The crisisof democracy is not a product of the digital age but the result of a cyclical political decay.
The very ancient Greeks who gave birth to democracy had already recorded, in an impressive way, the dangers that threaten it.
In the Epitaph, as delivered to us by Thucydides, Athenian democracy is presented as a regime of egalitarianism and meritocracy. power does not belong to the few but to the many, and the power is promoted on the basis of ability. This is the ideal standard…
However, the same historian, in describing the period after Pericles, notes that later leaders “collected the people“. And his observation was based on the absence of strategic responsibility on the part of the leaders. Democracy is not necessarily dismantled by violent means; it is eroded when politics becomes cool, when fear and short-term political gain replace long-term planning.
In Greece -but also in Europe– of institutional fatigue, and even more so in a period of geopolitical uncertainty, with war, energy crises and immigration pressures, the need for immediate responses often outweighs the responsibility for strategic thinking. Politics risks functioning as an impression management rather than an exercise in orientation.
Plato in The State describes democracy as a constitution of freedom that, when it loses its measure, turns into chaosand ultimately tyranny. His schema is timeless: Democracy, when it allows unlimited freedom, creates lawlessness and this in turn creates the need for a “saver“!
This is not theoretical hyperbole. In times of insecurity, society often looks for simplistic… “life-saving” solutions,usually promised by powerful but authoritarian personalities. The question, which arises today, both in Greece and in European states where extreme or populist currents are strengthening, is clear: Is the crisis of democracy not primarily a crisis of institutions, but a crisis of measure?
In his Politics, Aristotle distinguishes “proper” democracy from its degenerative forms. The key, in this case, is the rule of law. When the law rules, there is polity. When the passion of the moment rules, there is aberration.
And this reasoning takes on particular relevance in our time, when information is instrumentalized, institutional trust is weakened, politics is overly personalized, and the public sphere is polarized by all sorts of emotional outbursts.
Polybius goes even deeper in describing the cycle of polities. He starts with monarchy, moves to tyrannia, which leads us to aristocracy and from there to oligarchy. Next comes democracy, which may end up in mob rule as a result of possible internal decay.
The decay does not come from outside but from within. When citizens cease to see democracy as a responsibility and see it as a provision, the aberration begins.
Greece, with a historical experience of institutional aberrations and a deeply rooted democratic consciousness, cannot afford to be complacent. The same is true for Europe, which is attempting to balance its strategic power and its liberal identity in a world where authoritarian models are “effective.”
The ancients did not just bequeath us the word “democracy”. They also left us their warnings. And these are not about the collapse of institutions by external enemies, but about internal corruption when moderation, strategic responsibility and adherence to the law are lost. Democracy is not exhausted by the threats that surround it… It decays when it forgets itself!
