Democracy and Anarchy

Power in the Polis
At a time when democracy is under threat from new authoritarian forces and tendencies, this book looks back to the Greek dawn of the polis to uncover an element of democracy that has been repressed for centuries: its indissoluble link to anarchy.

Whether demokratía is uttered with nervous enthusiasm or utter contempt, this word—whose semantic history is retraced here—points to two interconnected events: it evokes both the people's entry onto the stage of history and the destitution of every power that claims some original foundation. The spectre of anarchy unsettles the city. Democracy was feared by the tragedians, narrated by historians and denounced by philosophers. The arché of fathers, property owners, autochthons and heirs was profoundly undermined and stripped of legitimacy, while the space of politics was inaugurated. Thus emerges the tragic condition of democracy, which is based on nothing certain, and risks even its own existence. Women are the protagonists of this story. It was a revolt of foreign women, fleeing domestic violence, that brought to the surface the compound term that names the people's capacity to assert itself. Democracy is born with hospitality. And the demos can never regress into éthnos, grounding itself in ties of blood and soil, nor can it suffocate conflict and division.

In this highly original analysis of democracy and its sources, Donatella Di Cesare brings to light a hidden and long-repressed feature of democracy and shows why it is relevant today, at a time when democracies face new and unprecedented dangers.

Contributor: David Broder (Translated by)

Translator: David Broder

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