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History of democracy


A democracy is of political system, or a system of decision-making within an institution, or organization, in which all members have the equal share to power. Systems of democracy stand in contrast to other forms of government, including monarchy and oligarchy.

Democracy can be traced back from the present day to classical Athens and Greeks in the 6th century B.C.E. In a modern representative democracy, this formal equality is embodied primarily in the right to vote.

Although it is generally believed that the concepts of democracy and constitution originated in one particular place and time – identified as Ancient Athens circa 508 B.C. — there is evidence to suggest that democratic forms of government, in a broad sense, may have existed in several areas of the world well before the turn of the 5th century B.C. Within that broad sense it is plausible to assume that democracy in one form or another arises naturally in any well-bonded group, such as a tribe.

Scholars identify this form of democracy as tribalism, or primitive democracy. In this sense, a primitive democracy takes shape in small communities or villages, usually when there is face-to-face discussion in the village council or a leader with the backing of village elders or other cooperative forms of government. This becomes more complex on a larger scale, such as when the village and city are examined more broadly as political communities. All other forms of rule – including monarchy, tyranny, , and oligarchy – have flourished in more urban centers, often those with concentrated populations.

In recent decades scholars have explored the possibility that advancements toward democratic government occurred somewhere else (i.e. other than Greece) first, as Greece developed its complex social and political institutions long after the appearance of the earliest civilizations in Egypt and the Near East.

Studying pre-Babylonian Mesopotamia, renowned scholar Thorkild Jacobsen used Sumerian epic, myth, and historical records to identify what he has called primitive democracy. By this, Jacobsen means a government in which ultimate power rests with the mass of free male citizens, although "the various functions of government are as yet little specialised [and] the power structure is loose". In early Sumer, kings like Gilgamesh did not hold the power that later Mesopotamian rulers wielded. Rather, major city-states functioned with councils of elders and "young men" (likely free men bearing arms) that possessed the final political authority, and had to be consulted on all major issues such as war.


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