© Erik Moberg
Oligarchies
in the history of the world
The
emergence and development of the constitution
The
constitution in the year -134
Oligarchies are
state monopolies of violence which among others, and above all, are
characterized by being controlled by a rather small group of persons. It might
for instance be a group of families having acquired influence by means of great
land possessions, gainful commercial activities, or something else. The ruling
group is thus smaller than in democracies in which, in principle, the whole people
takes part in the decision-making, and bigger than in dictatorships in which,
again in principle, a single individual controls what is going on.
The size of the
ruling group – intermediate size if one so wants – is however not the only
characteristic of the oligarchies. Had it been like that the border-lines to
both direct democracies and dictatorships had been less sharp than in fact they
are. In a direct democracy a smaller group may for instance take hold of the
power at the expense of the rest of the people, and in such cases, if only the
size of the ruling group mattered, one could talk about oligarchies. And in
dictatorships the power may now and then become spread over larger groups as
when the mandarins took over in China or the army in the Roman Empire. Even
here one could talk about oligarchies if the number of those ruling was the
only relevant characteristic. An oligarchy, as I use the term here, is however
not only characterized by the size of the governing group. Important is also
that there is a generally known, on the whole respected set of rules specifying
the individuals belonging to the ruling group, the procedures for selecting
these individuals, and the functions or particular tasks of these individuals.
The existence of such a set of rules distinguishes the oligarchies from cases
which otherwise would have been fuzzy, for instance direct democracies run off
the rails or dictatorships similarly run off. Thus I will talk about
oligarchies only when the ruling small group also is supported by an open,
well-known and basically respected set of rules.
States in which the
ruling group has an intermediary size, but which are lacking established and
respected rules are in fact quite common, and of more types than the
transformed direct democracies or dictatorships just mentioned. Consider for
instance today’s Russia. The efforts undertaken after the fall of the Soviet
Empire for introducing representative democracy have obviously failed, and the
present situation is characterized by small group ruling without generally
respected rules. And for this reason – that lack of rules strict enough – the
situation is probably unstable. Within a rather short period of time – perhaps
within the next ten years – considerable transformations are likely to take
place. Perhaps towards democracy, or perhaps back towards party dictatorship. Something
similar, as I argued in the section “Dictatorship and market economy” in
chapter 5, may be presumed about today’s China.
The number of known
oligarchies in the history of the world is not that great, and all of them –
except, perhaps, a few Indian oligarchies around the year -500 – have appeared
within what in Chapter 2 was called the main course. Furthermore they existed
only during an intermediate period – the first ones appeared long after the
first states, and they had all disappeared before the modern age. The first
western oligarchy was probably Sparta, then came the Roman Republic, and then,
much later, in Europe of the Medieval Age and the Renaissance, a number of
oligarchic city-states such as Venice appeared. But many more than that they
have probably not been. The pattern of existence is thus similar to that for
the direct democracies, whereas the contrast to the patterns for dictatorships,
as well as for the representative democracies, is striking. The former, as we
have seen, have been many, have existed during all the time we are interested
and in all parts of the world, and have also dominated for a very long period.
The latter, the representative democracies, appeared only late, but after that
spread rapidly over large parts of the world.
But even if the
oligarchies have been relatively few, and existed only during an intermediate
period, they have nevertheless differed considerably from each other. The
property variation is, in fact, probably greater than for any other of the four
types of states dealt with in this book – at least it is more difficult to
generalize about the oligarchies. In this chapter I will therefore take up
three individual cases, namely Sparta, the Roman Republic and Venice.
Sparta, we remember
from chapter 2, was for a long time and beside Athens, the most important of
the Greek city states. In the case of Sparta the city-state label is however
somewhat misleading. There was thus no main city corresponding to Athens, just
four large villages fairly close to each other. And neither was there any
defensive wall until at a very late stage, after the Great Power era we are
interested in here.
But there were also
interesting similarities between Athens and Sparta. In both states the
dictatorships – the tyrannies – were abandoned at the time when Greek infantry
soldiers, the hoplites, began to be used on a larger scale and thereby showed their
strength, that is about the year 600. In both cases it was a reaction against
the tyranny and even if the extent of the change differed in the two states, it
nevertheless went in the same direction. Athens, as we have already seen, went
all the way to direct democracy, whereas Sparta rather stopped as an oligarchy.
In Sparta as well as in Athens the new constitutional orders – the oligarchy
and the direct democracy respectively – were however in place and fully
developed prior to the Persian wars, so important and crucial for both states.
In these wars the two states, for once, were on the same side and triumphed.
Even if Sparta never
became an empire it nevertheless developed into a local great power. It
occupied successively larger areas on the Peloponnesian peninsula and became
the territorially greatest Greek city-state. Thereby it acquired not only
valuable land but also labor force since the people of the occupied areas were
made slaves. And as a society Sparta was the diametrical opposite to Athens
with its free and open discussions, its philosophical and artistic creativity,
and its extensive naval foreign trade. In contrast to this Sparta was a pure
land-state almost exclusively aiming at war-faring. It was virtually, in fact,
a permanent military camp. Since Sparta was an oligarchy I follow the
terminology introduced in chapter 3 and call the ordinary Spartans, the
individuals most “free”, citizens. This may seem strange since they, as we will
see, did not at all enjoy the same rights as the citizens in democratic Athens.
