Citizenship and Civic Participation: 2,500 Years of the Fight for a Voice

2,500 years ago, your neighbours could exile you for ten years by scratching your name on a piece of broken pottery. How did we get from there to here? In this lecture on citizenship and civic participation, we trace the long fight for a political voice: from the first democrats of Athens and "I am a Roman citizen", through Magna Carta and the American and French revolutions, to women's suffrage, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Pakistan's first adult-franchise election in 1970. Then we ask what it means to be an active citizen today, and whether a democracy can survive if its citizens stop participating. This lecture is for students of civics, but it's useful for anyone who wants to understand where citizenship and the right to vote came from. If this helped, subscribe to The Second Question: understanding how the world works. It's a community for people who like to think things through together. Exit ticket: which historical moment surprised you most, and why? Tell us in the comments. #Civics #Citizenship #CivicParticipation #Democracy #CivicsForStudents #AncientAthens #MagnaCarta #VotingRights #Pakistan