Representative vs. direct democracy.

The problems experienced by the traditional systems of representative democracy in the last few decades has led to a renaissance of proposals that put forward direct democracy as the solution in one form or another. We are told that electing political representatives who don't always vote what their own base supports somehow distorts democracy, and we are also told that representative democracy always leads to the creation of a "caste" of "professional politicians" who quickly forget whom they represent and what brought them there. Yet, all this was already debated a long time ago, and pretty much every political scientist thought that we had reached a consensus that was widely accepted as logical and sensible by the vast majority of citizens in our advanced democracies. As Halstead and Lind state:

In essence there are only two theories of democracy: representative democracy and direct democracy. Representative democracy is based on the idea that voters do not choose policies, they choose policymakers. It is these policymakers who choose policies —after debate and compromise with other elected leaders. Ideally, elected representatives should act on behalf of the values and interests of their constituents —not on behalf of their opninions, which may be based on ignorance or prejudice. Elected representatives, in this view, are like doctors or lawyers; their duty is to tell those who hire them the truth, even if it's something the client does not want to hear. Great leaders, be they legislators or chief magistrates like presidents and governors, are those who are willing to risk their political careers in order to promote the long-term interests of their constituents and their nation, even when that interest is not yet understood by a majority of the public.

(Halstead & Lind: pp. 125-126).

Beyond the idealization of direct democracy as a political nirvana, we should realize that it is often little else than a finely veiled form to sustain tyranny (Muammar al-Qaddafi and Hugo Chavez are perhaps the best examples of this). But why is this? There are, as usual, multiple reasons. I'll try to summarize at least a few here. First of all, direct democracy assumes that there is such a thing as a clear, already finalized public will that's somehow immutable and solid as a rock. It doesn't allow for any sort of flexibility, fluidity or, even worse, change of mind. It doesn't allow either for the typical give and take that has become to characterize complex societies, where different interests and social groups are constantly re-defining their relationships with regards to the others and also with regards to the policies. On the contrary, the theory of direct democracy assumes that there is such a thing as a public will and a public interest that can be set on stone once and for all. In this sense, it shouldn't surprise anyone that those thinkers who strongly defended these ideas —it all started with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but many of the Bolsheviks also spoke up in favor of direct democracy— ended up justifying totalitarianism in one form or another. After all, what reason is there to allow those invididuals who stand for ideas that run against society as a whole to live a free life? Once we manage to find out what the public will is beyond any doubt, we have laid the first stone of the totalitarian State. Second, and directly related to the previous point, direct democracy does away with the need for dialogue and political consensus. Since the citizenry can directly decide what it thinks about any particular piece of legislation at the ballot box, there is no need for people who represent the different social and economic interests to negotiate and make any effort to reach an agreement that satisfies all parties involved. Why bother? Let's just vote and figure out what the citizens decide without any further wait. In doing so, direct democracy increases the polarization of the citizenry and favors the dictatorship of the majority. Third, let's be honest, direct democracy is the best way to let demagoguery run free in our societies. There is nothing easier than stirring up people's hatred with rhetorical masterpieces that blame the escapegoats —usually those who think, act or look different— in order to solve all our problems. Just get rid of all the Jews, all the blacks, all the gays, all the immigrants or whatever else, and our problems will automatically go away. Besides, anyone who has assisted to an Assembly of students while in College knows how easy it is to manipulate people's views when they are burning to find someone to blame for their problems. Fourth, and finally, there are quite a few technical problems that make it direct democracy in any advanced society. It sure doesn't make much sense to implement direct democracy on nation-states with millions of citizens. How do we do it? Using the Internet and new technologies. But are we sure that people truly want to spend hours after hours doing the work that requires to decide between different pieces of legislation —not to talk about the work that's needed to put them together?

Let's be real. In the end, the only solution that makes sense is what we already have: a representative democracy with some elements of direct democracy via referendum and similar. Our political systems are not failing due to a lack of direct democracy, but rather due to a whole slew of other issues that we have been discussing in other entries: the excesses of party discipline, the importance of money to launch a campaign, the problems with electoral systems that distort what citizens think, etc. That's where we should do the work, instead of wasting our time with a concept —direct democracy— that would quickly morph from a dream to our worst nightmare.