But still they were much freer than the many slaves. And possibly they were
also loyal with their society.
Sparta’s male
citizens were its soldiers. It was they who did the fighting, and their
training began early. At the age of seven the training of the sons of the
citizens’ families began, and when they had reached the age of twelve they were
taken away from the families and put into training camps characterized by a
brutal, mechanical discipline. During two years, from the age of eighteen to
twenty, they endured the hard education for becoming effective hoplite
soldiers. But not even this made them full citizens. For this they also had to
be successfully adopted by a so called syssitia,
a group of about fifteen men. These groups, which were the smallest entities in
the military organization, and in which the men lived to the age of thirty,
were characterized by, among others, homosexuality, strange and rigorously
upheld meal rituals and an extreme soldier culture. The existence of these
groups meant that Sparta was constantly mobilized. Spartan boys/men were thus
compelled to live outside family and home from the age of twelve to thirty,
even if they were allowed to marry during that time.
To this it should be
added that Sparta, according to all evidence, was a manifest class society. A
land-owner aristocracy was quite influential and many of the common people,
even if not slaves, could nevertheless, according to the standards of the age,
be quite poor.
After the Persian
wars Sparta and Athens again became enemies and Sparta, due to its successes in
the Peloponnesian war (431–04), came to dominate the Greek world. Somewhat
later Sparta however met a superior enemy, even this one a Greek city-state,
namely Thebes. At the battle of Leuctra in 371 Sparta lost forever its Great
Power status.
Four different
institutions or organs participated in the decision-making, namely: two kings,
a board consisting of five so called ephors,
a council of old men, the gerousia,
and an assembly comprising all grown up, male citizens.
Sparta thus had two
kings – unique in the whole history of the world as it seems – and even if they
inherited their positions they came from two different families. So already
here there was a separation of power element, a barrier against a return to tyranny,
which certainly was intended. The kings’ most important task was leading the
army in field, which, of course, was of utmost importance in the warring state
of Sparta.
Going then to the
three other institutions – the board, the council and the assembly – there was,
among them and in the handling of current, routine affairs, a hierarchical
order. The board was at the top, below it the council, and below it the
assembly. But still the assembly was superior in the sense that it, at least
formally, appointed the members of the board and the council. Let us however
start with the current, routine affairs.
The board, which
consisted of five ephors, appointed
for one-year terms, had the executive power. It mobilized the army, sent orders
to the commanders in the field, handled judicial affairs, supervised the
educational system and received ambassadors from other states. The board,
finally, was the only instance competent to summon the council. This latter could
thus not do anything without the board whishing so.
The council, or the
elderly council, or the gerousia, consisted
of 28 elected men. For being electable an age of sixty (!) was required and the
one elected remained in his position for life. Furthermore the two kings sat in
the council which may be somewhat surprising. In spite of being highest in the
decision-making hierarchy in a sense, the kings did not take part in the board
of the ephors but rather in the
council or gerousia. Possibly this
contributed to the great prestige enjoyed by latter. Among the tasks of the
council were decisions about death sentences. Furthermore the council prepared
in detail all issues to be handled by the assembly, among others legislative
proposals.
And thereby we have
reached the assembly which, we remember, consisted of all grown up, male
citizens. At first this assembly, as already mentioned, had the important task
of appointing all members of the board and the council. This power was however
not altogether un-circumscribed. The voting procedures were in fact such that
those already having power – for instance because of coming from big,
well-known and perhaps rich families – were favored from the very beginning. When
electing new board- or council-members there was thus no show of hands but the
members of the assembly, rather, expressed their views by approval shouting,
applauds and the like, and the one who thereby got, or was considered having
got, the most evident, audible support, was elected. Furthermore, and in
addition to the task of electing members of the board and the council, the
assembly also had the important assignment of saying yes or no to proposals
from the council. Even this assignment was however severely circumscribed. Thus
there was no free discussion – basically only those directly addressed by some
superior (a king, an ephor or a
member of the gerousia) were allowed
to speak. And in addition to this the assembly was not sure to have its way if
it voted “wrongly”, that is against the council’s proposal. In such cases it
occurred that the council implemented its proposal anyway.
By now it should be
clear why Sparta, in contrast to Athens, is classified here as an oligarchy.
