally through his efforts that Athens acquired the reputation of being the educational and cultural center of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek world. He started an ambitious ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ecclesia (ancient Athens)
The ecclesia or ekklesia () was the assembly of the citizens in city-states of ancient Greece. The ekklesia of Athens The ekklesia of ancient Athens (polis), Athens is particularly well-known. It was the popular assembly, open to all male citizens as soon as they qualified for citizenship.In the fourth century, this would have been after two years of military service, i.e. at 20 years of age rather than 18. In 594 BC, Solon allowed all Athenian citizens to participate, regardless of class. The assembly was responsible for declaring war, military strategy and electing the strategos, strategoi and other officials. It was responsible for nominating and electing magistrates (archon, árchontes), thus indirectly electing the members of the Areopagus. It had the final say on legislation and the right to call magistrates to account after their year of office. A typical meeting of the Assembly probably contained around 6,000 people, out of a total citizen population of 30,000–60,000 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Areopagus
The Areopagus () is a prominent rock outcropping located northwest of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. Its English name is the Late Latin composite form of the Greek name Areios Pagos, translated "Hill of Ares" (). The name ''Areopagus'' also referred, in classical times, to the Athenian governing council, later restricted to the Athenian judicial council or court that tried cases of deliberate homicide, wounding, and religious matters, as well as cases involving arson of olive trees, because they convened in this location. The war god Ares was supposed to have been tried by the other gods on the Areopagus for the murder of Poseidon's son Halirrhothius (a typical example of an aetiological myth). History The exact origin of the Areopagus as an institution remains unclear. In pre-classical times (before the 5th century BC), the Areopagus may have been a council of elders for the city of Athens, with membership restricted by constitutional conventions to those who had held hi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ephialtes
Ephialtes (, ''Ephialtēs'') was an ancient Athenian politician and an early leader of the democratic movement there. In the late 460s BC, he oversaw reforms that diminished the power of the Areopagus, a traditional bastion of conservatism, and which are considered by many modern historians to mark the beginning of the radical democracy for which Athens would become famous. These powers included the scrutiny and control of office holders, and the judicial functions in state trials. He reduced the property qualifications for holding a public office, and created a new definition of citizenship. In 461 BCE, he was assassinated. Although it remains uncertain to who exactly killed him, it is believed to likely be at the instigation of his oligarch opponents. In the wake of his death, the political leadership of Athens passed to his deputy, Pericles. Early Life and Career The first mention we get of Ephialtes' ancestry is in Diodorus Library (11.77) when he presents Ephialtes as the s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cleisthenes
Cleisthenes ( ; ), or Clisthenes (), was an ancient Athenian lawgiver credited with reforming the constitution of ancient Athens and setting it on a democratic footing in 508 BC. For these accomplishments, historians refer to him as "the father of Athenian democracy". He was a member of the aristocratic Alcmaeonid clan. He was the younger son of Megacles and Agariste making him the maternal grandson of the tyrant Cleisthenes of Sicyon. He was also credited with increasing the power of the Athenian citizens' assembly and for reducing the power of the nobility over Athenian politics. In 510 BC, Spartan troops helped the Athenians overthrow the tyrant Hippias, son of Peisistratus. Cleomenes I, king of Sparta, put in place a pro-Spartan oligarchy headed by Isagoras. However, Cleisthenes, with the support of the middle class and aided by democrats, took over. Cleomenes intervened in 508 and 506 BC, but could not stop Cleisthenes and his Athenian supporters. Through Cleisthen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Archaic Period In Greece
Archaic Greece was the period in History of Greece, Greek history lasting from to the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, following the Greek Dark Ages and succeeded by the Classical Greece, Classical period. In the archaic period, the Greeks settled across the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea: by the end of the period, they were part of a trade network that spanned the entire Mediterranean. The archaic period began with a massive increase in the Greek population and of significant changes that rendered the Greek world at the end of the 8th century entirely unrecognizable from its beginning. According to Anthony Snodgrass, the archaic period was bounded by two revolutions in the Greek world. It began with a "structural revolution" that "drew the political map of the Greek world" and established the ''Polis, poleis'', the distinctively Greek city-states, and it ended with the intellectual revolution of the Classical period. The archaic period saw developments in Greek ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Solon
Solon (; ; BC) was an Archaic Greece#Athens, archaic History of Athens, Athenian statesman, lawmaker, political philosopher, and poet. He is one of the Seven Sages of Greece and credited with laying the foundations for Athenian democracy.Stanton, G. R. ''Athenian Politics c. 800–500 BC: A Sourcebook'', Routledge, London (1990), p. 76.E. Harris, "A New Solution to the Riddle of the Seisachtheia", in ''The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece'', eds. L. Mitchell and P. Rhodes (Routledge 1997) 103 Solon's efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral declineAristotle, ''Politics'', 1273b 35–1274a 21 resulted in his Solonian Constitution, constitutional reform overturning most of Draco (lawgiver), Draco's Draconian constitution, laws. Solon's reforms included debt relief later known and celebrated among Athenians as the (shaking off of burdens). He is described by Aristotle in the ''Constitution of the Athenians (Aristotle), Athenian Constitution'' as ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Classical Athens
The city of Athens (, ''Athênai'' ; Modern Greek: Αθήναι, ''Athine'' ) during the classical period of ancient Greece (480–323 BC) was the major urban centre of the notable '' polis'' ( city-state) of the same name, located in Attica, Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League. Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Isagoras. This system remained remarkably stable, and with a few brief interruptions, it remained in place for 180 years, until 322 BC (aftermath of Lamian War). The peak of Athenian hegemony was achieved in the 440s to 430s BC, known as the Age of Pericles. In the classical period, Athens was a centre for the arts, learning, and philosophy, the home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum, Athens was also the birthplace of Socrates, Plato, Pericles, Aristophanes, Sophocles, and many other prominent philosophers, writers, and politici ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Athenian Democracy
Athenian democracy developed around the 6th century BC in the Ancient Greece, Greek city-state (known as a polis) of Classical Athens, Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, and focusing on supporting liberty, equality, and security. Although Athens is the most familiar of the democratic city-states in ancient Greece, it was not the only one, nor was it the first; multiple other city-states adopted similar democratic constitutions before Athens. By the late 4th century BC, as many as half of the over one thousand existing Greek cities might have been democracies. Athens practiced a political system of legislation and executive bills. Participation was open to adult, free male citizens (i.e., not a metic, woman or slave). Adult male citizens probably constituted no more than 30 percent of the total adult population. Solon (in 594 BC), Cleisthenes (in 508–07 BC), and Ephialtes (in 462 BC) contributed to the development of Athenian democrac ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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History Of Democracy
A democracy is a political system, or a system of decision-making within an institution, organization, or state, in which members have a share of power. Modern democracies are characterized by two capabilities of their citizens that differentiate them fundamentally from earlier forms of government: to intervene in society and have their sovereign (e.g., their representatives) held accountable to the international laws of other governments of their kind. Democratic government is commonly juxtaposed with oligarchic and monarchic systems, which are ruled by a minority and a sole monarch respectively. Democracy is generally associated with the efforts of the ancient Greeks, whom 18th-century intellectuals such as Montesquieu considered the founders of Western civilization. These individuals attempted to leverage these early democratic experiments into a new template for post-monarchical political organization. The extent to which these 18th-century democratic revivalists succeeded ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |