ostracism

The people of ancient Athens voted annually for a citizen to be ostracised from the city. Anyone could be voted for, the citizens wrote the name of their choice for ostracism on a piece of broken ceramic (ostraka) in a practice called 'ostrakismos' giving rise to our English word.

The practice was not a punishment for crimes but rather a way to curtail any individual gaining too much power and thus threatening the democracy which Athenians cherished. If a quorum of 6000 votes were reached then the man with the most votes was ostracised. He would have to leave the city for a total of ten years.*

Although we might regard this a breach of an individuals right to run for office or to live within a society something about this appeals to me. It is a method for keeping in check those who would exploit public office but obviously it would suffer from the malaise that blights regular political life, namely, the triumph of popularism over intelligence.

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*(Source: Adapted from Language Visible - David Sacks)