The powers of Sparta’s popular assembly were, in contrast to those of Athens’,
and as we have seen, most considerably limited. In Sparta there was no freedom
of speech as in Athens. In Sparta decisions were not taken by show of hands as
in Athens, but by methods which, in reality, deprived the assembly of much of
its formal influence. Going then to the institutions above the assembly, the
conclusions are similar. In Sparta there were, beside the kings, the board and
the council, which both were small and hardly democratically elected, and
therefore represented a very considerable concentration of power. The Athenian
correspondence to these two organs, the many-headed council appointed by means
of lottery, was obviously more democratic even if some questions may raised
about that as well. Finally Sparta was also lacking a correspondence to the
general right of initiative existing in Athens. For all of these reasons it is
thus obvious that Sparta was not a democracy, but obviously it was neither a
dictatorship. Sparta and Athens had both, from an earlier tyranny, developed in
the same direction, but not equally long. Athens had gone all the way to
democracy. Sparta had not gone that long but the power had nonetheless become
spread among a considerable number of individuals. Sparta had become an
oligarchy.
Still the respect
for the rules in Sparta may be discussed. Had the formal rules for the assembly
been fully respected Sparta had, at least almost, been a direct democracy. It
is therefore, mainly, the lack of respect of the rules for the assembly which
has made me classify Sparta as an oligarchy. One may, I think, quite reasonably,
and because of the lack of respect for the rules, consider the assembly as
non-existing. And if so only the kings, the board and the counsel remain, that
is small groups of decision-makers. The rules for these organs seem however, on
the whole, to have been followed, and therefore it should be perfectly adequate
to consider the state an oligarchy.
Our knowledge about
how Sparta got its constitution is limited – we know much more about the
creation of Athens’ direct democracy than about the emergence of Sparta’s
oligarchy. In Athens Solon, and in particular Cleisthenes, played important
roles, but for Sparta it is difficult to find a corresponding person. A certain
Lycurgus is sometimes mentioned, that is true, but the existence of this man
has become increasingly doubted. It seems however clear, as I have already
written, that the hoplites were important in both cases. It also seems likely
that the constitutions, in both cases and on the whole, were introduced in one
step. The introductory process was not drawn out and gradual. For Athens this
seems quite clear, and similarly for Sparta even if not equally clear. But why
then – and in spite of these similarities – did the two states not develop
equally long away from the tyranny? About this one may only speculate. Perhaps
the personal characteristics of the Athenians Solon and Cleisthenes were
decisive for Athens. And perhaps the great land-owners were decisive for
Sparta.
Anyhow there is nothing
in Sparta’s development which is difficult to explain, no more than in Athens’.
Everything is compatible with the logic of collective action. Sparta’s
constitution may – for just indicating a possibility – have been thought out
and implemented by a small group of big land-owners. The families of the two kings
may have been land-owners like that, and the land-owners may also have
considered it expedient, or perhaps even necessary, to introduce the really quite
power-less assembly as a concession to those actually fighting the wars, the
hoplites. If so, the fundamental mechanism of change, described in chapter 3,
was operating.
As I wrote in
chapter 2 Rome was founded around -750 and, in -509, was converted to the
oligarchy usually called the Roman Republic. Before that the state was ruled by
a king, a council of elders and an assembly of warriors. The time for the
Republic may be counted to -134, or possibly to -31, when the era of the Empire
began. Since the period from -134 to -31 was turbulent and to a large extent
characterized by civil war it is, however, in this context appropriate to set
the end for the Republic at -134. But even so its life-time was long. Between
-509 and -134 there are 375 years. And even if the territorial expansion was to
continue after -134, it had nevertheless gone long already by that time. From
the villages at the mouth of the Tiber it had expanded so as to include all of
the Mediterranean as a Roman internal sea – Mare
Nostrum (our sea). The Republic was in fact an extreme war-waging state,
almost like Sparta even if everything was not about war as in the Greek state. Albeit
the victories and war-booties were necessary preconditions the Romans of the
Republic have still enriched the world with a large treasury of fantastic
sculptures, architecture, writings, and so forth.
Here, however, we
are concerned with the constitutional development. And a development it was, in
fact – a successive, gradual development. It was not as in Athens, and probably
also in Sparta, basically a one-step process. But still the fundamental reason
was the same as in Athens and Sparta, namely the involvement of large parts of
the population in war-waging brought about by the new infantry technique. In
Athens and Sparta it was the hoplites, in the Roman Republic the legionaries.
These people – so called plebeians
and when not fighting usually farmers – demanded influence and power by means
of various kinds of expressions of dissatisfaction, strikes, and so forth. And
the propertied, the so called patricians,
mostly big land owners, were forced to give in step by step. The fundamental
mechanism of change described in chapter 3 operated in a long row of small
steps following after each other.
Here – in the same
way as in Athens and in Sparta – there is thus nothing which is incompatible
with the logic of collective action. The development of the constitution in
small, gradual steps did however make it increasingly difficult to handle.
Successively more veto-rules made it, for instance, more and more complicated
to reach any decisions at all. But it did not stop there. Eventually a
situation which, without much exaggeration, could be described as run by two
competing constitutions, one for the patricians
and one for the plebeians, was
reached. At least it could be said the constitution had two main parts
relatively independent of each other. And in at least some cases that made it
possible to take decisions contradicting each other. There were for instance
not only two, but three, popular assemblies having legislative powers. And even
if the areas of these legislative powers varied somewhat between the
assemblies, they also overlapped to some extent. The assemblies could therefore
now and then, each assembly for itself, take valid, contradictory decisions
about the same matter. Political processes could collide.
