Bernard Manin reader of ancient democracy

Abstract

This article examines the sources from Ancient philosophy used by Bernard Manin in The principles of representative government, on which he based the main arguments of his political theory. Manin, almost in an unspoken way, will occasionally return – both in his own reflections and through engagement in dialogue with others – to diverse interpretations of Athenian democracy that arise controversy to the meaning of his work. This results in an endorsement of the validity of Athenian democracy as a model case for the understanding of modern democracies. This article points out, firstly, that both the author and his work are criss-crossed by an intellectual tension of a marked philosophical and political character; secondly, that this tension, along with the discussions over a definition of what is a good democracy, opens a space for clarification of those controversies. The disputes, we will conclude, are not the result of misunderstandings; or if they are, they make sense in Bernard Manin’s own text.