The role of the law in the classification of democratic constitutions in Aristotle, Pol. IV

Abstract

The author aims to show: (a) that the equality that characterizes ideal democracy (the “first” democracy) aims to ensure equal protection for the minority of the rich and the majority of the poor; (b) that equality thus understood is the fundamental nomos that every democratic regime must respect if it does not want to risk ruin; (c) that “extreme” democracy, led by demagogues, does not give rise to institutional changes but introduces, in particular through the uncontrolled use of decrees of general content, a political practice that finds its historical foundation in the Athens of the fourth century B. C.