Describing the whole
constitutional development in a more detailed way should lead us too far
astray. I therefore confine myself to portraying the constitution as it was in
the year -134, that is just before the start of the civil war and the crumbling
of the Republic.
The constitution
thus had two main parts, the patricians’
and the plebeians’. The two parts
were similarly, though not identically, structured. In both the roles of
various functionaries with precise, far-reaching capacities, the so called magistrates, were spelled out. In the
patrician part of the constitution their number was however greater than in the
plebeian part. In both parts of the constitution there was also a scope for
popular influence by means of assemblies – but in the patrician part there were
two assemblies, in the plebeian part only one. And then, in addition to these
magistrates and assemblies, there was still a very important institution,
namely the Senate. It would not be
wrong to consider this Senate as belonging to the patrician part of the
constitution, but it is also possible to consider it as an institution shared
by the two parts. For reasons which will become clear below I have settled for
the latter alternative.
Let us now start by
looking a bit closer at the functionaries – the magistrates – in the patrician
part of the constitution. First, they did not only have precise tasks, they
were also ranked in a fixed order. I start by describing the functionaries in
this order – the significance of the order will be dealt with later on.
Highest ranked were
the censors, of whom there were two.
The Republic was all the time a multi-layered class-society and the censors should,
among others, register the citizens in classes depending on their private
economies, grant new citizenships, and – when considered called for – expel
citizens. These tasks made it possible for the censors to intervene in the
political careers of all other ones, and thus made them powerful. The censors
held their positions for one year and a half whereas all other magistrates, in
contrast, were appointed for only one year.
Next in the ranking
order came the two consuls. They
were, above all, military commanders-in-chief and, since war was almost
perpetual, they were usually away from Rome, and in one place each furthermore.
There therefore had to be stand-ins for the consuls in Rome, and this was one
of the tasks for the next category of magistrates, the so called praetors. The
consuls, and in their absence the praetors, also were entitled to summon the
senate and the two assemblies.
The praetors, altogether six, were however
not only stand-ins for the consuls, they also had other important obligations,
in particular judicial ones. They were thus not only entitled to sentence in
some cases but could also interpret, and complement, existing law, and thereby
came to influence considerably the development of the Roman law. Furthermore
they shared among themselves the ultimate responsibility for the administration
of the provinces of the Republic.
Next came the quaestors, altogether eight, who
essentially had financial tasks. They received the taxes collected and
supervised the expenses of the state. They were, one might say, the Republic’s
ministers of finance.
And so, at last,
came the aediles. They were
altogether four, but split up into two pairs of which only the one belonged to
the patrician part of the constitution. The other pair rather belonged to the
plebeian part. But both pairs had the same tasks. Above all they were
responsible for order, safety and cleanliness in the city of Rome, and for supervising
markets, including prices. And they were also responsible for the provision of
public festival games for entertainment.
These, thus, were
the magistrates and the order was, as I have already mentioned, of great
importance. This, in turn, depended on the constitution’s frequent use of
vetoes, also mentioned. Higher ranked magistrates could namely veto the
decisions of those lower ranked, and this rule was clearly consequential since
even lower magistrates had important tasks. The only restriction was that the
group of magistrates vetoing had to be unanimous itself. And this was so not
only for the vetoes here discussed but for all decisions. For every group of
magistrates it was therefore the case that it could act only when unanimous –
within each group every individual magistrate had a veto right.
After this we get to
the two popular assemblies which can be considered belonging to the patrician
part of the constitution. At a quick glance both these assemblies could perhaps
seem democratic since they consisted of all male citizens, but in reality it
was not so. First, since the meetings were held in or just outside the city of
Rome, it was impossible for all those permitted to participate. Furthermore,
the decision-rules clearly favored the patricians. So the assemblies were not
democratic. That there were two assemblies rather than one, in spite of both
having the same members, also has an explanation. The background histories of
the two assemblies were different, they met in different places, their
authorities were different, and the voting rules were also somewhat different
even if the patricians were favored in both cases.
The first assembly –
Comitia Centuriata – was the oldest
one and had a military background. As already mentioned it was summoned by the
consuls or the praetors. It had its meetings at the Field of Mars (so called
after Mars, the god of war) outside the city of Rome, the proceedings were
opened by trumpet fanfares, and the participants stood upright ordered in
accordance with their military units. This was also the assembly in which the
patricians were most favored by the voting rules. The very important main task
of the assembly was to appoint censors, consuls and praetors, that is the three
highest ranked categories of magistrates.
