Vast Personal Forces: Thucydides, Populism, and the Liberty of the Ancients

Modern discussions of freedom focus on negative liberty or nondomination. In his portrait of the Athenian democracy, Thucydides thematizes the psychology of ancient freedom. By focusing on the psychology of the demos, Thucydides shows how democratic imperialism unfolds from the experience of freedom as a kind of felt power. His analysis offers us a way to think about contemporary populism. In representative democracy, the connection between power and freedom has been severed by representation and the modern state, but an experience of power nonetheless remains part of what we mean by freedom today. Modern citizens frequently feel powerless and so unfree, ensnared by impersonal forces. One lure of populism is that it satisfies the longing for freedom as a form of felt power, for a measure of control over one's life.