ABSTRACT
The concept of open society in its characteristic form as a society founded on “a flexible structure, freedom of belief, and wide dissemination of information” (Oxford Lexico) and a high degree of social mobility (Popper 2020) is not alien to most traditional African societies, especially the non-centralized polities where the traditional political authority is not autocratic but dispersed among the people. Although the holistic nature of these societies in which political authority is often blended with religious sanctions and socio-economic obligations, might appear contradictory to contemporary notions of open society, but a detailed analysis of the dynamic nature of the society reveals their complementary rather than conflicting roles in the making of the open society character of the polity.