The second assembly
– Comitia Tributa – had, we remember,
the same members as Comitia Centuriata, and was equally summoned by the consuls
or the praetors. The organization was however not military – the participants
were rather assorted into thirty-five groups with equal voting power. Each one
of the groups represented a geographical area in Rome and/or in Rome’s
neighborhood. The similarities with the corresponding order, the phylae, in direct democratic Athens were
thus striking. Even here the voting rules favored the patricians although not
as much as in the Comitia Centuriata. Among others the assembly appointed the
lower ranked magistrates, that is the quaestors
and the two patrician aediles.
The assemblies did
however have more tasks than those already mentioned even if the distribution
of these tasks is unclear. Some sources indicate one distribution, other ones
another. This is so, for instance, for legislative issues, issues about war and
peace, and death sentences. But irrespective of these uncertainties it is manifestly
clear that the participants did not have the right to initiate issues to be
dealt with – they could just say yes or not to proposals presented to them –
and neither did they have any right of speech. The assemblies’ capacities were
thus utterly circumscribed. Once the magistrates were elected, it was they who
ruled. The magistrates’ short terms in office, and thus the frequently
re-occurring magistrate elections, could however be considered a kind of “democratic”
safety valve. Another one was an often used tactic for escaping the speech
forbidding rule. Debates were held before the formal opening of the meetings,
and these debates were even considered so important that they, in fact,
constituted a basis for Roman rhetoric.
The magistrates were
thus the real power holders and political careers were often made by climbing
from lower to higher ranked magistrate positions. For starting at the lower end
of the scale an aedile – in
particular if he was privately rich and prepared to pay for it himself – could
arrange lavish festivals and thereby make himself popular and thus enhance his
own promotion upwards the scale. For going then to the upper end of the scale,
only those having been consuls could
be elected censors. And the censors
did not only have a purple stripe in the toga as all other magistrates, they
were also buried in full purple attire.
This was thus the
first main part of the constitution, but then there was also the plebeian main
part. And it was basically structured in the same way as the first one,
although somewhat simpler. There was thus only two kinds of magistrates – first
the two aediles mentioned above, and
so the very important tribunes of the plebs.
Altogether there
were ten tribunes of the plebs, and they
had far-reaching capacities. They could deliver sentences of various kinds, and
they could veto practically all other decisions, even those taken within the
patrician part of the constitution. Furthermore they enjoyed a considerable
immunity. There were however also important restrictions, basically of two
kinds. First they could exercise their power only within the city of Rome and,
furthermore, like all other magistrates they had to be unanimous for their
decisions to become valid. Each tribune could thus veto the decisions of the
other ones. And therefore their great number was a factor of weakness rather
than strength – the more numerous they were, the greater the likelihood that
someone would veto.
The plebeian
assembly – Concilium Plebis – was essentially
composed in the same way as Comitia Tributa, the only difference being that the
patricians were excluded. The assembly thus consisted entirely of plebeians and
it was summoned and led by the tribunes. Among its tasks were the elections of
the plebeian aediles, and the
tribunes. And in addition to this, and as the other assemblies, it also had
some legislative powers, which added to the collision risks already mentioned.
After this we have
finally reached the important Senate.
It had 300 members appointed for life by the censors – thus one more component
in the power of the censors. Electable were only former magistrates, although
not tribunes, and military commanders with war marks of distinction. More than
any organ the Senate therefore represented broad, heavy-weighted experience and
continuity, which is clear already from its very designation. The word “senate”
means something like “the elderly counsel” – a term we met already when
discussing Sparta – and which has the same radical as for instance the English
word “senior”. But in spite of its impressive experience the Senate – formally
– had only advisory capacity. Furthermore the senators were allowed to speak only
when asked to.
In spite of this the
Senate was however destined to play a crucial role – it was, in fact, thanks to
the Senate that the problems with constant vetoes, and collision risks and actual
collisions, could be lived with as long as was indeed the case. For
understanding this it is important to know that not only the consuls, and in
their absence the praetors, could summon the Senate, but that even the tribunes
had considerable capacities in the context. True, they could not themselves
become senators, but they could summon the Senate, and not only that. They
could participate in the meetings, initiate proposals at them, and even chair
them. Furthermore, the rule that a senator could speak only when asked to was
not as restrictive as it seemed. When, once, a senator had gotten the word he
could namely continue talking about whatever he wanted. This is what made it
possible for the senator and military commander Cato – victorious in the war
against Hannibal – to end all his speeches by “furthermore I think Carthage
must be destroyed”.
In reality the
Senate thus got an important and central position and this, in combination with
other parties’ prudence, was the main reason why the total constitution worked
as long as it actually did. The Senate was summoned for giving, after
appropriate discussions, its advice. This advice was then taken up by some
other organ with adequate capacity and was turned into a real, valid decision.
And like that it went for a long, although finite, period. Finally the whole
system collapsed in the way described in chapter 2. The reasons were altogether
internal. The social unrest resulting from the extreme class-differences in the
late Republic could, in the end, not be dealt with peacefully within the
framework of the contradictory constitution. After the murder of Tiberius
Gracchus the civil war leading to fall of the Republic began.
