Welcome to another installment of Liberal Agenda, where we’re going to explore potential alternatives to current political or economic systems, and hopefully get a conversation started. This week’s topic is:
Direct Democracy
What is a democracy?
Most people reading this will no doubt live in some form of a democracy, so it’s a term we’re all familiar with in some way shape or form. The word comes from a greek word which literally means “rule by people”, and these days it largely takes two forms; representative democracy and direct democracy. Statistically, the majority of you reading this will live in a representative democracy, a system where we elect representatives to form a governing body. Nearly all Western-style democracies are representative, and these can have two different subtypes as well; constitutional monarchies and republics.
Democracies are often seen as “rule by majority”, where no one individual or entity has control over what happens. This however, can often lead to uncertainty which forces all parties to constantly struggle for the realisation of their interests, whatever they may be. American political sociologist Larry Diamond states that a democracy has four key components:
- Political System - to choose and replace representatives through a fair and free election.
- Active Participation of Citizens - in both politics as well as civic life.
- Protection of Human Rights - for all citizens.
- Rule of Law - where the law and judicial procedure applies equally to all citizens.
Another way of looking at it, is that democracy vests power in the people, and elections transfer that power from the voters to politicians. In theory, these politicians are there solely to represent their constituents, however to many it’s become clear that these politicians have become institutionally corrupt and no longer represent the will of the people, as well as often not being subject to the same judicial procedure as the rest of the population.
So, what is a direct democracy?
Direct democracy involves voters either making decisions themselves, or being able to influence decisions without the use of elected representatives. This is in stark contrast to the majority of the Western world who utilise the representative model, but there are some who’ve bucked this trend which is something we’ll get into later.
Direct democracy can take a few different forms, just like it’s representative sibling, and one of the systems that I find particularly interesting is known as sortition. Sortition is essentially choosing political officials as a random sample from a larger pool of candidates, not dissimilar to jury selection.
This form of democracy emphasises the participation of citizens, and differs from representative democracy by tending to advocate for more involved forms of citizen participation and greater political representation than traditional representative democracy. By engaging directly with the system, citizens can gain a greater understanding of the issues and therefore make a more informed decision.
Certainly in Britain, many politicians have used this participatory form of democracy to further their agendas. A prime example of this would be David Cameron’s “Big Society” idea, which never actually became anything other than a buzzword. There is a growing movement amongst both scholars and citizens for a more involved and direct form of governing which needs to be considered by the populace at large if we are going to be able to tackle the coming issues of the 21st century.
Where does direct democracy originate?
One of the earliest known forms of direct democracy comes from Athenian democracy, whereby ancient Athenians would choose by lot in order to address the issue of power corruption. Their system excluded women, slaves and foreigners but because of the relatively small male population of 30,000, a staggeringly large portion of the eligible male population were actively involved in all forms of governance.
There were three main components to Athenian democracy; the assembly, the boulê and the law courts. Through these three governance bodies, the citizens of Athens were involved in every aspect of the political process with many individuals being constantly involved in the political system.
The democracy that we now know does not resemble the Athenian model, but instead is based upon the Roman model which blended both direct and representative systems where there were both a representative government and assemblies.
What are some modern day examples of direct democracy?
A very recent and still poignant example of direct democracy would be a referendum, much like the Brexit or AV referendums here in Britain. I’m not going to get into the details of either of these, partially because I fear both you guys and myself will fall asleep. However, I would like to point out that a referendum isn’t necessarily binding but instead an indicator of public opinion, despite what the right-wing tabloids would have you believe.
Switzerland is often held up as a modern shining beacon of direct democracy, where citizens involvement in the political process occurs on all levels. It is still at its core a representative democracy however, where most laws are both made and decided by parliament. Is this a bad thing though? There is still a massive difference between the British or American democratic systems and the Swiss. This neutral alpine republic has only seven million citizens, but they exercise their law-making rights on all levels, with the Swiss being active in almost 3,000 autonomous municipalities, 26 sovereign states and on the common, federal level. If they want to, they can put every single law decided by their politicians to a general vote, which is something we Brits can’t do.
This works by way of gathering signatures from roughly 1% of the population (50,000 citizens) within 100 days of the publication of a new law. The vast majority of the time however, a referendum is never triggered as Swiss lawmakers know that their politically active population will hold every aspect of their work to account through a complex system of checks and balances.
I personally would like to see the rest of the west take a move towards a more direct democracy. I’ve had concerns, largely highlighted by the recent British referendums, where the population at large are not educated on the issues enough to be able to make informed decisions, and instead rely on allowing media pundits to form opinions, and then take great pride in regurgitating the viewpoints of others under the guise of "patriotism". The Swiss show us that this doesn't have to be the norm, and we can be better as a society.
In our indirect democracies, people are swayed by those with the loudest voices, thinking that their confidence and swagger is all the qualifications a politician or representative need. Public confidence in our broken and failings systems seems to be on a constant decline, and something needs to be done to fix it. Maybe a blending of Athenian sortition with modern communication technologies is exactly what we need to breathe some life back into our stagnant societies.
Both us Brits and the Americans like to believe that we are truly free, however it’s a smokescreen. We have so little sway over what happens in our countries, happily handing power over to the corrupt so that we don’t have the stress of thinking for ourselves. We like to blame the loony liberal left or fascist alt-right but we’re all the problem, and until we can stop acting like children and unite despite our differing opinions, we’ll be forever trapped in this flimsy excuse of a democracy, constantly flipping the political coin hoping for a new face to appear, unwilling to accept that they are merely two sides of the same coin.
What are your thoughts on this topic? Would you like to see Western democracies move more towards a direct model or not? I'm really curious to hear what you think about this idea, so make sure to leave your thoughts down in the comment section. As always, make sure to follow me for the latest Technology, Internet and Pop Culture updates and until we meet again, take it easy dudes and dudettes!
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Sources: Direct Democracy on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy) What is Direct Democracy? (http://www.britpolitics.co.uk/uk-elections-voting-direct-democracy) How direct democracy makes Switzerland a better place (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1435383/How-direct-democracy-makes-Switzerland-a-better-place.html) Landsgemeinde Glarus 2006 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Landsgemeinde_Glarus_2006.jpg) Baden, Switzerland - City Overview (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Switzerland-Baden-oldcityview.jpg) Discurso funebre pericles (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Discurso_funebre_pericles.PNG) Image courtesy of StockSnap on Pixabay (https://pixabay.com/en/people-woman-rally-protest-unite-2575608/) Image courtesy of vanessazoyd on Pixabay (https://pixabay.com/en/trump-states-president-usa-united-2062441/)
