Throughout the ancient world many civilizations that developed were ruled by a chief executive or an oligarchy. However there were certain instances such as the Roman Republic and democratic Athens where democratic processes emerged as a dominant form of government. What factors made these civilizations decide to do something different than the majority of their neighbors and have democratic processes? Why didn’t other civilizations adopt such processes ? It seems interesting that either a monarch or some form of an authoritarian executive was the dominant form of government until near modern times, yet Athens and Rome had already produced successful democratic systems. Why were these not replicated sooner?
Thank you to anyone who answers my questions and I hope it makes sense! :-)
Hey there,
Just to let you know, your question is fine, and we're letting it stand. However, you should be aware that questions framed as 'Why didn't X do Y' relatively often don't get an answer that meets our standards (in our experience as moderators). There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, it often can be difficult to prove the counterfactual: historians know much more about what happened than what might have happened. Secondly, 'why didn't X do Y' questions are sometimes phrased in an ahistorical way. It's worth remembering that people in the past couldn't see into the future, and they generally didn't have all the information we now have about their situations; things that look obvious now didn't necessarily look that way at the time.
If you end up not getting a response after a day or two, consider asking a new question focusing instead on why what happened did happen (rather than why what didn't happen didn't happen) - this kind of question is more likely to get a response in our experience. Hope this helps!