In chapter 2 I wrote
about Venice’s history and therefore I concentrate on the constitutional topics
here. When first populated Venice became, we remember, a province within the
Byzantine Empire, which then appointed a functionary for administering the
province. Then, after having liberated themselves, the Venetians turned this
functionary into their own highest ruler, or doge, who was elected by a common, open, popular assembly, the so
called Arengo. During an initial
period there were thus democratic tendencies, and Venice could almost be considered
a direct democracy. Gradually the doges did however succeed in shaking off this
electoral dependency and the dignity began being inherited. Dynasties emerged
and Venice, rather, almost became a dictatorship. Around the year 1000 this led
to uprisings, a doge was murdered, and after that constitutional
transformations followed. Functionaries having in particular the task of
supervising the doge were appointed and the common Arengo was substituted for
by another assembly which, in spite of being much smaller than the Arengo, was
called the Great Council.
This was thus, in broad
terms, the process leading up to the constitution, in some respects very
complex, which will be described in the next section. In its essentials the
process was completed around 1420, that is at about the beginning of the
Renaissance. And this means – in accordance with what was said in chapters 2
and 5 – that Venice had already made its pioneering contributions to the development
of economic institutions when the constitution was ready. The Venice governed
in accordance with the new constitution was another Venice than the early,
epoch-making, commercial city-state. But the constitution is interesting
anyway. It had emerged out of the same milieu, or culture, as the economic
institutions, and it was very special and very effective. The other Italian
city-states, at the same time, were troubled by constant rebellions and
drawn-out family feuds, but in Venice there was practically nothing of this.
Most well-known among these competing families were perhaps Albizzi and de’
Medici in Florence. Venice’s lack of problems like these depended, at least
partially, on important differences between its constitution and those of the
other city-states. After having got its basically final form around 1420 the
constitution was to shape Venetian politics until 1797 when Napoleon Bonaparte
conquered the city, that is for a good 350 years. But before turning to the
ready constitution it is important to say a few more words about the very
process of its development. Which, more exactly, were the mechanisms involved? And,
most important, were they compatible with the logic of collective action.
At first it should
be observed that the process, in one important respect, differs from a pattern
we have already met several times, namely the pattern of a dictator reacting on
rebellions by means of gradual concessions. First, the early rebellions or
expressions of discontent did not come from armed entities, but from ordinary,
non-armed human beings. Second, it was not the ruling, powerful dodge that
conceded and introduced changes after the rebellions and the doge murder.
Rather it was other, influential Venetians who supplied him with over-coats. But
even if this differs from a common pattern, it is hardly unreasonable. At the
time at issue there were, in Venice, many rich and therefore powerful
merchants, and some of those may very well have cooperated for endowing the
doge with supervising functionaries. In the same way well-off Venetians may
also have formed the Great Council which, in the beginning, was not all that
great, and which replaced the Arengo.
The groups acting may very well have been quite small and homogenous so that
their members know each other, and probably were so. And groups like that are perfectly
able to act constructively even for complex purposes. It is all fully
compatible with the logic of collective action.
The power exercising
institutions were placed on three main levels. At the lowest level was the Great
Council having around 1500 members. These members were not elected – the
decisive element, rather, was family connections. To the council belonged all
male descendants to those who, at the end of the thirteenth century (why this
time is important will be clarified below), had constituted the council. The
council was thus closed. Apart from some exceptions during the very first time
no other ones than the sons of the original members, and their sons and so on,
could become members of the council. But even if the council was closed in this
sense it nevertheless became bigger and bigger, in particular as the members
were appointed for life. The council’s most important task was to elect, among
its own members, the functionaries at the next level, the level just above its
own.
At this level, the
intermediate level, there was the Senate
with 260 members, and also an institution called the Council of Ten. The senate took decisions about legislation, but
could not initiate such issues – the initiatives had to come from above.
Furthermore the senate elected, from among its own members or possibly, but not
often, from the Great Council, the functionaries at the third and highest
level. The Council of Ten handled particularly urgent issues but in addition to
that also had its own particular and very important tasks. The council was in
fact a kind of political court, or even a secret police.
The background was
that all the Italian city-states had problems with families, or groups of other
kinds, emanating from the own state but living for one reason or another in
exile. Groups like that could intervene in the politics of their own state,
possibly violently, and therefore constituted a constant threat. When the Council
of Ten was created, around the year 1300, its main, assigned task was to
identify and defeat threats like these. Gradually the council was however also
given similar internal tasks, which meant fighting assumed political threats.
To a large extent the council, which was given some sentencing capacity, acted
in secret and, gradually, acquired a reputation for great brutality and
cruelty. Individuals suspected could, if they were not executed secretly, be
imprisoned in narrow cells in the underground storage of the Dodge’s Palace or
in horribly hot chambers immediately below its lead roof. The most well-known
of all of these prisoners was Giacomo Casanova (1725–98). But even if the
competence of the council thus was very far-reaching its activities were
nevertheless, at least to a large extent, initiated from above, from the
highest level.
