Do the benefits of direct democracy outweigh the benefits of representative

democracy?
This essay will be comparing the benefits and draw backs of Direct and
Representative democracy and drawing a conclusion based on this
comparison.
Most people consider democracy to be the highest form of government
possible but what some of them fail to consider is that there are different
types of democracy. Two mainly direct and representative both of these forms
of government have their benefits and drawbacks.
For example one of the arguable benefits of direct democracy is that all people
participate in the government of their country while many might consider this
to be nothing but a benefit political thinkers such as Schumpeter who believed
that normal people where not informed enough to properly govern and that
they would be to easily manipulate by others but under a representative
democracy people elect representatives to make decisions on their behalf
while this dose leave the government in the hand of experts it can also create a
“political class that can become disconnected from society. Another arguable
benefit of direct democracy is that it creates a batter informed citizenry while
this is true to a certain extent and indeed a direct democracy would make
people more informed but returning to Schumpeter’s view that people are
easily manipulated. This kind of manipulations was seen in the recant
referenda in the UK over leaving the EU where misinformation was spread by
the leave champagne but with representative democracy the government is in
the care of people with expert knowledge although this can also lead to the
manipulation of the public as these representatives have their own agendas.
One of the benefits of representative democracy is that it is more practical
than direct democracy as referenda are expensive and slow to organise. But
with modern technology this could all change as it offers many avenues for
which referenda could be conducted such as on the internet. One of the
benefits of direct democracy it that as the people are directly involved in
government there are no self-serving politicians. But this is untrue as after a
referenda has taken place their must be someone to deal with the outcome.

One examples of a representative democracy a is the UK which is split up into

constituencies and each of those constituencies elect a MP to represent them
in parliament although the are some criticisms of the British representative
democracy such as the House of lords which is a unelected body that can both
propose its own legislation and block legislation from the elected house of
lords (with the exception of any legislation involving money).
An example of direct democracy would be Ancient Greece which would hold
regular referenda for the public to decide policy although slaves, Foreigners,
prisoners and women were not allowed to vote which defeats the purpose of
direct democracy which is meant to be more representative than
representative democracy. But one prominent Greek philosopher, Plato, would
have got in rid of democracy altogether seeing it as just mob rule he would
instead have the people he called the “Philosopher Kings” rule i.e. the scholars
scientists and Philosophers coincidentally Plato just happened to be one of
these Philosopher kings.
A criticism of representative democracy is that it can lead to the creation of an
elite political class that can become disconnected from the general population
and cannot govern in their interests. This is exactly what some would say has
happened to the UK with what is known as the Westminster bubble where
almost all the Members of a prime ministers cabinet and the MP’s come from a
very similar very privileged background another criticism would be that due to
the concentration of ownership of the media this allows the owners of sed
media to easily manipulate the views the public are exposed to giving a certain
political party an advantage over others. This happened during the general
election in 2015 in the UK where most newspapers supported the
conservatives giving little coverage to the other parties.
Some criticisms of direct democracy would be that referenda aren’t as
representative as people think as after a great numbers of referenda the voting
population would grow tired and voter apathy would increase. This happened
in the British referenda to change the voting system to the alternative vote
which only had a turnout of 41%.
In conclusion, representative democracy is superior to direct democracy. As
instead of everyone making the decisions it is people who have been educated
and are fully aware of all the issues surrounding any policies. Schumpeter
argued that most people simply didn’t have the time or necessary education to
engage in politics. To allow all citizens the right to participate directly in the
political decision-making process was not something that all theorists would
have wanted, Plato, for example, thought that the masses where incapable of
making such important decisions without being manipulated . For example, it
has been alleged that the Mormon Church influenced the outcome of the
Proposition 8 vote in California on gay marriage by spending large amounts of
money to influence voters. One of the arguments advocated by supporters of
direct forms of democracy is that it heightens the awareness of the citizenry,
however given social media and the 24 hour news cycle voters are now much
more politically aware than they may have been in the past.