Direct democracy, classically termed pure democracy,^[1] is a form of democracy Democracy is a political form of government where governing power is derived from the people, either by direct referendum or by means of elected representatives of the people (representative democracy). The term comes from the Greek: δημοκρατία – (dēmokratía) "rule of the people", which was coined from δῆμος (dêmos) & and a theory In philosophy, theory refers to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action. Theory is especially often contrasted to "practice" (Greek praxis, πρᾶξις) a concept that in its original Aristotelian context referred to actions done for their own sake, but can also refer to "technical" actions instrumental to some of civics Within a given political or ethical tradition, civics refers to educating the citizens. The history of civics dates back to the earliest theories of civics by Confucius in ancient China and Plato in ancient Greece. These traditions in general have led to modern distinctions between the West and the East, and two very different concepts of right in which sovereignty Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided. The concept has been discussed, debated and questioned throughout history, from the time of the Romans through to the present day, is lodged in the assembly of all citizens Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities. "Active citizenship" is the philosophy that citizens should work towards the betterment of their community through economic participation, public , volunteer work, and other such efforts to improve life for all citizens. In this vein, who choose to participate. Depending on the particular system, this assembly might pass executive motions, make laws Law is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. Laws can shape or reflect politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people, elect or dismiss officials, and conduct trials In law, a trial is when parties to a dispute come together to present information in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, which may occur before a judge, jury, or other designated trier of fact, aims to achieve a resolution to their dispute. Direct democracy stands in contrast to representative democracy Representative democracy is a form of government founded on the principle of elected individuals representing the people, as opposed to autocracy and direct democracy, where sovereignty is exercised by a subset of the people, usually on the basis of election. Deliberative democracy Deliberative democracy, also sometimes called discursive democracy, is a system of political decision-making that relies on popular consultation to make policy. In contrast to the traditional theory of democracy, in which voting is central, deliberative democracy theorists argue that legitimate lawmaking can arise only through public deliberation incorporates elements of both direct democracy and representative democracy.^[2]

Many countries that are representative democracies allow for three forms of political action that provide limited direct democracy: initiative In political science, the initiative provides a means by which a petition signed by a certain minimum number of registered voters can force a public vote (plebiscite) on a proposed statute, constitutional amendment, charter amendment or ordinance, or, in its minimal form, to simply oblige the executive or legislative bodies to consider the subject, 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 direct democracy. The measure put to a vote is (plebiscite) and recall A recall election is a procedure by which voters can remove an elected official from office through a direct vote (plebiscite), initiated when sufficient voters sign a petition. Recall has a history dating back to the ancient Athenian democracy. During the American Revolution the Articles of Confederation stipulated that state legislatures might. Referenda can include the ability to hold a binding referendum on whether a given law should be rejected. This effectively grants the populace which holds suffrage a veto A india, Latin for "I forbid", is the power of an officer of the state to stop unilaterally a piece of legislation. In practice, the veto can be absolute or limited (as in the legislative process of the United States, where a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate may override a Presidential veto of legislation) on government legislation. Initiatives, usually put forward by the populace, force the consideration of laws or amendments (usually by a subsequent referendum), without the consent of the elected officials, or even in opposition to the will of said officials. Recalls give people the right to remove elected officials from office before the end of their term, although this is very rare in modern democracies.

History

The earliest known direct democracy is said to be the Athenian democracy Athenian democracy was developed in the Greek city-state of Athens, comprising the central city-state of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, around 500 BC. Athens was one of the very first known democracies. Other Greek cities set up democracies, and even though most followed an Athenian model, none were as powerful, stable, or as well- in the 5th century BC, although it may be argued that it was not a true democracy because women and slaves Slavery is a system in which people are the property of others. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand wages. In some societies it was legal for an owner to kill a slave. In others it was a crime to kill a slave were excluded from it. The main bodies in the Athenian democracy were the assembly, composed by male citizens, the boule In the cities of ancient Greece, the boule (Greek: βουλή, plural βουλαί or boulai from the ancient Greek verb βούλομαι meaning to will (after deliberating); Latin: volo) was a council of citizens (called βουλευταί transliterated as bouleutai) appointed to run daily affairs of the city. Originally a council of nobles, composed by 500 citizens chosen annually by lot Sortition, also known as allotment or drawing lots, is an equal-chance method of selection by some form of lottery, and most commonly refers to selecting decision makers as a random sample from a larger preselected pool of candidates. In Ancient Athenian democracy, sortition was the primary method for appointing officials, and its use was widely, and the law courts composed by a massive number of juries chosen by lot, with no judges. Out of the male population of 30,000, several thousand citizens were politically active every year and many of them quite regularly for years on end. The Athenian democracy was not only direct in the sense that decisions were made by the assembled people, but also in the sense that the people through the assembly, boule and law courts controlled the entire political process and a large proportion of citizens were involved constantly in the public business.^[3] Modern democracies do not use institutions that resemble the Athenian system of rule.