There, at the
highest level, were the so called Collegio,
consisting of 26 persons, and the highest power-holder, the Dodge, who chaired the Collegio.
Initiatives for new legislation had to come from this Collegio even if the
following decisions, as already mentioned, had to be taken by the Senate, or at
least at the intermediate level – they could not be taken by the Collegio
itself. But even if the competence of the highest level thus were confined to
initiatives – at least as far as legislative issues were concerned – the
creators of the constitution had nevertheless found it important regulate
matters there in more detail. The Collegio itself was therefore partitioned into
a number of smaller units – units which not only should assist the doge in
various ways, but also supervise him.
So those were the
main traits of the constitution. That we are dealing with an oligarchy is
evident already here. All functionaries were recruited, as we have seen, from a
closed group of families of the population. But this oligarchy worked well and
without those destructive family feuds so frequent in the other Italian
city-states. The reasons for this relative peacefulness were of different
kinds, but they were partly related to the constitution and those are the ones
interesting us here.
Of great importance,
and perhaps most important, were the rules for the composition of the Great
Council. These rules, implemented by the doge Pietro Gradenigo in 1297, guaranteed,
as we have seen, that at least all families important or powerful at that time
could feel sure about being represented even in the future, and thereby at
least some reasons for conflicts between these families were eliminated. This necessarily
implied, however, that the Council became bigger and bigger. From some points
of view this was possibly a disadvantage, but it could also be advantageous
since it made formation of fractions within the Council more difficult. The
great potential problem obviously was that families which eventually grew big
and important, and which from the beginning were outside the Council, could
require to become included and thereby perhaps even use violence. That,
however, did not occur as it seems.
Important was also
that most of the positions in the decision-making organs mentioned above were
held only for short periods, a year perhaps or even less, and that the
possibilities for re-election were strictly limited or even perhaps excluded.
In this way a relatively large share of those formally qualified for taking
part in the governing of the state also, actually, did take part. This was, in
fact, a kind of rotation. No one, and above all no family, needed to feel
excluded. The rules for the Council of Ten may serve as an example. The members
were elected for one year terms and immediate re-election was not allowed.
Furthermore one and the same family could not have more than one member in the
Council. And the one presiding the Council, which was one of the members, held
his position only for a month – then the chairmanship went to another member.
The appointments for the Council of Ten were thus subject to principles of
short terms and of rotation, and the same was true for most other organs. But
even so there were exceptions from these principles. Thus senators could be
re-elected, and that also happened again and again. The Senate therefore, in the
same way as the Roman Senate, came to represent a lot of experience and
prudence. Another exception was the Dodge who was elected for life.
Thereby we have reached
a third group of reasons for the peaceful conditions in Venice. Even if I have
written that there were, at the highest level, instruments for controlling the
dodge, he was nevertheless, and in comparison with the corresponding
functionaries in the other city-states, a rather efficient actor. Thus, and in
the other states, there was, instead of a single main person, a group called Signoria. The members of such a group
could find it hard to cooperate and hence the leadership of the state could be less
efficient. But Venice did not have this problem, which may have contributed to
its peacefulness and wellbeing. The fact the Venice had only one leading person
was, we remember, a Byzantine legacy, but that did not prevent the Venetians
from developing the institution in their own very particular way. The procedure
for electing a dodge was utterly complex, but not without advantages. The
method, essentially the same all the time, was used in all dodge elections –
quite a number – from 1298 to 1797.
I start by
describing the procedure. Those participating, and those electable, were all
the members of the Great Council. The purpose of the process was to appoint, at
first, an appropriate Electoral College,
that is a group of persons likely to nominate a really good dodge candidate,
preferably the best one. Then, when this candidate was nominated, the proposal
was presented for the Great Council which normally accepted it. Once the
nomination was achieved the real election was thus a pure formality. What is
remarkable in the process is however the activities before these final steps,
the series of preliminary steps taken for getting, finally, the ideal electoral
college wished for. This is how it was done:
Step 1: A first,
provisional electoral college consisting of 30 individuals is selected from the
Great Council by lot casting.
Step 2: Those 30 are
reduced to 9 by lot casting.
Step 3: Those remaining
9, by electing new, additional members, turn themselves into a new provisional electoral
college of 40 members.
Step 4: Those 40 are
reduced to 12 by lot casting.
Step 5: Those 12, by
electing new members, turn themselves into a new provisional electoral college
of 25 members.
Step 6: Those 25 are
reduced to 9 by lot casting.
Step 7: Those 9, by
electing new members, turn themselves into a new provisional electoral college
of 45 members.
Step 8: Those 45 are
reduced to 11 by lot casting.
Step 9: Those 11, by
electing new members, turn themselves into a new final electoral college of 41
members.
Step 10: This final
electoral college nominates a dodge candidate.
Step 11: The Great
Council accepts the nomination and elects the nominated candidate to dodge.
