Representative democracy

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Representative democracy

Advantages

  • People can elect representatives to act on their behalf, as most people don't have the time to be continually involved
  • Representatives have more experience, knowledge and expertise than the rest of the population
  • Representatives can educate the public about political issues
  • They can be made accountable for their decision, whereas the people as a whole can't.

Disadvantages

  • Representatives may ignore or distort the demands of the people to suit their own political advantage
  • Representatives may follow their party instead of represents their constituents accurately
  • May be difficult to make representatives accountable between elections
  • Representative democracy may result in too much political conflict which can only be resolved by direct democracy

Evaluation

As shown, there are a number of advantages and disadvantages of representative democracy and a mixture between representative and direct will benefit democracy probably more than just focusing on one type of democracy. 

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