Also relevant is the history of Roman Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world republic beginning circa 449 BC (Cary, 1967). The ancient Roman Republic's "citizen lawmaking"—citizen formulation and passage of law, as well as citizen veto of legislature-madelaw—began about 449 BC and lasted the approximately 400 years to the death of Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Cæsar/Caesar was a Roman military and political leader. He played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire in 44 BC. Many historians mark the end of the Republic on the passage of a law named the Lex Titia, 27 November 43 BC (Cary, 1967).

Modern-era citizen lawmaking began in the towns of Switzerland Switzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation (Confœderatio Helvetica in Latin, hence its ISO country codes CH and CHE), is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe[note 4] where it is bordered by Germany to the north, France to the west, Italy to in the 13th century. In 1847, the Swiss added the "statute referendum" to their national constitution. They soon discovered that merely having the power to veto Parliament's laws was not enough. In 1891, they added the "constitutional amendment initiative". The Swiss political battles since 1891 have given the world a valuable experience base with the national-level constitutional amendment initiative (Kobach, 1993). In the past 120 years, more than 240 initiatives have been put to referendum. The populace has been conservative, approving only about 10% of these initiatives; in addition, they have often opted for a version of the initiative rewritten by government. (See Direct democracy in Switzerland below.) Another example is the United States ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language, where, despite being a 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. Usage of the term republic is inconsistent but, as a minimum, it means a state or federation of states that does not have a monarch where no direct democracy exists at the federal level, almost half the states A U.S. state is any one of 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 commonwealth rather than state. State citizenship is (and many localities) provide for citizen-sponsored ballot initiatives (also called "ballot measures" or "ballot questions") and the vast majority of the states have either initiatives and/or referendums. (See Direct democracy in the United States below.)

Some of the issues surrounding the related notion of a direct democracy using the Internet The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by a broad array of electronic and and other communications technologies are dealt with in e-democracy E-democracy refers to the use of information technologies and communication technologies and strategies in political and governance processes. Democratic actors and sectors in this context include governments, elected officials, the media, political organizations, and citizens/voters. More concisely, the concept of open source governance applies principles of the free software movement The free software movement is a social movement which aims to enable users to access and modify software free of cost. The alternative terms "software libre", "open source", and "FOSS" are associated with the free software movement. Although drawing on traditions and philosophies among members of the 1970s hacker to the governance of people, allowing the entire populace to participate in government directly, as much or as little as they please. This development strains the traditional concept of democracy, because it does not give equal representation to each person. Some implementations may even be considered democratically-inspired meritocracies Meritocracy is a system of government or other organization wherein appointments are made and responsibilities assigned to individuals based upon demonstrated intelligence and ability, where contributors to the code of laws are given preference based on their ranking by other contributors.

