Democracy (varieties)
Encyclopedia
Direct democracy
Direct democracy, classically termed pure democracy, is any form of governmentGovernment
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
based on a theory of civics
Civics
Civics is the study of rights and duties of citizenship. In other words, it is the study of government with attention to the role of citizens ― as opposed to external factors ― in the operation and oversight of government....
in which all citizens can directly participate in the decision-making process. Some adherents want legislative, judicial, and executive
Executive (government)
Executive branch of Government is the part of government that has sole authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the state bureaucracy. The division of power into separate branches of government is central to the idea of the separation of powers.In many countries, the term...
powers to be handled by the people, but most extant systems only allow legislative decisions.
A large number of citizens places greater difficulties on the implementation of a direct democracy, where representation is not practiced and thus all citizens must be actively involved on all issues all of the time. This increases the need for representative democracy, as the number of citizens grows. Historically, the most direct democracies would include the New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
town meeting
Town meeting
A town meeting is a form of direct democratic rule, used primarily in portions of the United States since the 17th century, in which most or all the members of a community come together to legislate policy and budgets for local government....
, the political system of the ancient Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
city states and oligarchy
Oligarchy
Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with an elite class distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, commercial, and/or military legitimacy...
of Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
. There are concerns about how such systems would scale to larger populations; in this regard there are a number of experiments being conducted all over the world to increase the direct participation of citizens in what is now a representative system:
- The National Initiative for Democracy
- Porto Alegre, Brazil
- simpol.org — A plan to limit global competition and facilitate the emergence of what the group believes to be a sustainable, sane global civilization.
With the advent of the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, there have been suggestions for e-democracy
E-democracy
E-democracy refers to the use of information technologies and communication technologies and strategies in political and governance processes...
, which comprises various mechanisms for implementing direct democracy concepts.
Representative democracy
Representative democracy is a broad term describing a means of governance by the people through elected representatives. Citizens elect government officials who then make decisions on their behalf. Essentially, a representative democracy is a form of indirect democracy in which representatives are democratically selected, and usually difficult to recall.A doctrine often known as Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
's Principle states that representatives should act upon their own conscience in the affairs of a representative democracy. This is contrasted to the expectation that such representatives should consider the views of their electors—an expectation particularly common in states
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
with strong constituency links, or with recall provisions (such as modern British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
).
One form of representative democracy is parliamentary democracy, where the government is appointed by parliamentary representatives as opposed to a 'presidential rule' by decree dictatorship. Under a parliamentary democracy, government is exercised by delegation to an executive ministry and subject to ongoing review, checks and balances by the legislative parliament elected by the people.
Hybrid democracy
Some modern democracies that are predominately representative in nature also heavily rely upon forms of political action that are directly democratic. Examples include Switzerland and some U.S. stateU.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
s, where frequent use is made of referendum
Referendum
A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...
s and initiatives. Although managed by a representative legislative body, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
allows for initiatives and referendums at both the local and federal levels. In the past 120 years more than 240 initiatives have been put to referendum. The populace has been conservative, approving only about 10% of the initiatives put before them; in addition, they have often opted for a version of the initiative rewritten by government.
Another distinctive example comes from the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, where, despite being a federal republic
Federal republic
A federal republic is a federation of states with a republican form of government. A federation is the central government. The states in a federation also maintain the federation...
where no direct democracy exists at the federal level, over half the states
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
(and many localities) provide for citizen-sponsored ballot initiatives (also called "ballot measures", "ballot questions" or "propositions"), and the vast majority of the states allow for referendums.
One form of hybrid democracy is deliberative democracy
Deliberative democracy
Deliberative democracy is a form of democracy in which public deliberation is central to legitimate lawmaking. It adopts elements of both consensus decision-making and majority rule. Deliberative democracy differs from traditional democratic theory in that authentic deliberation, not mere...
, which combines elements of both representative democracy and direct democracy and relies upon the deliberation of the citizenry to make sound policy. Another form is demarchy
Demarchy
Demarchy is a form of government in which the state is governed by randomly selected decision makers who have been selected by sortition from a broadly inclusive pool of eligible citizens...
, in which people's representatives are not elected but randomly drafted among the population through sortition
Sortition
In politics, sortition is the selection of decision makers by lottery. The decision-makers are chosen as a random sample from a larger pool of candidates....
.
See also
- Concepts of Democracy in Republics
- Democracy promotionDemocracy promotionDemocracy promotion, which can also be referred to as democracy assistance, or democracy building, is a strand of foreign policy adopted by governments and international organizations that seek to support the spread of democracy as a political system around the world.-Introduction:The precise...
- Emergent democracyEmergent democracyEmergent democracy refers to the rise of political structures and behaviors without central planning and by the action of many individual participants, especially when mediated by the Internet...
- Jacksonian democracyJacksonian democracyJacksonian democracy is the political movement toward greater democracy for the common man typified by American politician Andrew Jackson and his supporters. Jackson's policies followed the era of Jeffersonian democracy which dominated the previous political era. The Democratic-Republican Party of...
- List of types of democracy
- Universal suffrageUniversal suffrageUniversal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...