Democracy’s Roots Run Far Deeper than Ancient Greece, New Study Says

Examining 31 ancient societies across Europe, Asia and the Americas, researchers found that democratic systems were more widespread than once thought – and were not determined by population size or geography.

The Acropolis of Athens by Leo von Klenze.

The word “democracy” was of course invented by the Greeks: democracy simply meant that people (demos) had the power (Kratos).

This definition did not refer to any specific institutional mechanism, but rather democracy was defined as a goal.

Common wisdom and scholars rooted in Western social sciences often assume that the fundamental features of democratic governance—controlling the concentration of power and the inclusion of citizens—were also exclusive to the classical Mediterranean world, only to lie dormant for over a millennium and be reanimated in Renaissance Europe and its colonies, from where it then spread.

Yet this widely held view, that what we call collective (or democratic) forms of governance are exclusively born and spread in the West, has rarely been systematically evaluated.

“People often assume that democratic practices began in Greece and Rome,” said Dr. Gary Feinman, MacArthur Curator of Mesoamerican and Central American Anthropology at the Field Museum’s Negaunee Integrative Research Center.

“But our research shows that many societies around the world have developed ways to limit the power of leaders and give voice to ordinary people.”

In an autocracy, a single person or small group holds all the power; examples of autocracy can include absolute monarchies and dictatorships.

In a democracy, decision-making power is shared among citizens. Elections often go hand in hand with democracy, but not always: many autocrats have been freely elected.

“Elections aren’t exactly the best indicator of what counts as a democracy, so with this study we tried to draw on historical examples of human political organization,” Dr. Feinman said.

“We have defined two key dimensions of governance. One of them is the degree of concentration of power in the hands of a single individual or institution. The other is the degree of inclusion, that is, the extent to which the majority of citizens have access to power and can participate in certain aspects of governance.”

In their new research, the authors examined 40 cases from 31 different political units in Europe, North America and Asia, spanning thousands of years.

These companies all had different methods of record keeping, and not all left a paper trail.

So researchers have had to find different ways to infer what governments looked like in these historical contexts.

“I think the use of space is very telling,” Dr. Feinman said.

“When you find urban areas with large open spaces, or when you see public buildings with large spaces where people can gather and exchange information, those societies tend to be more democratic. »

“On the other hand, certain architectural and urban remains indicate a society in which fewer people concentrated power.”

“If you see pyramids with a tiny space at the top, or city plans where all roads lead to the ruler’s residence, or societies where there is very little space where people could gather to exchange information, these are all proxies for more autocratic cases.”

The scientists created an “autocracy index” to place each society studied on a spectrum ranging from highly autocratic to highly collective.

“Among archaeologists, there is a well-entrenched idea that Athens and Republican Rome were the only two democracies in the ancient world and that in Asia and the Americas, governance was tyrannical or autocratic,” Dr. Feinman said.

“In our analysis, we saw societies in other parts of the world that were just as democratic as Athens and Rome.”

“These results show that democracy and autocracy were widespread in the ancient world,” said Professor David Stasavage of New York University.

“Societies have also developed ways for individuals to share power and facilitate inclusion, revealing that democracy has deep and widespread historical roots. I think many people would find this surprising,” said Dr. Linda Nicholas, a researcher at the Field Museum.

The team found that population size and number of political levels did not explain whether a society would be autocratic, challenging the established idea that demographic and political scale naturally leads to strong leaders.

“Instead, the most important factor determining how much power leaders held was how they financed their authority,” Dr. Feinman said.

“Societies that relied heavily on revenues controlled or monopolized by rulers – such as mining, long-distance trade routes, forced labor, or war plunder – tended to become more autocratic. »

“In contrast, societies financed primarily by large internal taxes or community labor were more likely to distribute power and maintain systems of shared governance. »

The study also shows that societies with more inclusive political systems generally had lower levels of economic inequality.

“These findings challenge the idea that autocracy and large inequality are natural or inevitable consequences of complexity or growth,” Dr. Feinman said.

“History shows that people around the world have created inclusive political systems, even under difficult conditions. »

An article on the results was published this week in the journal Scientific advances.

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Gary M. Feinman and others. 2026. The distribution of power and inclusiveness through deep times. Scientific advances 12 (12); doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aec1426