Conformity and the sovereign majority: the social identity of the demos as a mechanism of order and conflict resolution in Classical Athens

This paper argues that Classical Athenian democracy maintained social order and resolved conflict not exclusively through impartial legal reasoning but through the conformity-imposing power of the majority. By reference to Social Identity Theory and Kenneth Burke’s concept of identification, it demonstrates that the Athenian demos operated as a psychologically unified in-group whose norms and beliefs directed law, politics, and rhetoric. Judicial and political institutions functioned as arenas for reaffirming this collective identity: litigants and politicians succeeded when they performed rhetorical consubstantiality with the demos and marginalised adversaries as ethical outsiders. Mechanisms such as thorubos, dokimasia, and majority voting visibly enacted the will of the putatively homogeneous citizen body, transforming debate and conflict into renewed consensus. The paper concludes that the Athenian polis preserved democracy through ideological uniformity and the conformity-imposing power of the sovereign majority.