What happens is thus
that a first provisional electoral college, appointed by means of lottery, is
transformed again and again. Every second transformation consists in a
reduction of the number of members of the college by means of lottery, and the
other every second transformation in enlargements of the council by means of
elections by those remaining. There is thus in this procedure a considerable
element of lottery, but the purpose of this was never that the appointment of
the doge should be left to chance. The purpose, on the contrary, was to find
the person most suitable for the dignity and then, finally, elect that person.
The lottery was therefore of a completely different kind, and had a completely
different purpose, than that in, for instance, Athens’ direct democracy. In
Athens the idea was to spread the political activities, and, to the extent
possible, make all those permitted take part in them – in principle all were
considered equally competent. In Venice the purpose was rather to make it impossible
for special interests, for instance strong and influential families, to
interfere with the nomination process to their own advantage. By lot casting
all tendencies towards factional coalition formations should continuously be
eliminated. The purpose was to get rid of all special interests just in order
to bring forward the best dodge.
Probably this was
also achieved. In a modern, mathematical and statistical analysis of the
procedure, posted on the Internet by the IT-company Hewlett-Packard, the
authors write among others that it may have contributed Venice’s extraordinary
stability and long life. The reason why these authors at all became interested
in the procedure, and scrutinized it thoroughly, was that similar methods may
be of interest in situations where a large number of computers need to “elect” a
leader computer for being able to work together. Anyway, since the procedure
was so complex and long-winded, the Venetians were obviously prepared to go
very far in order to avoid family feuds and similar political struggles.
Venice was, in its
own age, a very successful state. People lived will and even if the differences
were considerable even the poorest were better off than in most other places in
Europe. The equality before the law was significant and so the freedom of
speech. The social unrest was, in particular when compared with the conditions
in the other Italian city-states or the contemporary European kingdoms, almost
non-existent. To a large extent all of this was results of the Venetians’ skill
as merchants and sailors, even if there also were elements of chance or good
luck. When, for instance, the rest of Europe and large parts of its population
were hit by crop-failure this could rather turn into an advantage for Venice.
The crop-failure could increase the demand for long-distance, naval transports
of grains.
Of great importance was
however also the very special constitution. This gave, as we have seen,
ultimately all formal influence to
the Great Council. Considered as a council this was certainly very large, but
as a share of the population it was nevertheless quite small. Still the
outsiders seemed to be loyal with the activities of the Council and the other
organs and institutions. Conversely it seems as if those having positions in
these various organs on the whole also felt solidarity with the outsiders, the common
people. But how could it be like this? Which were the mechanisms leading to
this result?
Probably the
explanation is related to those very manifest barriers against all kinds of
factions or small groups, whether family-related or of other kinds, which
characterized the constitution. All kinds of partial, special-interest politics
were intensively worked against. Political parties of the kind present in all
democratic countries today, and which are consider indispensable there, could
not be have been founded in Venice, and much less have worked. Probably this
total absence of political parties was a necessary complement to the allocation
of all formal political power to small, sharply defined minority group. If the
one was there, the other had to be so too. Today, a constitution like this
would obviously, and immediately, lead to grave conflicts. A small minority’s
holding of all power would never be accepted. But in Venice, prior to the era
of the representative democracy, it was quite acceptable. And not only that, it
worked well and the result was very good. The political scientist and historian
Samuel has characterized Venice – at least until the end of the seventeenth
century – as the best governed state in the world.
But the constitution
not only functioned well. Probably it was also unique. I do not know of any
other constitution such as Venice’s, or even similar to it in the central
respects here described. Most probably several persons from Venice’s leading
families had contributed to this remarkable innovation, for an innovation it
was. But if one individual should be singled out – a kind of correspondence to
Athens’ Cleisthenes – that should be the dodge Pietro Gradenigo (1251–1311).
After this
presentation of three oligarchies it may be interesting to compare them in some
respects. If we start by looking at the highest level the power there was more
divided in Sparta and the Roman Republic than in Venice. Sparta had two kings,
The Roman Republic two censors, two consuls, and so forth, while Venice had
only one dodge. For certain the dodge was completed and supervised in certain
respects but the uppermost leadership was still less split than in Sparta and
in Rome.
Going then to the lowest level – the popular if one so wishes – there were important differences even there. In Sparta all male citizens could participate in the assembly, but their power there was utterly circumscribed, formally as well as really. They had no formal right to speak, and their decisions were neglected if not in accordance with what was wished for by higher functionaries. In the Roman Republic the influence of the popular assemblies was reduced in other ways. First only citizens living in the city of Rome or its immediate surroundings were able to participate at all; second only one of the assemblies was genuinely popular; and third, the three assemblies could end up taking different and contradictory decisions. The real power was therefore held by the all but popular Senate. In Venice finally the lowest level was represented by the Great Council, which was completely closed and the members of which all came from well-off and successful families. At the same time the constitution however included a number of rules designed to make impossible all kinds of partial interest politics within this group.
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