Discussion

Many political movements A political movement is a social movement in the area of politics. A political movement may be organized around a single issue or set of issues, or around a set of shared concerns of a social group. In contrast with a political party, a political movement is not organized to elect members of the movement to government office; instead, a political within representative democracies seek to restore either some measure of direct democracy or a more deliberative democracy Deliberative democracy, also sometimes called discursive democracy, is a system of political decision-making that relies on popular consultation to make policy. In contrast to the traditional theory of democracy, in which voting is central, deliberative democracy theorists argue that legitimate lawmaking can arise only through public deliberation, as well as consensus decision-making Consensus decision-making is a group decision making process that not only seeks the agreement of most participants, but also the resolution or mitigation of minority objections. Consensus is usually defined as meaning both general agreement and the process of getting to such agreement. Consensus decision-making is thus concerned primarily with (rather than simply majority rule Majority rule is a decision rule that selects one of two alternatives, based on which has 50%+1 of the votes. It is the binary decision rule used most often in influential decision-making bodies, including the legislatures of democratic nations. Some scholars[who?] have recommended against the use of majority rule, at least under certain). Such movements advocate more frequent public votes and referendums and less of the so-called "rule by politician A politician or political leader is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making. This includes people who hold decision-making positions in government, and people who seek those positions, whether by means of election, coup d'état, appointment, electoral fraud, conquest, right of inheritance (see also: divine". Collectively, these movements are referred to as advocating grassroots democracy To cite a specific hypothetical example, a national grassroots organization, would place as much decision-making power as possible in the hands of a local chapter instead of the head office. The principle is that for democratic power to be best exercised it must be vested in a local community instead of isolated, atomized individuals, essentially or consensus democracy Consensus democracy is the application of consensus decision-making to the process of legislation in a democracy. It is characterised by a decision-making structure which involves and takes into account as broad a range of opinions as possible, as opposed to systems where minority opinions can potentially be ignored by vote-winning majorities, to differentiate it from a simple direct democracy model. Another related movement is community politics which seeks to engage representatives with communities directly.

Some anarchists (usually social anarchists Social anarchism, socialist anarchism, anarcho-socialism, anarchist socialism or communitarian anarchism, is an umbrella term used to differentiate two broad categories of anarchism, this one being the collectivist, with the other being individualist anarchism. Where individualist forms of anarchism emphasize personal autonomy and the rational) have advocated forms of direct democracy as an alternative to the centralized state and capitalism; however, others (such as individualist anarchists Individualist anarchism refers to several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individual and their will over any kinds of external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Individualist anarchism is not a single philosophy but refers to a group of individualistic philosophies) have criticized direct democracy and democracy in general for ignoring the rights of the minority, and instead have advocated a form of consensus decision-making Consensus decision-making is a group decision making process that not only seeks the agreement of most participants, but also the resolution or mitigation of minority objections. Consensus is usually defined as meaning both general agreement and the process of getting to such agreement. Consensus decision-making is thus concerned primarily with. Libertarian Marxists Libertarian Marxism is a school of Marxism that takes a far less authoritarian, or in many cases anti-authoritarian view of Marxist theory than conventional currents of Marxism-Leninism such as Stalinism, Maoism, and Trotskyism. The current also has a generally less reformist view than do social democrats. It is often based upon a reading of Marx', however, fully support direct democracy in the form of the proletarian republic In Marxism, the dictatorship of the proletariat denotes the transitional socialist State between the capitalist class society and the classless communist society. During the transition, the State can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, thus the term refers to the Classical Roman dictatura concept — republican and and see majority rule and citizen participation as virtues. The Young Communist League, USA in particular refers to representative democracy as "bourgeois democracy," implying that they see direct democracy as "true democracy."^[4]

Comparison with representative democracy

Ideas regarding the desirability of direct democracy are usually in comparison to its widespread alternative, representative democracy Representative democracy is a form of government founded on the principle of elected individuals representing the people, as opposed to autocracy and direct democracy. (Hans Köchler Hans Köchler is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and president of the International Progress Organization, a non-governmental organization in consultative status with the United Nations. In his general philosophical outlook he is influenced by Husserl and Heidegger, his legal thinking has been shaped by the, 1995)

