The Athenian amnesty and the ‘scrutiny of the laws’

2002 ◽  
Vol 122 ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin Carawan
Keyword(s):  
Civil Conflict ◽  
The Other ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Political Forgiveness

AbstractThe ‘scrutiny of all the laws’ that Andocides invokes in his defence On the Mysteries is usually interpreted as a recodification with the aim of barring prosecution for the crimes of civil conflict. This article advances four theses against that traditional reading: (1) In Andocides' argument the Scrutiny was designed for a more practicable purpose, not to pardon crimes unpunished but to quash any further action against former atimoi, those penalized under the old regime but restored to rights in 403. In context, coming close upon the summary of Patrocleides' decree, ‘all the laws’ means all laws affecting atimoi. (2) The other evidence from inscriptions and literary testimony, for the Athenian Amnesty and similar agreements, supports this reading: the oath that closed the covenants, mê mnêsikakein, functions as a rule of estoppel or ‘no reprise’; it was not in itself a pledge of ‘political forgiveness’. In regard to the Scrutiny, as in Patrocleides' decree, the oath means that old penalties, now cancelled, can never again be enforced. (3) The Scrutiny itself was a reauthorization of the old laws for summary arrest and other standard remedies against atimoi who trespass or violate their restrictions. As a corollary to this re-enactment, the statute of limitations was introduced, ‘to apply the laws from Eucleides’: the rules punishing the disfranchised cannot be used against those whose liabilities were incurred before 403. (4) Teisamenus' decree for new legislation was prior to this revision; it is not the decree that Andocides read to the court as a document of the Scrutiny. An ancient editor simply inserted the wrong document. Teisamenus envisioned no alteration of the ‘Solonian Code’; the decree for Scrutiny was an unforeseen but necessary correction. These measures were successive reforms sorting out the new hierarchy of rules, a process whose complexity is attested in Diocles' law.

scholarly journals Coup-Proofing and Civil War

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Koga Sudduth
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
The Other ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
The Future ◽  
Face Threats ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

Political leaders face threats to their power from within and outside the regime. Leaders can be removed via a coup d’état undertaken by militaries that are part of the state apparatus. At the same time, leaders can lose power when they confront excluded opposition groups in civil wars. The difficulty for leaders, though, is that efforts to address one threat might leave them vulnerable to the other threat due to the role of the military as an institution of violence capable of exercising coercive power. On one hand, leaders need to protect their regimes from rebels by maintaining strong militaries. Yet, militaries that are strong enough to prevail against rebel forces are also strong enough to execute a coup successfully. On the other hand, leaders who cope with coup threats by weakening their militaries’ capabilities to organize a coup also diminish the very capabilities that they need to defeat their rebel challengers. This unfortunate trade-off between protection by the military and protection from the military has been the long-standing theme in studies of civil-military relations and coup-proofing. Though most research on this subject has focused primarily on rulers’ maneuvers to balance the threats posed by the military and the threats coming from foreign adversaries, more recent scholarship has begun to explore how leaders’ efforts to cope with coup threats will influence the regime’s abilities to address the domestic threats coming from rebel groups, and vice versa. This new wave of research focuses on two related vectors. First, scholars address whether leaders who pursue coup-proofing strategies that weaken their militaries’ capabilities also increase the regime’s vulnerability to rebel threats and the future probability of civil war. Second, scholars examine how the magnitude of threats posed by rebel groups will determine leaders’ strategies toward the militaries, and how these strategies affect both the militaries’ influence over government policy and the future probability of coup onsets. These lines of research contribute to the conflict literature by examining the causal mechanisms through which civil conflict influences coup propensity and vice versa. The literatures on civil war and coups have developed independently without much consideration of each other, and systematic analyses of the linkage between them have only just began.

The Athenian Reconciliation Agreement of 403 bce and its Legacy for Greek City-States in the Classical and Hellenistic Ages

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Joyce
Keyword(s):  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Greek City ◽  
Political Forgiveness ◽  
The Law ◽  
City States ◽  
Robust Procedures ◽  
Greek World

This chapter surveys amnesty agreements throughout the Greek world in the Classical and Hellenistic ages and argues that in many the principle of political forgiveness was both important and necessary when reconciling communities in the aftermath of civil conflict. The most successful amnesties were those which made use of the law and prohibited the revisiting of old grievances which led to or stemmed from a period of internal strife. Where and when exceptions were made to this rule they normally had to be spelled out in the terms of a treaty. The methods by which individual cities put this principle into effect varied widely, but the most famous and enduring example, the Athenian amnesty of 403 BCE, illustrates that a community could only successfully reconcile if its citizens were willing to forgo vindictive instincts which otherwise would have destabilised it. Robust procedures were put in place to restrain vengeance and protect the rights of individuals.

