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Democracy
The term "democracy" first appeared in ancient Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-state of Athens during classical antiquity.[22][23] Led by Cleisthenes, Athenians established what is generally held as the first democracy in 508–507 BCE. Cleisthenes is referred to as "the father of Athenian democracy."[24]
Athenian democracy took the form of a direct democracy, and it had two distinguishing features: the random selection of ordinary citizens to fill the few existing government administrative and judicial offices,[25] and a legislative assembly consisting of all Athenian citizens.[26] All eligible citizens were allowed to speak and vote in the assembly, which set the laws of the city state. However, Athenian citizenship excluded women, slaves, foreigners (???????? metoikoi), non-landowners, and males under 20 years old.[citation needed]
Of the estimated 200,000 to 400,000 inhabitants of Athens, there were between 30,000 and 60,000 citizens.[citation needed] The exclusion of large parts of the population from the citizen body is closely related to the ancient understanding of citizenship. In most of antiquity the benefit of citizenship was tied to the obligation to fight war campaigns.[27]
Athenian democracy was not only direct in the sense that decisions were made by the assembled people, but also the most direct in the sense that the people through the assembly, boule and courts of law controlled the entire political process and a large proportion of citizens were involved constantly in the public business.[28] Even though the rights of the individual were not secured by the Athenian constitution in the modern sense (the ancient Greeks had no word for "rights"[29]), the Athenians enjoyed their liberties not in opposition to the government but by living in a city that was not subject to another power and by not being subjects themselves to the rule of another person.[30]
Range voting appeared in Sparta as early as 700 BCE. The Apella was an assembly of the people, held once a month. In the Apella, Spartans elect leaders and made voting by range voting and shouting. Every male citizen of age 30 could participate. Aristotle called this "childish," as opposed to something sophisticated as using stone voting ballots the Athenians used. But in terms, Sparta adopted it because of its simplicity, and to prevent any bias voting, buying, or cheating that was predominant in the early democratic elections.[31][32]
Even though the Roman Republic contributed significantly to many aspects of democracy, only a minority of Romans were citizens with votes in elections for representatives. The votes of the powerful were given more weight through a system of gerrymandering, so most high officials, including members of the Senate, came from a few wealthy and noble families.[33] However, many notable exceptions did occur.[citation needed] In addition, the Roman Republic was the first government in the western world to have a Republic as a nation-state, although it didn't have much of a democracy. The Romans invented the concept of classics and many works from Ancient Greece were preserved.[34] Additionally, the Roman model of governance inspired many political thinkers over the centuries,[35] and today's modern representative democracies imitate more the Roman than the Greek models because it was a state in which supreme power was held by the people and their elected representatives, and which had an elected or nominated leader.[36] Representative democracy is a form of democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives as opposed to a direct democracy, a form of democracy in which people vote on policy initiatives directly.[37]
water pollution
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies (e.g. lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers and groundwater). Water pollution occurs when pollutants are directly or indirectly discharged into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds.
Water pollution affects plants and organisms living in these bodies of water. In almost all cases the effect is damaging not only to individual species and populations, but also to the natural biological communities.