Outline the Advantages and Disadvantages of Direct and Representative Democacy

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Outline the Advantages and Disadvantages of Direct and Representative Democracy Direct democracy has many advantages. It is considered to be the only ‘pure’ form of democracy as it allows people to only obey laws that they create (or approve) themselves. This means that laws can be made, and decisions made, that reflect the views of society rather than that of a small elite. Due to this, the general public may wish to become more aware of politics, creating more knowledgeable citizens which would showcase the educational benefits of direct democracy. Direct democracy would then allow the citizens to become more independent for themselves, to be able to make decisions for themselves rather than having to rely on one politician who may not share the same views as them. Therefore the lack of this type of representation ensures that there isn’t so much of a distance between the government and the people. This could mean that the ruling of the country is seen as legitimate as it means that the public are more likely to accept policies and laws that they have created themselves. Direct democracy also means that there is essentially no one to blame if everything goes bad, and so the public may be more careful in trying to ensure that their country has a stable government. The advantages of representative democracy is that it is a good system for countries with a larger population as getting a large population to vote for many referendums is impractical and tiring, and a large range of opinions could potentially cause policies to take longer to get through then there would be if there was just a select few making laws. Representative democracy also allows decisions and laws to be made by experienced politicians with a better education than the mass of people. Therefore they are able to run the government using their own knowledge of public interest whilst also seeing the

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