Myth, ideology and praxis in direct democracy. an exploratory enquiry

The origins of Direct democracy as a form of government can easily be traced back to the historical-political experience of ancient Athens in the V-IV centuries BC. Despite being included among the forms of government in ancient and medieval treatises, together with Monarchy (the government of one), Aristocracy (the government of a few) and their possible degenerations (cf. the Platonic-Aristotelian model)2, Direct democracy was no longer practiced in later centuries, with the exception of some well-defined and limited circumstances, and it never became a dominant form in a systemic way. For a long time, it was essentially considered an experiment that was neither repeatable nor desirable. After the French Revolution, which was anticipated, in many respects, by the First and Second English Revolutions (1642-1689) and by the American Revolution (1775-1783), the principle of popular sovereignty emerged in Europe and America; it gave rise to the first modern democracies, which, however, contrary to the Greek example, were representative democracies from the beginning. Such a principle, however, had and still has a far-reaching symbolic and ideological value for direct democracy as well, since it transfers the legitimation of power from a theological and/or metaphysical dimension (coinciding with the divine will or with some abstract, self-subsisting idea as the Platonic good) to a purely human level, stating that power always stems from the people, who originally hold it.