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Rise of the demagogues

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TitleInfo
Title
Rise of the demagogues
SubTitle
political leadership in imperial Athens after the reforms of Ephialtes
Name (type = personal)
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Hershkowitz
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Aaron
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1986-
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Aaron Hershkowitz
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author
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Figueira
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Thomas
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Thomas Figueira
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chair
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Power
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Timothy
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Timothy Power
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Advisory Committee
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internal member
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McGlew
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James
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James McGlew
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Advisory Committee
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internal member
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Chaniotis
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Angelos
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Angelos Chaniotis
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Advisory Committee
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outside member
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Samons II
NamePart (type = given)
Loren
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Loren Samons II
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Advisory Committee
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outside member
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Rutgers University
Role
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degree grantor
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School of Graduate Studies
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school
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Text
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theses
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DateCreated (qualifier = exact)
2018
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2018-05
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2018
Place
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xx
Language
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eng
Abstract (type = abstract)
This dissertation explores the phenomenon of ‘demagogues’ in Classical Athens both through the Greek term dēmagōgos (and its cognates) and through scholarly theories about the evolution of political leadership during the Athenian democracy. An analysis of the usage of dēmagōgos by ancient sources reveals that it initially lacked the pejorative sense of the modern ‘demagogue’, instead serving as a neutral descriptive term to indicate a citizen whose political activity consists (at least in part) in providing policy advice to the assembly of voting citizens in its capacity as the ultimate decision-making body in the democracy. By its etymology and its function dēmagōgos affirmed the power of the mass of citizens in the democracy (and thence democracy itself), as well as highlighting the removal of the privilege of state leadership from the private preserve of a limited, self-defining group of established elite families. The members of this group, and later more broadly the ideological opponents of democracy, appropriated dēmagōgos to use as a pejorative term for a bad leader, colored by an implicit or explicit belief that the dēmos, the mass of citizens, were unworthy of the role of decision-making and incapable of fulfilling that role competently. Modern scholarship, drawing on the antagonistic assimilation of demagogues to the mass of non-elite citizens given a greater political voice in democracy and influenced by an overly literal and generalizing reading of the abuse of certain demagogues in the plays of Old Comedy, has posited that demagogues were men of self-made wealth who used (or misused) rhetorical training and the promise of their financial competence to influence citizens in the assembly and courts without undergoing the traditional steps for building a political career. This dissertation endeavors to promote a nascent reaction to that line of thought, demonstrating that we lack evidence for demagogues making appeals to the citizen body in any capacity on the basis of financial expertise, and that there is no reason to conclude that the process of building a political career at Athens was substantively less involved at the end of the fifth century than at its beginning. The Old Comic depiction of demagogues is also analyzed in detail, with the findings pointing toward the existence of a generic set of areas or characteristics with respect to which a politician might be mocked; these characteristics were not based on a ‘right-wing’ bias in Old Comedy or a desire to reveal the ‘reality’ about targeted politicians, but rather they exploited the prejudices and anxieties of the audience of Athenian citizens more generally. Through Old Comedy it may be possible to discern Athenian preoccupations about contemporary demagogues, but care should be taken in assimilating those preoccupations to a rounded portrait of political leadership based in reality.
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Classics
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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ETD
Identifier
ETD_8729
PhysicalDescription
Form (authority = gmd)
electronic resource
InternetMediaType
application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
1 online resource (viii, 270 p.)
Note (type = degree)
Ph.D.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Athens (Greece)--History
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Democracy
Note (type = statement of responsibility)
by Aaron Hershkowitz
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TitleInfo
Title
School of Graduate Studies Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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rucore10001600001
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NjNbRU
Identifier (type = doi)
doi:10.7282/T3QZ2FCB
Genre (authority = ExL-Esploro)
ETD doctoral
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Rights

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The author owns the copyright to this work.
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Name
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Hershkowitz
GivenName
Aaron
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RightsEvent
Type
Permission or license
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2018-03-29 16:19:45
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Aaron Hershkowitz
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Affiliation
Rutgers University. School of Graduate Studies
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Author Agreement License
Detail
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.
Copyright
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Copyright protected
Availability
Status
Open
Reason
Permission or license
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