Donatella Di Cesare’s study of democracy and its beginnings in the Athenian polis presents anarchy not as democracy’s enemy, but as part of its defining task. The philosopher, who teaches at Rome’s Sapienza University, argues that democracy cannot rest on an unquestioned source of authority: its legitimacy depends on repeatedly debating who may participate and how power can be exercised.
Across seven chapters, Di Cesare revisits the idea of an-archy, using a hyphen to emphasize the rejection of arché: the supposed origin or foundation of rule. She contrasts this with monarchies and oligarchies, which have historically drawn authority from lineage, birth, inherited property and patriarchal power.
The Athenian democracy also fell far short of equal participation. Women, enslaved people and immigrants were excluded from public life, even as Athens became a lasting symbol of democratic government. Di Cesare uses this history to question accounts of democracy that reduce it to majority rule. Unlike monarchy and oligarchy, she argues, democracy has no fixed principle—such as ancestry or sex—to justify who holds power.
Instead, a democracy worthy of the name must keep reopening debate over what is legitimate and who is entitled to take part in public life. Its an-archical character lies in having no permanent foundation for authority beyond the continuing pursuit of equality and participation, Di Cesare argues.
The book also draws on Montesquieu’s description of the people in a democracy as both ruler and subject. That shifting relationship makes democracy an unfinished project: the legitimacy of power has to be negotiated again and again, and is granted only provisionally.
Di Cesare connects this fragility to the recurring temptation to discard democracy. She points to Greek tragedy, particularly Sophocles’ Antigone, as a way of giving voice to resistance against rulers who cling to authority and invoke the interests of the state. For Di Cesare, protest against self-satisfied power should not automatically be treated as a threat to democracy. The more serious danger, she suggests, may be the return of entrenched authority and privilege.
Sources: FAZ.