What are the good and bad points of representative democracy...and of direct democracy?

Answer 1

Direct Democracy:

1.Continuous participation of citizens
2.Self-government
3.Mass meeting/referendum

benefits:

citizens have more control
they are better informed and become more politically sophisticated
public can express own views rather than the politicians
rule is legitimate as the people agree

Representative Democracy:

1.Indirect and limited democracy
2. Participation is infrequent (ie.voting)
3. public dont exercise power themselves

benefits:

more practical
no burden on citizens
stability is maintained as citizens are distanced from politics and more willing to compromise

Answer 2

Good Things About Representative Democracy

Answer 3

The problem is that Democracy does not exist....its just a concept thought up by rich people,to pull the wool over the eyes of the majority...politicians do not represent the majority,they only pretend to. Democracy is nothing but a figment of the imagination...because if it did exist,then politicians would be doing what people want...but do they listen

Answer 4

The major problem with participative democracy is the fact that the size of our country and the scope of our government are so large that it would be difficult to pass all of the necessary laws to function properly. Oversight of enforcement and judicial committees would be left to all of us, which to do effectively would require vast amounts of time. It is simply more efficient (even though our government is very inefficient as it stands) to nominate someone to do it for us, who closely represents our view. Often they do not act on those views, but the system of participative democracy generates many obligations to all of us that are currently only on a few of us no matter how bad a job they do of bungling. Basically society and the economy would suffer because many of us would have to spend more time monkeying with politics and less working or being with family or whatever we want to do with our free time.

Answer 5

Democracy is good in theory. But the fools who run this gaff are using the innocence of democracy (us) for their own selfishness and own ambitions, but it's always been like this. We are human and like every other lice infested animal our dominance is one of our natural instincts, our lust for power and strength amongst other countries (tribes) is what keeps our hate fuelled heart pumping