What is the difference between a direct democracy and an indirect democracy?

Answer 1

Do your own homework. ;-)

Direct democracy is when citizens directly participate and make decisions; indirect is when you elect officials to make decisions for you (like electing a Congressman, etc.).

Answer 2

The United States and Great Britain.

A direct democracy is difficult to run. To vote on an issue each and every voter must cast their vote and they must all know the issue. In a modern society this is next to impossible. So we elect professionals; politicians to cast our votes for us. This is what makes the US and GB Republics.

We have the democratic ideal of the people's vote decides, but the people cannot run the day to day operations of the government. For that we need professionals. After all can you explain the complete details of the farm subsidy bill and NASA's latest budget? Granted few politicians can either, but they have a better chance than the average civilians. That is their job and they have to be responsible for knowing this as well as having a stand on thousands of other issues.

They can't know the exact opinion of all the people on each issue, but he knows the general ideas and he tries to do what he can that he thinks the people he represents want him to do. If he fails then he knows that he won't be re-elected, he will lose his job.

The only successful democracies today are republics.

Even back in the days of ancient Greece when the city state of Athens invented Democracy, the day to day running of the city was left to ministers. When a major issue came up then an election was held. The men of voting age, who were not slaves, and usually were only land owners were required to attend. They would listen to discussion and then cast their vote with a stone; black of no, and white for yes. There would be no compromise attempts and no appeals. If a politician was considered a problem then once a year Athens would hold an election for exile. A person who was not popular had their name put on a jar and voters that didn’t like him would put a stone into his jar. The person with the majority of the stones in their jar would be exiled from Athens.

Politicians were people who were listened to by a lot of others, the wealthy, those with power and influence. They could be named ministers, but their right to be a politician came from their personal power and the power that they could wield. A system like this could never work in a large, or a modern society. That’s why the idea of democracy died with the fall of Athens. It was a minor note in history until the British and the Americans started experimenting with it and evolved the system that we have today.

We call our system of government a Democracy, but it is actually a Republic. It is the only type of government that could work on a large level.

Answer 3

A direct democracy is called a democracy and it's where people vote on the laws like propositions in the United States. There are no government leaders.

An indirect democracy is called a Republic and it's where the people vote for leaders that will make the laws.

Answer 4

I think the most important difference is that indirect democracy is a form of government, while direct democracy is a peculiar form of suicidal anarchy.