Using the ancient city-state of Athens as a case study, this paper discusses the fundamental principles of Greek participatory democracy with a view to highlighting its implications for the development of contemporary Nigerian communities. In classical antiquity however, the Greeks extolled the idea of communal participatory democracy by their establishment of communities (the polis, city-state), whose very existence thrived on certain fundamentals such as equality, freedom, rule of law, accountability and full citizens' participation in communal affairs. The concept of participatory democracy underscores the principles of direct inclusive participation of citizens in political decisions and socioeconomic policies that affect their lives in their community, as opposed to contemporary representative participation. This gives the impression that communal participatory democracy was not very deep in the remote ancient world. Least accentuated is the system of participatory democracy whose provenance and prevalence has also been situated more in relative parts of contemporary Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Most scholarship on system of rule in ancient communities generally emphasized monarchic, aristocratic, and oligarchic forms of governments.
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