Origin of DEMPOCRACY

The origin of democracy is found in Ancient Greece or Ancient India. The experts are still discussing it and in unProfesor we will tell you about it in detail.

The most common form of government today is democracy, this being the political system in which power is attributed to the people, being therefore a system in which everyone has the same opportunities. Democracy is not the same in all countries, nor has it been the same throughout its history, evolving over the years in different ways.

To get to know democracy in depth and understand its evolution, in this lesson by a Teacher we offer you a Summary of the origin of democracy.

Index

1. What is the origin of democracy in Greece?
2. roman democracy
3. Democracy in Ancient India
4. What is the origin of modern democracy?
5. Causes of the emergence of democracy

When it comes to talking about the origin of democracy, we must understand that democracy as we currently understand it was a long time coming, so we must talk about certain

The first of the democracies is the Greek, as we can see when we understand that the word democracy It is a Greek term used to refer to the power of the people. The first of the Greek polis to use this democracy was Athens, who considered that decisions should be made by an assembly in which the citizens were represented, within which women and slaves were excluded, instead of by kings or emperors as happened in other Greek polis.

We must understand that the Athenian population was mostly made up of slaves and they could not participate in public affairs, so we could say that democracy Athenian It was not a real democracy like the current one, since most of the population could not participate in public affairs.

According to historical sources, democracy had to be established in Athens about the sixth century B.C. c., Although the first mentions about this political system are born in the V century BC. C., since there was a debate about whether this was the best form of government, at least this is what the Greek historian Herodotus tells us.

This first Greek democracy was very different for many reasons, such as in your choice system. The Athenians made the selection of their representatives by draw, while the relevant decisions were made with a system of majorities. The assembly had great power, but there was no way to control or limit its power, except for a law that prevented the approval of a law that already had a contrary one.

The origin of democracy in Athens worked due to several factors, one of them being its sparse population, since with a population of 300,000, it had many fewer people than any current relevant state. Besides, the most of the population of Athens could not vote by not considering themselves "citizens", causing in practice very few people who made decisions.

Differences between the democracy of Athens and the current one

Regarding the differences of the Athenian democracy with the current one, we must understand that In the Athenian the power of the people is greater, since currently the people can only participate by voting every so often, choosing who should represent them in parliament or executive power. On the other hand, in Athens all citizens could participate, having a voice and participating in all public affairs. Over the years, demographic developments in Europe and Asia made it impossible to maintain this system.

Although Athens was the first We must understand that there were many states that began to use democracy during the Greek period, since many of the city-states were allies of Athens, and considered using the same system as the Athenians, forming democratic or quasi-democratic governments. democratic.

With the beginning of the decline of Athens, democracy stopped expanding ending this system for quite some time. The origin of the first democracy is Athens, although this was very different from the current democracy.

In unProfesor we leave you an article for you to know how did democracy work in athens.

To see the origin of democracy we must comment on the evolution it had throughout the years, in order to understand the different types of democracy that appeared until the birth of the current democracy.

The democracy of the Romans is not well known, but the reality is that they had a system very similar to that which had been used by the Athenians a short time before, since we must remember that Roman society was highly influenced by the Greeks.

the romans too they had an assembly whose members were elected by the people from among the citizens, but its great difference with the Athenians was that it gave powers to people not born in Rome, thus being a democracy More complete as there is more representation.

With the arrival of the roman empire Democracy was disappearing, with the diminishing power of the Senate and the creation of the figure of the emperor he had the power to decide on all existing questions. The different regions of the empire still had something similar to democracy, the leaders of the old areas being chosen, although the The passage of time made it more common for the emperor himself to be chosen by people close to him to choose all the ruling members of the Empire.

Even so, the Roman system was maintained in some regions even after its end and was recovered in certain ways by Italian cities during the Renaissance. Roman democracy was one of the most important in history, since his influence was key in certain states who maintained a democratic system and who contributed their ideas to the birth of modern democracy.

