Comparison Of Ancient Athenian Democracy And Modern American Democracy

What do you think of when you hear the term “Democracy”? A democracy is a form of government in which the people have power to make decisions by them directly or by elected representatives. The word democracy describes a political system. In a democratic country, all eligible citizens have the right to participate, either directly or indirectly, in making the decisions that affect them. The term “Democracy has been very popular in the recent years. For me Democracy is considered the highest form of human evolution and I will explain why I hold it in such a high regard in my research paper by compare and contrasting the ancient Athenian democracy and to the modern American democracy. In my research paper I will start with a brief introduction on how democracy was established, followed by their beliefs and values, the governmental differences, how the decisions were and are being made, and end with the strengths and weakness of these two eras.

It combines two shorter words: ‘demos’ meaning people and ‘kratos’ meaning power or rule, and we have "Democracy", or demos-kratos meaning "Power to the People" or “Rule by the People”. In Athens democracy began in the year 507 B.C., the Athenian leader Cleisthenes introduced a system of political reforms that he called demokratia, or “rule by the people”. Cleisthenes' invention was one of ancient Greece's most enduring contributions to the modern world. Athenian democracy was called the direct democracy, where Athenians gathered with fellow citizens to speak their minds and hear the views of others. They then voted directly on government laws and policies. Only Athenian male citizens over the age of 18 could participate in government and vote. Women and slaves were prohibited from politics and voting. The existence of slavery in Athenian society was contradictory to the beliefs of true