雅典民主政治的特征及对西方民主的影响

The Characteristics of the Ancient Athens Democracy and Its influence on the Western Democracy

西方近现代民主政治的古典形式———雅典民主政治具有四个主要特征：实行直接民主制；主权在民，轮番为治；崇尚法治，绝禁人治；权限交叉的制约机制。雅典民主政治对西方近现代民主政治的影响是：“法律面前人人平等”的政治原则；国家机构“三权分立”的组织形式；“少数服从多数”的决策原则；

The ancient Athens democracy is the classical form of the western democracy. This paper concerns the four characteristics of the ancient Athens democracy and its influences on the western democracy. The characteristics include carrying out the direct democracy system, sovereign power by the people and alternate governing, advocating law ruling and prohibitions of man ruling, restrictive mechanism of crossing the limit of authority. The influences are expounded from the following perspectives: the political principle “All men are equal to the law”, division of the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial; policy making principle of the minority to be subordinated to the majority; the electional and the term of office principles of public employment.