Does representative democracy still work?
Representation democracy is in many ways still the form of government that works, but it is slow and you have to deal with people. As humans are flawed it is very difficult to not get frustrated by your choice.One of the issues I have noticed that has happened is that because of the internet people have a tendency to become impatient and want instant gratification. If they don’t receive that they want to get rid of it or delete it, like on the internet. It shows a short-sightedness that comes with bad education and too many stimuli.Democracy is a slow, thoughtful and careful process that evolves over time. It needs this to avoid too many mistakes. When you see any political leader giving you ‘the answers’ and quickly implements them without careful considerations to what certain policies’ outputs are, then you have a real problem. Besides all the logistical and legal problems, there is the waste of time and money that will be spent on these bad policies and the actions against them. The government wants to be efficient, needs to be efficient in order to avoid waste. Your taxes should be spent with respect, not willy-nilly and to heck with the consequences. That is terrible governing.The only way representative democracy works are when its people are well-informed and educated to make a decision with the best outcome. And, it is important that the people keep track of their representatives and hold them accountable. Accountability is a very important part of democracy and when that is neglected you have a serious problem.Representative democracy still works as long as people understand that it is a fine balancing act.
Is the representative system really democracy?
Sure. Its just that democracy is really that bad when its justified on the basis of collective sanction. If we were entertaining ‘democracy’ as participation, it begs the question : what standard for discourse? Rational or populist? Coerced or voluntary? Left anarchist or anarchocapitalism? Collective or personal sovereignty?
Is representative democracy a real democracy or just a farce to fool people?
The trouble I have with people who think that the only democracy is direct democracy is that they seem to have no sense of the scale and diversity of modern societies. They don’t grasp how many people there are in the communities and nations they belong to and how diverse those people are.In brief they think people like them are the only people in the world and differences of education, culture, social class and what have you don’t exist.They also seem to think that the business of government is a simple thing that can be handled by a bunch of people gathering in the market place or down the pub and thrashing it out.Have a look at the bills before the British Parliament at the moment.Do you have an opinion on all of them? Do you even know what the majority of them are about?How do you stand on the Northampton Clinical Commissioning Groups (Merger) Bill? How about the Tyres (Buses and Coaches) Bill? I can easily imagine both could impact human life expectancy and probably not just in Northamptonshire.Can you distinguish between the Voter Registration Bill and the Voter Registration (Number 2) Bill? How much of your life are you willing to spend getting up to speed on them?You may say that this is a lot of unnecessary legal verbiage and that we could do without… How do you even know that? Do you have a law degree? A degree in Public Administration?Things are complicated. More complicated than they were in ancient Athens. This shocks some people, I know…
Why do we still have a representative democracy?
Direct democracy sounds great, but only if you are unfamiliar with just how much gets done at the city, country, state, and national levels. You hear about a vote on some particular piece of legislation and a vote does just take a minute. What you rarely hear about is how much work is required to get to that vote. You have one or more elected representatives at each of those levels, each of whom has one more more aides who spends their time dealing the writing, negotiating, and signing off on more piles of paper than any single person can read in a year. What gets passed is generally going to affect a lot of people and could spend millions or even billions of dollars. Getting each and every detail right is both difficult and essential.So, not only is the idea of having a representative democracy not obsolete, it grows more necessary as the complexity of our society increases. You will be plenty busy just trying to figure out what your elected representatives are voting on, even though it is all a matter of public record; you would have no time for your own job if you had to play a part in writing it.
In a representative democracy such as the United States, people vote directly for every law that is passed?
That would be false. The people elect representatives who then vote on every bill.
What is a Federal Representative Democratic Republic? And how is this different from a regular democracy?
A federal representative democratic republic is like the United States. It is federal because there is a central government that shares some amount of sovereignty with constituent political subdivisions (the several states). It is Representative because you never actually vote for anything at the national level. You elected people (from your peers not a certain 'class') who go and represent you. You can vote them out if they start screwing around and not representing you like you think they should, but you have entrusted them with your representation for a certain period of time. It is a democratic republic because we do get to vote for our representation and we don't have a monarch or a hereditary head of state. When you say regular democracy I assume that you mean a direct democracy. In a direct democracy everybody who chooses to participate in the legislative process can. It is when citizens get to vote directly for the laws and to have referendums to repeal laws. This happens at the state level alot. Many states have public votes to pass laws, repeal laws, or amend their state constitutions. The key here is that the people get to vote directly. You don't have to bother writing to your Senators or Congresspeople. You just go vote for the proposition or against it.
Is America really a democracy?
The United States is a Constitutional Republic most Americans don't know this and this is a major problem for our nation. A Constitutional Republic is a state where the officials are elected as representatives of the people, and must govern according to existing constitutional law that limits the government's power over citizens. A Constitutional Republic is the current form of government in the United States. However in recent years, many people have criticized the federal government for moving away from a Constitutional Republic, as defined by the Constitution, and towards a pure democracy.[1] TeamLaw.org defines a Constitutional Republic as follows: A Republic, by definition, has two principle elements, First, it is controlled by Law, therefore it does not control Law. Second, it recognizes the private independent sovereign nature of each person (man or woman) of competent age and capacity, therefore a Republic must be representative in its nature. A Republic recognizes Law is unchangeable, or at least that it can only be changed by a higher source than government. In a Republic the concept of “collective sovereignty” cannot exist, except with recognition that the State or nation, as a body of sovereigns, can speak through one elected voice; though that one voice can never lawfully interfere with the private rights of the individual sovereigns. “A Constitutional Republic” is a government created and controlled, at least, by the Law of a Constitution. The Constitution of the United States of America was, in Law, foundationally based on the Bible, the Magna Carta, and The Declaration of Independence. Those documents recognize man’s sovereignty, the divine nature of man’s creation and man’s divine right to Life, Liberty, Property, and the pursuit of happiness.[2]
Is India a democracy or a republic? Does India have a direct or semi democracy compared the US or UK?
India is a democratic republic as stated in the Preamble of the constitution of india.Being democratic means the rule of people , which here means the majority rule. Now to have a democratic rule you have to act on the wishes of the people , which means ideally everybody should be a part of law making and governance of India, But India was highly illiterate when it got freedom so direct democracy was avoided and indirect representative democracy was preferred.India is a republic. Being a republic does not simply means that “head of state is elected “. It is more associated with the rule of Law. Now what is rule of law in a democratic system ?? Suppose in a democratic setup a majority of people , say 80, are strongly opposed to ideology of minority and consequently decide that they are incorrect , so they be punished or probably kill them ( and it is not an exaggeration, it actually happened with socrates who had to drink hemlock due majority of people founding him guilty ). Now here comes the rule of Law , which will protect the citizen as “ everybody has a right to fair trial before punishing him /killing him)-(corresp to Right to Life in India ). SO being republic State will interfere to protect its minority citizens from the brunt of majority i.e. democracyWE always talk about democracy , but It is the republic feature which protects the democracy from being behaving in a violent manner. If it is not the republic , Democracy might turn to anarchy and then oligarchy .These Fundamental rights and judiciary just provide the republic character of indian polity. US always talked about the republic feature to stabilise its polity