Research Catalog

Title

Dangerous counsel : accountability and advice in ancient Greece / Matthew Landauer.

Author

Landauer, Matthew

Publication

• Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2019.
• ©2019

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

viii, 240 pages : illustrations; 23 cm

Summary

We often talk loosely of the "tyranny of the majority" as a threat to the workings of democracy. But, in ancient Greece, the analogy of demos and tyrant was no mere metaphor, nor a simple reflection of elite prejudice. Instead, it highlighted an important structural feature of Athenian democracy. Like the tyrant, the Athenian demos was an unaccountable political actor with the power to hold its subordinates to account. And like the tyrant, the demos could be dangerous to counsel since the orator speaking before the assembled demos was accountable for the advice he gave. With Dangerous Counsel, Matthew Landauer analyzes the sometimes ferocious and unpredictable politics of accountability in ancient Greece and offers novel readings of ancient history, philosophy, rhetoric, and drama. In comparing the demos to a tyrant, thinkers such as Herodotus, Plato, Isocrates, and Aristophanes were attempting to work out a theory of the badness of unaccountable power; to understand the basic logic of accountability and why it is difficult to get right; and to explore the ways in which political discourse is profoundly shaped by institutions and power relationships. In the process they created strikingly portable theories of counsel and accountability that traveled across political regime types and remain relevant to our contemporary political dilemmas.

Subjects

• Greece
• Government accountability
• Comparative government
• Politics and government
• Political consultants > Greece
• Greece > Politics and government > To 146 B.C
• Government accountability > Greece
• Democracy > Greece
• Despotism > Greece
• To 146 B.C

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages [223]-234) and index.

Contents

Introduction -- Accountability and unaccountability in Athenian democracy -- The tyrant : unaccountability's second face -- The accountable adviser in Herodotus' Histories -- Responsibility and accountability in Thucydides' Mytilenean debate -- Parrhēsia across politeiai -- Demagoguery and the limits of expert advice in Plato's Gorgias -- Conclusion.

Call Number

JFE 20-4536

ISBN

• 9780226654010
• 022665401X
• 9780226653792
• 022665379X
• 9780226653822 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2019009194

OCLC

1085593181

Author

Landauer, Matthew, author.

Title

Dangerous counsel : accountability and advice in ancient Greece / Matthew Landauer.

Publisher

Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2019.

Copyright Date

©2019

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Creator/Contributor Characteristics

Occupational/field of activity group: Political science teachers

Occupational/field of activity group: University and college faculty members

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages [223]-234) and index.

Chronological Term

To 146 B.C.

Other Form:

ebook version : 9780226653822

Research Call Number

JFE 20-4536