Democracy before Democracy? YVES SCHEMEIL ABSTRACT. Was democracy invented by the Greeks to replace the anarchy and imperial rule characteristic of earlier Near Eastern societies? Although what was explicitly borrowed from antiquity by modern political thinkers looks Athenian, there was democracy before the polis. Egyptian and Mesopotamian politics relied on public debate and detailed voting procedures; countless assemblies convened at the thresholds of public buildings or city gates; disputed trials were submitted to superior courts; countervailing powers reminded leaders that justice was their responsibil- ity. This was not full democracy, but the Greek version was not perfect either. In this article, “archeopolitics” is used to contrast this efficient form of pluralistic regime (“hypodemocracy”) with truly egalitarian ones (“hyperdemocracies”) and group interests’ polyarchies. Key words: Ancient Egyptian/Mesopotamian politics • Athenian politics • Hypo- and hyper-democracy • Polyarchy Introduction Historians of political thought usually take for granted a chronology of their disci- pline that starts with Athena. Although “politics and the bible” is an academic issue for a small group of American political scientists, the great distinction made by Erik Voegelin between “compact” and “differentiated” civilizations has been much debated in the scientific community (Voegelin, 1956). 1 Then S.N. Eisenstadt popularized Voegelin’s intellectual breakthrough in what appeared to be a reword- ing of Karl Jasper’s concept of “axial societies” (Eisenstadt, 1986). Subsequently, Martin Bernal’s Black Athena was an important, well documented— and splendid attempt to reach the point where the river of political ideas branched off, giving birth to an “Oriental” and a “Western“ philosophy (Bernal, 1987). However, this research was too far-reaching. Greece’s roots were now traced to Africa, whose semiotic and spiritual inventions had been channelled to the Aegean Sea by Egyptian boats. Then, Patricia Springborg explained how the matriarchal International Political Science Review (2000), Vol. 21, No. 2, 99–120 0192-5121 (2000/02) 21:2, 99–120; 011975 © 2000 International Political Science Association SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)