When talking about the origin of democracy, we tend to focus on Europe, since our western vision makes us forget about the rest of the world and think directly about Athens. But in this lesson from a Teacher we must go further and comment on the democracy in ancient India.

Sources talk about democracy in India It is very old, even older than that of Athens., existing in the middle of the first millennium BC. c. These democratic systems disappeared around 400 AD. C., with a series of militaristic monarchies seized power through conquest, thus disappearing democracy in India.

Sources talk about democracy in India being especially relevant in the northern part of India, being the moment in which this region had the greatest growth, with the birth of some of the most important and prosperous regions of India.

It should also be known that the same Alexander the Great he was introduced to democratic systems by arriving in India when he was campaigning for domination of much of the known world. Alexander the Great tells that many regions of India had systems similar to that of the Greek regions, although they had a larger population.

The origin of democracy really lies in India, but since the sources are not entirely certain, we cannot fully confirm that this democracy predated the Athenian one. In the end, the lack of sources makes it difficult to be completely sure of the true origin of democracy, since although the Greek or Indian may be the first, there may be other previous democracies of which we do not have constancy.

Once the cases of classical or primitive democracy have been discussed, we must go back to centuries closer to the ours, to start talking about the origin of the democratic systems that we know today and that have its beginning in the 16th century.

In the 16th century the birth of the European region of the republic of two nations made up of what we now know as Poland and Lithuania. In this region, the political system was known as Democracy of Nobles, since the monarch had little power and the true rulers were the nobles through a legislative chamber called Sejm. This system was the pioneer of the current democracy, serving as the basis for modern democracy, the parliamentary monarchy and the federal system.

Already in the eighteenth century A series of social movements that called themselves democracy began to appear throughout Europe. The first of these conflicts took place in Benelux, when the aristocrats and democrats clashed for having different visions of the political system that should exist in the region.

Little by little the democratic movements were thriving and especially when there were revolutions that tried to put an end to the absolutist system, and create a system where everyone was equal. For this reason, the first democracies were:

• the one of USA, arisen from his war of independence and ratified with the Constitution of the United States in 1789.
• the one of France, where after the French Revolution, the National Assembly promulgated a bill of rights, universal male suffrage, and the abolition of slavery.

Shortly after, political parties appeared in both nations and political rights were extended to the entire population, creating a very similar democratic system which we currently know.

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries laid the foundations of modern democracy, but it was the twentieth century the moment in which democracy became the most common and habitual system in our world for many reasons. Even with this, we must understand that even today not all democracies are the same, existing some with monarchy and others with republics, or others where the assembly has more or less power, being therefore very broad the types of democracy.

Among the main causes of the emergence of democracy we can find the following:

• Disappearance of the power of kings after the First World War, partly because of the war and partly because of the revolutions that took place before or after.
• The emergence of universal suffrage that allowed everyone to vote regardless of their economic level.
• recognition of women's suffrage, since women for a long time could not vote because they had a secondary role in ancient societies.
• decolonization of the Asian and African continents, thus giving birth to many new regions that chose democracy as a system.
• The birth of the declarations of human and social rights, They wanted everyone in society to be equal.
• The end of the dictatorship as a habitual system, Being a more globalized world in which states only negotiate with democratic countries. We must bear in mind that during part of the 20th century, dictatorships were common, especially during the fascist regimes, and it was partly the end of these that brought democracy to the world current.

If you want to read more articles similar to Origin of democracy - summary, we recommend that you enter our category of History.

• Guariglia, O. no. (2010). Democracy: origin, concept and evolution according to Aristotle.
• Up, p. L. (2002). The origin of modern democracy. republican notebooks, (49), 135-158.
• Atria, F., Salgado, C., & Wilenmann, J. (2017). Democracy and neutralization: origin, development and solution of the constitutional crisis. Lom Editions.