Politics Essay: Democracy

Define direct democracy and representative democracy

Direct democracy originates from Athens 500 to 322 BCE and today it is used to supplement representative democracy. In direct democracy, the people ‘make’ policy decisions as they don’t just choose who will rule on their behalf. The most modern form of direct democracy is the use of referendums. The people also ‘are’ the government as there is no separate class of professional politicians and people engage in politics on a regular and ongoing basis.

Representative democracy has quite opposite features to a direct democracy. In a representative democracy, the popular participation is indirect as the public don’t exercise power, instead they choose someone to rule on their behalf and there is limited popular participation as voting takes place every few years.