Understanding Citizenship, Democracy, and Political Evolution
Citizenship, Democracy, and Political Evolution
Citizenship: The tie that binds an individual to a state, involving obedience to the authority and the law, and the realization of democracy. Democracy is the government in which sovereignty belongs to the people, exercising that power either directly or through representatives. Instead of representatives chosen by the people who are automatically vested with authority, it is they who make the decisions at the judicial and executive level, limiting the people to expecting a new rating.
Policy: It is the art, definition, doctrine, or opinion on the state government and the activity of those involved in public affairs. But in reality, policy includes us all. It’s the political activity of groups of people who agree with each other and have a common goal, such as political parties or trade unions.
Polis: It was a community of citizens united by political ties. Therefore, the Greeks formed a unified state, but they were small city-states with a center and a rural area under its influence. Short of a true federation of leagues, they were subjected to the influence of Athens, Sparta, and Thebes. The law was the tie that bound its citizens deeply to their polis. Magistracy served to organize the defense and to choose the government. This was exercised by the council of 500 that were chosen by lot, by the Senate.
Forms of Government
Pure forms:
- Monarchy: Government of one
- Aristocracy: Government of the best
- Democracy
Corrupt forms:
- Tyranny: The tyrant governs
- Oligarchy: Government of the rich
- Demagogy: Democratic government favoring the people’s interests
- Authoritarian Government: Favoring the interests of those who have the power
The French Revolution
Causes: In the seventeenth century, France, under Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, rulers who exercised absolute power in an authoritarian and feudal regime, was surrounded by a court composed of the nobility and clergy who were engaged in wasting money on luxury holidays, leading a corrupt life and provoking wars for territory. In the meantime, a middle class or bourgeoisie had enriched itself with finance, trade, and agriculture. This middle class was the engine of the French Revolution. The bourgeoisie was angry because they had money but no privilege or right and had to bear the authoritarianism of the monarchy and the court. Philosophers, driven by the Enlightenment thinkers and educated people, influenced the revolution. Absolute monarchs took some ideas of the Enlightenment, trying to combine them with their governments.
Implications:
- Abolition of the monarchy in France and the privileges of the nobility and the clergy
- The principle of equitable distribution for the payment of taxes
- Redistribution of wealth and land
- Abolishment of imprisonment for debt and the right to inheritance only for the eldest son
- Principles of freedom of worship and expression
- Independent American revolutions
After the French Revolution, the idea of the constitution as the supreme law of a nation emerged, so that the state and citizens feel mutually committed, including declarations of rights, warranties, and the nature and functioning of state powers. Without them, there will be no commitment and bond between the rulers and their people, and vice versa.
Athens was a city of equal citizens as a large group, but they were closed. Women could not participate in the judiciary, and citizens were only men who had Athenian parents. Only they could own land, but they could not sell the inheritance they acquired through marriage.