Did the ancient people of Athens have a full democracy?

Answer 1

At times some cities of ancient Greece, mostly Athens had full democracy. At other times there were tyrants that ran the city. Only free adult men were citizens. Women and slaves had few rights. Notable democratic leaders were Solon in 508 BCE when there was a popular assembly. Another democratic leader was Pericles who introduced measures which brought Athens to become a radical democracy where the adult males met in assembly fortnightly and made all the decisions which a council of 500 implemented.

Answer 2

What they had, was that they were consulted in mass meetings on a number of issues and that they had a sort of combined jury/judge duty in a number of specified cases, like for instance high treason. At the same time, Athens' top famililies carefully saw to it that those meetings were carefully pre-arranged so as not to produce unexpected or unwanted results. And they also made sure that all executive power remained in the hands of their family members of in the hands of people they fully trusted.

Now this should all sound familiar to people in most of today's democracies, where immediate influence is limited to elections once every two or four years; where people sometimes are consulted in carefully orchestrated events we now call a "Referendum" and where candidates for office are often carefully vetted by the Parties they represent; and where the executive leaders of Government are selected and appointed by the Chief Executive, not chosen by the people.

So Athens did not have a full democracy in the sense that people were consulted or could otherwise influence the daily business of government. And the occasions where they could, were carefully orchestrated and candidates were mostly pre-selected. But that doesn't differ much from the way most modern democracies work.