The Three Definitions Of Demos

The three definitions of "Demos" According to the Blackwell (2003), Athenian Demos has three meanings, that "was the local village, the population generally, and the assembly of citizens that governed the state." For me, it seems that demo is a just similar word for the public. So, I focused on the word, people on its meaning as follows. Ober (2007) explained that demos could be translated as "the people, "which is "native adult male residents of a polis." Especially, it refers to a collective body, that is a bunch of people. Unlike monarchy (empowered body is only one) and oligarchy (few are empowered), democracy (or polyarchy) does mean that collective, many, and the public is empowered. So, Dr. Brand (n.d.) say that the demos used to refer the subdivision of land. The first meaning of the demos, I can say, is "the many people."

There is the second definition of demos. Demos could be powered because there were many people. The demos gain a collective capacity to effect change in the public realm (polis). However, it is not "control" the public realm with a public office holder's power like in the monarchy and oligarchy. It is a just "the public collective strength and ability" to reconstitute the public realm through action. So, the second definition of the demos is the public collective strength and ability. The demos have many people which have public collective strength and ability and was consisted of diverse individual groups, which are capable of choosing "freely" in their own interests. So, the last definition of the demos is a free participation on an equal basis. There were institutional forms to support a free participation of diverse individuals such as voting rule and lotteries for offices. Putting two and two together, the definition of the demo is "free native male population of a national