War, democracy and culture in classical Athens

The contemporaneity of these developments opens up some challenging possibilities. The military hyperactivity of fifth-century Athens may be another product of popular government and hence the dark side of its cultural revolution. Among contemporary witnesses of Athenian war-making, perceptions of the positive impact of democracy on military performance were more widespread than is usually assumed. Demosthenes, Isocrates, Herodotus and especially Thucydides canvassed how the democratic political practices of the Athenians underwrote their exemplary record of military success.

That democracy itself may be a major cause of the Athenian revolution in military affairs finds support in a number of groundbreaking political-science studies, which have appeared in the last several years. For example, Dan Reiter and Allan Stam have put beyond doubt the general superiority of democracy in waging war. Drawing on the database of all modern wars compiled by the US Army, they demonstrate statistically that modern democracies have enjoyed far greater military success than other types of regime, winning over 90 per cent of the wars that they have initiated and around 80 per cent of all wars which they have fought. In addition a series of recent studies show that while modern democracies may rarely fight each other, they have frequently fought colonial wars or attacked weaker non-democratic neighbours.

This research challenges the so-called Realist School which has dominated the theory of international relations since World War II and whose antecedents can be traced back to Thomas Hobbes’ interpretation of Thucydides. Proponents of this school assume that every state rationally calculates its foreign policy on the basis of what will maximise its security, power and economic wellbeing, regardless of the type of political regime it may have.

In addition these recent studies confound two pieces of popular wisdom about democracy.

The first of these is that democracies are particularly bad at prosecuting wars. Expressed most famously by Alexis de Tocqueville, this assumes that the liberty of a democracy undercuts military discipline, while the fear its leaders have of the voters and the complexity of its decision-making mean that the tough policies which are necessary for security are not always introduced quickly enough or at all.

Second, this evidence of democratic bellicosity contradicts a cherished view of our post-war era that democracies are intrinsically peace-seeking: they abhor violence in international relations, prefer nonviolent forms of conflict resolution and fight wars reluctantly, doing so only in self defence. In recent decades political scientists have developed this second popular belief into a general theory, which postulates that democracies rarely fight each other and hence should be promoted on a regional basis for the sake of peace and security. These popular beliefs and the dominance of the Realist School help explain why so little research has been done by ancient historians and political scientists on democracy’s impact on foreign policy in any period of world history.

This lack of scholarly attention is a cause of some concern. The end of the Cold War has presented established democracies with a range of new security challenges, which have become more complex since the terrorist attacks of September 2001. Today governments are under strong public pressure to intervene in civil wars or failing states and are wrestling with how to reconcile open government, due legal process and personal liberty with the perceived demands of counterterrorism.

In addition, the United States and some of its allies are promoting democracy militarily in the Middle East and further afield. These deployments are exposing our soldiers to the risks of death, injury and post-traumatic stress, costing enormous sums but reaping mixed results. In these circumstances we should understand better than we do whether our democratic institutions are properly designed for the optimal development and execution of foreign policy and whether our democracy-promotion efforts are well conceived.

The impact of democracy on Athenian war-making appears then to be an important problem for ancient historians: it concerns a striking feature of Athenian history and its investigation would fill a gaping hole in our knowledge base and potentially stimulate critical thinking about issues of real contemporary relevancy.

To begin exploring this important problem I have invited ancient historians, archaeologists and classicists from around the world to contribute to an edited collection on the impact of democracy on Athenian war-making (see above). Our chapters have now been peer-reviewed and fully revised and will be published by Cambridge University Press this year. Taken together they suggest that the political regime of classical Athens affected its war-making in two general but quite divergent ways. The democracy’s common dynamic of lower-class audiences and upper-class performers competing with each other led to a pronounced cultural militarism which encouraged the dēmos to become hoplites or sailors in ever larger numbers and to initiate wars very frequently. This was partly counterbalanced by the regime’s highly competitive and public debating of war and peace, which normally reduced the foreign-policy risks of this militarism, facilitated military innovations and efficiency, and helped develop the initiative of the Athenians on the battlefield.

Significantly the political debates, legal trials and dramatic competitions of classical Athens were the main forums for systematising and broadcasting the agreed communal identities and shared culture of its citizens. As lower-class citizens had the strongest influence on the democracy’s speeches and plays, this so-called civic ideology reflected their evaluations of themselves and others, particular points of view and perceived self-interests.