IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/ejlwec/v38y2014i1p163-183.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

War and democracy in ancient Greece

Author

Listed:
  • Nicholas Kyriazis
  • Xenophon Paparrigopoulos

Abstract

In the present paper we analyse some of the preconditions for the emergence of democracy in Ancient Greece. For democracy to emerge in Ancient Greece a combination of several enabling factors proved decisive: the development of new military tactic, the phalanx, marked by the appearance of a new type of heavy infantry warrior, the hoplite, who owned individually some property, i.e. land, sufficient to permit him to finance his weaponry and a city-state culture. We describe the emergence of this new type of warrior, link this emergence to the establishment of individual property rights and show how this brought about a military revolution, exemplified in a new tactical formation, the phalanx. We then proceed by showing how the attitudes and learning processes made necessary by this new type of warfare were transformed in the civic values and virtues that shaped democratic institutions. Our thesis can thus be briefly termed as the “military cum city-state” explanation of democracy. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Nicholas Kyriazis & Xenophon Paparrigopoulos, 2014. "War and democracy in ancient Greece," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 38(1), pages 163-183, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:ejlwec:v:38:y:2014:i:1:p:163-183
    DOI: 10.1007/s10657-012-9352-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10657-012-9352-1
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10657-012-9352-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicholas Kyriazis, 2009. "Financing the Athenian state: public choice in the age of Demosthenes," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 109-127, April.
    2. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2000. "Why Did the West Extend the Franchise? Democracy, Inequality, and Growth in Historical Perspective," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1167-1199.
    3. Nicholas Kyriazis & Theodore Metaxas, 2011. "Path dependence, change and the emergence of the first joint-stock companies," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(3), pages 363-374.
    4. George Halkos & Nickolas Kyriazis, 2010. "The Athenian economy in the age of Demosthenes: path dependence and change," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 29(3), pages 255-277, June.
    5. Scheidel,Walter & Morris,Ian & Saller,Richard P. (ed.), 2007. "The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521780537.
    6. Lyttkens, Carl Hampus, 2010. "Institutions, taxation, and market relationships in ancient Athens," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(4), pages 505-527, December.
    7. Bitros, George C. & Karayiannis, Anastassios D., 2010. "Morality, institutions and the wealth of nations: Some lessons from ancient Greece," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 68-81, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marciano, Alain & Ramello, Giovanni B., 2019. "Introduction to the symposium on the empirics of judicial institutions," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 73-80, February.
    2. Bryan C. McCannon, 2017. "Who pays taxes? Liturgies and the Antidosis procedure in Ancient Athens," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 407-421, December.
    3. Economou, Emmanouel/Marios/Lazaros & Kyriazis, Nicholas, 2017. "Choosing the optimal public choice scenario through a democratic educational procedure: A history from ancient Athens," MPRA Paper 76810, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Economou Emmanouil M.L. & Kyriazis Nicholas C., 2016. "Choosing Peace Instead of War. A Lesson from Athenian Democracy," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 22(2), pages 191-212, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tridimas, George, 2015. "War, disenfranchisement and the fall of the ancient Athenian democracy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 102-117.
    2. Nicholas Kyriazis & Emmanouil Economou, 2015. "Macroculture, sports and democracy in classical Greece," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 431-455, December.
    3. Economou, Emmanouel/Marios/Lazaros & Kyriazis, Nicholas, 2012. "Macroculture, Athletics and Democracy in ancient Greece," MPRA Paper 45903, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Emmanouil Economou & Nicholas Kyriazis & Theodore Metaxas, 2015. "The institutional and economic foundations of regional proto-federations," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 251-271, August.
    5. Kyriazis, Nicholas & Metaxas, Theodore, 2013. "The emergence of democracy: a behavioural perspective," MPRA Paper 47146, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Kyriazis, Nicholas K. & Karayiannis, Anastassios D., 2011. "Democracy, Institutional Changes and Economic Development: The Case of Ancient Athens," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 61-91.
    7. Nicholas Kyriazis & Theodore Metaxas, 2011. "Path dependence, change and the emergence of the first joint-stock companies," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(3), pages 363-374.
    8. Lyttkens, Carl Hampus & Gerding, Henrik, 2015. "Understanding the Politics of Perikles Around 450 BC. The Benefits of an Economic Perspective," Working Papers 2015:13, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    9. George Tridimas, 2011. "A political economy perspective of direct democracy in ancient Athens," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 58-82, March.
    10. Kyriazis, Nicholas & Paparrigopoulos, Xenophon & Economou, Emmanouel/Marios/Lazaros, 2013. "The Glue of Democracy: Economics, Warfare and Values in Classical Greece," MPRA Paper 45117, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Militiades N. Georgiou & Nicholas Kyriazis & Emmanouil M. L. Economou, 2015. "Democracy, Political Stability and Economic performance. A Panel Data Analysis," Journal of Risk & Control, Risk Market Journals, vol. 2(1), pages 1-18.
    12. Economou, Emmanouel/Marios/Lazaros & Kyriazis, Nicholas, 2015. "Athenian fiscal expansionary policy and peace versus war strategy," MPRA Paper 62987, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Kyriazis, Nicholas & Economou, Emmanouel/Marios/Lazaros, 2012. "Property rights and democratic values in Bronze Age and Archaic Greece," MPRA Paper 42399, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Kyriazis, Nicholas & Metaxas, Theodore, 2012. "War for Profit: Macroculture, Corsairs and partnership companies," MPRA Paper 40926, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Pitsoulis, Athanassios, 2011. "The egalitarian battlefield: Reflections on the origins of majority rule in archaic Greece," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 87-103, March.
    16. Economou, Emmanouel/Marios/Lazaros & Kyriazis, Nicholas, 2017. "Choosing the optimal public choice scenario through a democratic educational procedure: A history from ancient Athens," MPRA Paper 76810, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. McCannon Bryan C., 2012. "The Origin of Democracy in Athens," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(2), pages 531-562, October.
    18. Emmanouil M. L. Economou & Nikolaos A. Kyriazis, 2021. "Achieving Sustainable Financial Transactions under Regimes without a Central Bank—An Intertemporal Comparison," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-13, January.
    19. Economou, Emmanouel/Marios/Lazaros & Kyriazis, Nicholas, 2014. "Aetolians, Europeans and Canadians: A Comparative analysis of federations," MPRA Paper 57290, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Nicholas KYRIAZIS & Emmanouil ECONOMOU, 2013. "Social Contract, Public Choice And Fiscal Repercussions In The Athenian Democracy," Theoretical and Practical Research in the Economic Fields, ASERS Publishing, vol. 4(1), pages 61-76.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Democracy and values; Property rights; Ancient Greece; D70; K00; N00; N01; N43; P14; P16;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General
    • K00 - Law and Economics - - General - - - General (including Data Sources and Description)
    • N00 - Economic History - - General - - - General
    • N01 - Economic History - - General - - - Development of the Discipline: Historiographical; Sources and Methods
    • N43 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • P14 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Property Rights
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:ejlwec:v:38:y:2014:i:1:p:163-183. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.