The Trickster in Egypt's January 25th Revolution

2013 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 834-864 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Armbrust
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Formation ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Political Ritual ◽  
Talk Show Host ◽  
Revolutionary Situation ◽  
Zero Sum

AbstractThe term “counter-revolution” evokes a straightforward contestation of political claims in a revolutionary situation. But contestation is not a zero-sum game: this side wins; the other side loses, and power remains the same. A revolutionary situation is unpredictable. New formulations of political claims may emerge in a protracted moment of “liminal crisis”—a kind of political ritual with no master of ceremonies capable of ending it. Indeed, the meaning of the political prize itself might be open to reinterpretation. My paper examines counter-revolution through the lens of Taufiq ‘Ukasha, an Egyptian talk show host and former member of the deposed National Democratic Party. Since the Revolution ‘Ukasha has become increasingly prominent as an unacknowledged spokesman for Egypt's Military Council, which assumed executive powers in the wake of the Mubarak regime's collapse. I argue that ‘Ukasha should not be understood simply as afilul—a remnant of the old regime. He is rather a “trickster,” a creature at home in the betwixt-and-between of open-ended liminality, and as such not an instrument of a socially grounded political power. In an environment in which the usual points of social and political orientation are called into question, the significance of a trickster is that he or she can become an object of emulation, an instrument of “schismogenesis”—the creation of a new social formation. A trickster, as a creature of pure liminality, is particularly prone to generating perverted forms of social knowledge. In ‘Ukasha's case, this new social formation is an unprecedented formulation of Egyptian militarism.

scholarly journals Democratization, Parliamentary Power, and Belligerency: A Quantitative Analysis

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
AFA'ANWI CHE
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Institutional Analysis ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
The Other ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Government Institutions ◽  
Foreign Policies

Research linking democratization, institutional strength, and war prescribes the construction of strong central government institutions prior to mass elections as a prime mechanism for mitigating the danger of international belligerency associated with democratization. However, institutional analysis of the democratization – war linkage skews institutional strength measures in favour of the executive, overlooking the other arms of government. Drawing on Côte d’Ivoire’s 2010 – 2011 internationalized post-election civil conflict, which was largely engendered by excessive executive powers and limited legislative leverage, this paper quantitatively evaluates the effect state legislatures bear on the democratization – war linkage. The evaluations yield at least some evidence for the postulated influence of state legislatures. Thus, whilst heeding extant scholarly recommendations for strengthening state institutions, foreign policies promoting liberal democracy should ensure the ultimate institutional configuration of power in aspirant democracies favours parliaments over executives for more auspicious outcomes.

Chateaubriand and Destutt de Tracy: Defining Religious and Secular Polarities in France at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century

1991 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 316-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph F. Byrnes
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Clear Definition ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
First Republic ◽  
Napoleonic Era ◽  
Louis Xvi ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of

Within ten years of the execution of Louis XVI two general and opposed features of the Old Regime, Catholic Christianity and Enlightenment rationality, were globally idealized by two authors—both of them former aristocrats— François-René de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) and Antoine-Louis-Claude Destutt de Tracy (1754–1836). No two participants in the complex discussion of religion and secularism that took place at the highest levels of government and Parisian intellectual life at the end of the First Republic and during the Napoleonic regime better represented on the one hand unconditional nostalgia for Catholicism, and on the other uncompromising intellectual pursuit of the secular scientific ideal. Though it has become customary to oppose the Neo-Christian intellectuals Chateaubriand, De Maistre, De Bonald, and Ballanche, to the Idéologues Destutt de Tracy, Cabanis, Maine de Biran, and others, I believe that this opposition can be clarified if the extremes represented by Chateaubriand and De Tracy are better defined. In other words, a clear definition of the personal metaphysics—thoughts and feelings—of Chateaubriand and De Tracy should establish the polarities of intellectual temperament that characterized the Napoleonic era.

Religion et société dans 1'histoire de 1'Espagne

1986 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-383
Author(s):  
Fernando Urbina ◽  
José Sanchez
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Transition To Democracy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Modern History ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Historic Time ◽  
Short Period ◽  
The Subject

This work is a collaboration between José Sánchez and Fer nando Urbina. José Sdnchez is the author of the first part, which analizes the relation between catholicism and society in the « short period» of modern history (Centuries XIX and XX) -conflictive period, during which Spain enters modernism, from the fall of the old regime up to the civil war and the transition to democracy-, Fernando Urbina is responsible for the second part which traces an outline on the « long period» of popular religiousness. Both have collaborated in the reasoning and resolution of the subject; presenting the general diachronic frame of historic time, in which the most synchronic and present arguments of the other articles within this piece, must be situated.

Why do civil wars occur? Another look at the theoretical dichotomy of opportunity versus grievance

2011 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 2627-2650 ◽  
Author(s):  
ZEYNEP TAYDAS ◽  
JASON ENIA ◽  
PATRICK JAMES
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Comprehensive Approach ◽  
The Other ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Civil Conflicts ◽  
Conflict Processes ◽  
Critical Aspects ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe purpose of this article is to review major theoretical arguments with regard to the causes of civil war and identify problems associated with the conceptual juxtaposition of opportunity versus grievance that predominates in the field. While they are critical aspects of conflict processes, perception of opportunity and grievance as two mutually competing explanations or separate categories ultimately can limit, rather than facilitate, our understanding of civil conflicts. For example, we show that not all motives can be designated easily as deriving from one or the other. In addition, the existing dichotomous framework masks other important questions about the way that collective action is achieved in some circumstances and not others or the way that some factors seem to generate grievances at one stage, perhaps, but then an opportunity at another orvice versa. Thus the priority should be to develop an integrated, comprehensive approach that can account for fundamental aspects of complex conflict processes. We conclude by providing suggestions for future research on civil conflict.

