In very early times, leadership was basically determined by who
had the biggest muscles, and whatever the boss said, that was what
happened.

After that most governments were absolute monarchies of some
description, where it was generally accepted that the king had
absolute power, and oftentimes it was believed that he was some
kind of divine ruler with a god-given right to rule. In general,
the concept of limiting the government’s power was generally not
one that was considered- that just wasn’t how it went.

Later on, people eventually started to question this system, and
many people demanded that the government respect the rights and
freedoms of its citizens. Sometimes this happened because a
government got too harsh and the people got upset, but oftentimes
the initial impetus came from powerful nobles who didn’t want the
government to limit their own power (as was the case in England).
Eventually this started to result in formalised constitutions and
more democratic governments, which over time ceded more and more
power to the people.

The USA is a rare example of a democratic constitution that was
installed through violent revolution and still remained very
democratic thereafter. Most democratic constitutions evolved
gradually

Tribal chiefs held the courts..the norms were known to all.

Then there was always a religion to support a regime which
outlined codes