The power of the people: the meaning of kratos in dēmokratia

In this paper, I reconstruct the notion of kratos as a unique and distinguishable exercise political power. Using examples from 5th- 4th-century Attic tragedy, Old Comedy, forensic oratory, show how was used in Athenian cultural discourse to convey irrefutability claim, recognition someone’s prevailing over another, sense having last word—all which makes kratic power dependent upon its own continued demonstrability. argue that peculiarly performative character kratos has little or no role within contemporary democratic thinking because agency dēmos is largely mediated through mechanisms electoral success constitutional rights. Nevertheless—and regardless whether they are ultimately successful achieving their stated aims—the spontaneous, organisationally diffuse protests operating extra-institutionally under banners #MeToo Black Lives Matter reveal attempted ‘domestication’ kratos, sublimation peculiar into piecemeal reform, never realistic satisfactory answer for discontent.