Emmanouil Marios L. Economou

Democracy and Education: A History from Ancient Athens

In the present essay we present first a theoretical model, introducing the term “macroculture” as a long-term set of norms, values, institutions, and organizations that characterize societies. We analyze how a/new democratic macroculture emerged for the first time in the Greek city-states by the end of the sixth century BCE. We then, inspired by Humboldt’s work on education as a condition for the good functioning of democracy, taking a case study, Classical Athens. Athenians were well aware that for a smooth functioning of democracy the citizens, who voted in the Assembly under direct democracy procedures, had to be educated. Thus, they could find good solutions in the decision process of the Assembly. To achieve this, they introduced some ingenious policy measures.

War for profit: English corsairs, institutions and decentralised strategy

In this study, we propose that in states with relatively weak central authorities, decision-makers had to develop market-oriented organisation solutions to successfully face a grave external threat, and these solutions proved to be efficient. Using an interdisciplinary approach that combines institutional theory, history and strategy, we analyse a case study, the use of corsairs (privateers) by England in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. We have found that the development of partnership companies went hand in hand for commercial and military purposes. English privateers proved to be economically efficient and superior to the centrally planned war operations of the Spanish empire.