Dangerous Counsel : Accountability and Advice in Ancient Greece / Matthew Landauer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Landauer, Matthew, Author.

Series:

Chicago scholarship online.

Chicago scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Political consultants--Greece.

Political consultants.

Government accountability--Greece.

Government accountability.

Democracy--Greece.

Democracy.

Despotism--Greece.

Despotism.

Comparative government.

Greece--Politics and government--To 146 B.C.

Greece.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (249 pages)

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

We often talk loosely of the "tyranny of the majority" as a threat to the workings of democracy. But, in ancient Greece, the analogy of demos and tyrant was no mere metaphor, nor a simple reflection of elite prejudice. Instead, it highlighted an important structural feature of Athenian democracy. Like the tyrant, the Athenian demos was an unaccountable political actor with the power to hold its subordinates to account. And like the tyrant, the demos could be dangerous to counsel since the orator speaking before the assembled demos was accountable for the advice he gave. With Dangerous Counsel, Matthew Landauer analyzes the sometimes ferocious and unpredictable politics of accountability in ancient Greece and offers novel readings of ancient history, philosophy, rhetoric, and drama. In comparing the demos to a tyrant, thinkers such as Herodotus, Plato, Isocrates, and Aristophanes were attempting to work out a theory of the badness of unaccountable power; to understand the basic logic of accountability and why it is difficult to get right; and to explore the ways in which political discourse is profoundly shaped by institutions and power relationships. In the process they created strikingly portable theories of counsel and accountability that traveled across political regime types and remain relevant to our contemporary political dilemmas.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Accountability and Unaccountability in Athenian Democracy

2 The Tyrant: Unaccountability's Second Face

3. The Accountable Adviser in Herodotus' Histories

4. Responsibility and Accountability in Thucydides' Mytilenean Debate

5. Parrhēsia across Politeiai

6. Demagoguery and the Limits of Expert Advice in Plato's Gorgias

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Previously issued in print: 2019.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 06. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780226653822

022665382X

OCLC:

1127089735