Classical Athenian Demo In The Context Of Democracy

In the classical period,the whole polis was divided into 139 demes which are the basic constitution of the polis.Discussing the demes contributes to investigate the operation of democracy from a more subtle level and come to more integrate conclusions,and challenges the concept that the city is the single democratic activity center of the polis.The deme is a semiautonomous unit acting as a micro polis in practice which had independent administrative system and had active activities in the fields of politics,economics and religion.For this reason,the demes have close connection with the city and the democratic polis and influenced the latters.Therefore,in this dissertation,I will explore the activities of the demes in democratic context,and also examine the Athenian democracy on the deme level,analyse the influence of the demes upon the operation of democracy from both institutional and psychological perspectives.This dissertation consists of three parts.The first chapter examines the historical evolution of the demes,by which to investigate how the demes combining with the democracy,and then discusses the settlement model of demes and the composition of inhabitants to understand the defination of the deme.The second chapter examines the active political,economic and religious activities inside the demes and its interaction with polis.The functions and activities of demes made the democracy permeate into daily life of every citizen,and the Athenians' attendance at deme's democratic activity is more frequent and has a wider range which can challenge the single city center theory.Meanwhile,interaction between the demes and the polis relieved the contradictions of democracy,and promoted the unify operation of the polis and continuity of the democracy.The third chapter examines the influence of demes upon democracy from the psychological perspective.I analyse the formation of the Athenian multifold identity using the social identity theory,which includes the Athenian's identification of the membership of both the demes and polis.And then I investigate the influences of the functions and activities of demes that exerted on the formation and sustentation of the Athenian citizen identity,and aruge that the demes had promoted the the Athenian's recognition of the democracy and polis.