The perpetual immigrant and the limits of Athenian democracy

Abstract

The nativist sentiments underlying recent chants of 'send her back!' at Trump rallies in July 2019 long predate democracy in America. Demetra Kasimis recounts a similar episode ca. 345 BCE in The Perpetual Immigrant and the Limits of Athenian Democracy. An ordinary citizen, Euxitheus, was accused of hiding his foreign lineage and stripped of his citizenship. Euxitheus was, in Kasimis's words, 'a man known for doing what citizens do' (p. 145): he acted like an Athenian and had no reason to suspect he would be denied the privileges of citizenship. Euxitheus must now defend himself to retain the membership he had always taken for granted. According to Kasimis, this episode illustrates a more general point about membership orders: 'the blood-based division that is supposed to secure equality, mobility, and exceptional standing for the demos also makes it possible to contest the authenticity of a lived practice of membership' (p. 164). Blood trumps deeds and nativism overwhelms the egalitarian promises of democratic governance. Is this unavoidable in democracies, ancient and modern?