• Political parties. The formation of political parties A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to attain and maintain political power within government, usually by participating in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions. Parties often espouse an expressed ideology or vision bolstered by a written platform with specific goals, forming a coalition among is considered by some to be a "necessary evil" of representative democracy, where combined resources are often needed to get candidates elected. However, such parties mean that individual representatives must compromise their own values and those of the electorate, in order to fall in line with the party platform. At times, only a minor compromise is needed. At other times such a large compromise is demanded that a representative will resign or switch parties. In structural terms, the party system may be seen as a form of oligarchy An oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small segment of society distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, or military control. The word oligarchy is from the Greek words "ὀλίγος" (olígos), "a few" and the verb "ἄρχω" (archo), "to rule, to govern, to. (Hans Köchler, 1995) Meanwhile, in direct democracy, political parties have virtually no effect, as people do not need to conform with popular opinions. In addition to party cohesion, representatives may also compromise in order to achieve other objectives, by passing combined legislation, where for example minimum wage measures are combined with tax relief. In order to satisfy one desire of the electorate, the representative may have to abandon a second principle. In direct democracy, each issue would be decided on its own merits, and so "special interests" would not be able to include unpopular measures in this way.
• Voter apathy. If voters have more influence on decisions, it is argued that they will take more interest in and participate more in deciding those issues.^[5]
• Scale. Direct democracy works on a small scale. Town meetings A town meeting is a form of direct democratic rule, used primarily in portions of the United States since the 1600s, in which most or all the members of a community comes together to legislate policy and budgets for local government, a form of local government once common in New England In one of the earliest European settlements in North America, Pilgrims from England first settled in New England in 1620, to form Plymouth Colony. Ten years later, the Puritans settled north of Plymouth Colony in Boston, thus forming Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. In the late 18th century, the New England colonies would be among the first North, have worked well, often emphasizing consensus Consensus is defined in English as, firstly - general agreement and, secondly - group solidarity of belief or sentiment. It has its origin in a Latin word meaning literally to feel together over majority rule Majority rule is a decision rule that selects one of two alternatives, based on which has 50%+1 of the votes. It is the binary decision rule used most often in influential decision-making bodies, including the legislatures of democratic nations. Some scholars[who?] have recommended against the use of majority rule, at least under certain. The use of direct democracy on a larger scale has historically been more difficult, however.^[6] Nevertheless, developments in technology such as the internet, user-friendly and secure software, and inexpensive, powerful personal computers have all inspired new hope in the practicality of large scale applications of direct democracy. Furthermore ideas such as council democracy is a proposal to enact direct democracy in nation-states The nation-state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a country as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity. The term "nation-state" implies that the two geographically coincide, and and larger groups.
• Manipulation by timing and framing. If voters are to decide on an issue in a referendum, a day (or other period of time) must be set for the vote and the question must be framed, but since the date on which the question is set and different formulations of the same question evoke different responses, whoever sets the date of the vote and frames the question has the possibility of influencing the result of the vote.^[7] Manipulation is also present in pure democracy with a growing population. Original members of the society are able to instigate measures and systems that enable them to manipulate the thoughts of new members to the society. Proponents counter that a portion of time could be dedicated and mandatory as opposed to a per-issue referendum. In other words, each member of civil society could be required to participate in governing their society each week, day, or other period of time.
• Systematic Bias.^{[citation needed]} In association with organizational biases (e.g., group-think) and logical errors (e.g., argumentum ad populum This type of argument is known by several names, including appeal to the masses, appeal to belief, appeal to the majority, appeal to the people, argument by consensus, authority of the many, and bandwagon fallacy, and in Latin by the names argumentum ad populum , argumentum ad numerum ("appeal to the number"), and consensus gentium (&), systemic bias within a direct democracy could, in theory, lead to sub-optimal outcomes for a population. Decisions dealing primarily with factual analysis (as opposed to value-based or ethics-based decisions) could be manipulated (willfully or inadvertently) by individuals or organizations, influencing public opinion and therefore the outcome of a direct democracy's decisions.

Examples

Ancient Athens

Show All>>

What Links Here:

Recently Viewed Pages:

• Search Terms
• Referrers
• Home
• Vote: Dictionary
• Voting: Dictionary
• Voting: Encyclopedia
• Voting: Answers
• Group (Mathematics): Encyclopedia
• Election
• Government

Most Popular Pages:

• Appeal Letter: Answers
• Search Terms
• Risk Matrix: Images
• Manny Ramirez: News
• Reconsideration Letter Sample: Answers
• Financial Aid Appeal Letter: Answers
• Home
• Pareto Efficiency::Pareto Efficiency In Economics: Encyclopedia
• Unemployment Appeal Letter: Answers
• Cheat

Related 'Direct Democracy' Searches: