1. Democracy & Participation pt 1

Aspects of democracy [PARLEP]:

Participation

Accountability

Representation

Legitimacy

Education

Power dispersal

Direct vs representational democracy:

Direct democracy allows the people to directly say what they want.

This is the purest form of democracy and everyone's vote is of equal worth. However it creates tyranny of the majority and is impractical on a national scale. Can be used in referendums such as the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Representative democracy forces a representative to do the electorate's will (delegate model) or allows him to apply his expertise (Edmund Burke's trustee model).

Representative democracy creates accountability as the representative must be re-elected, and political decisions are more educated. However this form is less democratically legitimate, extremely so where the government lacks social representation (e.g. 3/10 women) or practical representation (e.g. lack of…