What can we learn about possible models for Participatory Governance from the classical world of Ancient Greece?
What can we learn about possible models for Participatory Governance from the classical world of Ancient Greece?
2. In what ways is representative democracy limited in contemporary capitalist or liberal market societies?
3. Can the concept of civil society provide a basis for developing participative democracy and participative governance today?
4. Discuss the ways in which the concept of a social contract has been used to underpin social consensus and distributional justice.
5. What can be learned about negotiated and participative governance from the Irish case of social partnership?
Most scholarship on system of rule in ancient communities generally emphasized monarchic, aristocratic, and oligarchic forms of governments. Least accentuated is the system of participatory democracy whose provenance and prevalence has also been situated more in parts of contemporary Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia. This gives the impression that communal participatory democracy was not very deep in the remote ancient world. 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. 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. 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. It concludes that a simple revisit to the basic vital principles of Athenian democracy may positively fast-track the socioeconomic and political development of many communities in contemporary Nigeria