The Republics at Rome and Naples

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. R. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Near East ◽  
The Other ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The One

This chapter focuses the peace that prevailed on the Continent from the signing of the treaty of Campo Formio in October 1797 to the attack on Rome by the King of Naples in November 1798, which proved to be the opening episode in the War of the Second Coalition, and hence of the grand climax or confrontation in 1799 between the Old Regime and the New Republican Order. It argues that the peace was no more than a semi-peace. On the one hand, neither France nor Austria could accept the terms of Campo Formio with any finality. Each looked for bastions against the other in Switzerland and Italy. On the other hand, France with its Dutch ally remained at war with Great Britain. While British diplomacy worked to bring Continental armies back into the field against France, the French first threatened to invade England and support revolution in Ireland, then redirected their fleet and army into the expedition to Egypt, from which it was hoped that Bonaparte could counteract the growth of British power in the Indian Ocean, where both French and Dutch interests were at stake. The Egyptian campaign transferred the Anglo-French conflict to the Mediterranean and the Near East.

The Brazilian Economy During the Colonial Period

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Jobson Arruda
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
The Other ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Colonial Society ◽  
Analytical Perspective ◽  
Colonial Economy ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
The Tropics

The development of the Brazilian economy during the colonial period resulted from foreign inducements exercised by Portuguese colonialists under the auspices of the Portuguese Crown. Over the course of three centuries, responsibility for Brazil’s economic destiny was gradually transferred to Luso-Brazilians, a process by which both the flow and accumulation of income became naturally internalized. This topic must necessarily be contextualized within a decades-long process of historiographical confrontation in which distinct analytical perspectives have sought to assert themselves. Some arguments are linked to the label of the old colonial system (Antigo Sistema Colonial, or ASC) and others to the old regime in the tropics (Antigo Regime nos Trópicos, or ART). While both schools recognize the primacy of slavery in determining the character of colonial society, the former emphasizes colonial identity and the exploitative status that entailed, while the latter focuses on the empire and the endogenous accumulation of wealth. Despite the friction between these hegemonic currents since the 1980s, a third analytical perspective is possible that while incorporating elements present in the two established outlooks also rejects the exceedingly long periodization and calcified three-century focus they share. This different strain of scholarship distinguishes between specific moments in colonial economic development during which external and internal accumulation fueled one or the other, serving as complementary forces responsible for the gross and per capita growth of the colonial economy, as well as granting Brazil the profile of a modern colony.

scholarly journals O riso discreto e o soneto cômico: A uns olhos tortos

Navegações ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 118
Author(s):  
Cássio Roberto Borges Da Silva ◽  
Valeria Pereira Silva De Novais
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Gradual Shift ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

Este ensaio versa sobre a codificação dos argumentos risíveis nas práticas discursivas da Sociedade Corte. Os tratados de cortesia e as poéticas do Antigo Regime, apropriando-se da noção aristotélica de cômico, definem a matéria risível como torpeza física ou moral. De acordo com tais textos, o emprego de ditos risíveis deveria atender a um decoro áulico, codificado, basicamente, em função de duas finalidades: por um lado, a recreação dos ânimos, por outro, a ordenação agradável dos modos. Identificamos, pois, um gradativo deslocamento na normativa ética e poética, centrada, inicialmente, em questões relativas à matéria do riso e, posteriormente, nos dispositivos elocutivos que poderiam ser empregados em seu tratamento, ou seja, se, inicialmente, os preceptores definem o dito gracioso como amplificação de deformidades aparentes, posteriormente, a codificação do riso discreto concentra-se no tratamento engenhoso de torpezas propriamente ditas. O soneto cômico A uns olhos tortos, atribuído a Bacelar, exemplifica tais usos.********************************************************************The discreet laughter and the comic sonnet: The crossed eyesAbstract: His essay deals with the coding of laughable arguments in the discursive practices of the Court Society. The treaties of courtesy and the poetic of the Old Regime, appropriating the Aristotelian notion of comic, define laughable matter as a physical or moral turpitude. According to these texts, the use of laughable sayings should serve to an aulic decorum, coded, mainly because of two purposes: on the one hand as the recreation of spirits and on the other hand as pleasant sort of manners. We identify a gradual shift in the ethical and poetic norm, focusing initially on issues related to the matter of laughter and subsequently in elocutive devices that could be used in its treatment, that is, if initially the tutors define the graceful saying as an amplification of apparent deformities, later on, the codification of discreet laughter focuses on ingenious treatment of shame itself. The comic sonnet The crossed eyes, attributed to Bacelar, exemplifies such use.Keywords: laughter; decorum; engenius.

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