The Dēmos still Matters: Bridging the Gap between Political Theory and Democratization Research
The Dēmos still Matters: Bridging the Gap between Political Theory and Democratization Research

Summary/Abstract: This paper attempts to bridge the gap between contemporary scholars of democratization and researchersstudying the political history of Ancient Greece. Although these two subfields already share important commonalities,they have remained indifferent to each other’s work. I argue that the dēmos can serve as yet another area ofconvergence between them. The increased dialogue between these two research traditions should enrich scholarlydebates in both subfields and it also offers an opportunity to address their methodological drawbacks. Specifically,contemporary democratization research tends to undervalue the significance of ordinary people in the democratizationprocess. Conversely, scholars of the ancient Greek world have a tendency to be enigmatic about their useof research methods, which potentially perpetuates the perception that political theorists engage in anachronisticresearch. Thus, bridging these two camps offers a real opportunity to enrich them individually, as well as thedemocratization paradigm that underpins both of them.

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