The representative model of democracy is a better way of government because a more accurate view of the public is portrayed without hindering the decision-making process. The direct model calls for every citizen to voice their opinion and make decisions about issues. When 1000 different voices are heard on the same issue, but everyone’s opinions slightly differ, then it becomes harder to make decisions. For example, the ancient Athenians used direct democracy. Any able-bodied citizen that wanted to speak came to the Assembly to give their opinion. This often made it harder for decisions to be made. Many people had their own personal goals to achieve and were unwilling to compromise with others. According to Thrasybulus, “Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty” (Thucydides). Even though the citizens did not make up the entire population of Athens- there were over 25,000 metics compared to only 50,000 citizens- they still displayed enough trouble getting legislation passed. In a reenactment of the Assembly of ancient Athens, the Assembly proved that decisions were harder to make as each person had their own agenda as well as had views to align with their parties.
Part of the reason this direct democracy was not as effective was because not all of the population were able to attend Assembly meetings, even though they were welcome to. Blackwell argues that for some citizens, traveling 50 to 60 miles for an Assembly meeting was not worth it. He also argues that “This would have been especially true when emergency meetings were called on short notice, such as the occasion that Demosthenes describes, when news of a military disaster came to the city in the evening, and a special Assembly convened the very next morning (Dem. 18.169). This assembly, and any others like it, must have consisted mainly of citizens living close to the city.” (Blackwell). This would mean that while being a direct democracy, a large population would also have been missing to the point where decisions were only being made by a biased portion of the population.
On the other side of the coin, a representative democracy in today’s world proves to be the better system, even with its drawbacks. The representative democracy nominates two senators per state for the Senate. This way, every state possesses equal representation. Each state is also divided into districts based on population where they vote on one person to represent them in the House of Representatives. In this manner, a more widespread view of the population’s opinion is presented. Representatives are up for election once every two years and Senators every six years. This ensures that the members of Congress are up to date with issues as well as the peoples’ opinions. Whereas not every voting member of society can make it to the polls to vote, those that can still represent a big portion of the population. There are multiple polling stations across the districts so that no person has to travel an insane distance to vote. Also, online voting is available for those in the military or away from home at college so that they may still have a voice in their society. Gerrymandering, the strategic method of shaping a district to favor one group over another does occur, but due to its unlawfulness is often fixed as soon as it occurs. At the same time, there are enough members of Congress that faithfully voted based on the peoples’ opinions that any gerrymandered districts or members that vote against the public’s views are easily outnumbered. Less people voting on decisions allows for more decisions because a clearer majority is revealed. By having members of Congress be members of different boards, decisions are more immediately implemented by the boards in charge of them. The lack of mob rule coming from the whole population allows decisions to be more thought through. The representative democracy is more efficient because it gives a more accurate portrayal of the views of the population.
Thucydides 2.37.1
Blackwell, Christopher W. “The Assembly.” Diotima, www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_assembly?page=2.
-Moira Camacho
Word Count: 600
The West in the Pre-Modern World 
I completely agree with the statement that Representative Democracy is a better form of government that Direct Democracy. Not only does Representative Democracy generally correctly represent its people, its citizens, I would add also that it makes allowances for the minority party, or faction, to influence the legislative process. The founding fathers purposefully envisioned and implemented a system where the majority cannot consistently quell the minority to the point where the minority cannot be heard.
Human nature automatically lends itself to the formation of factions, such as the ones seen during the Reacting to the Past activity. When a particular faction gains too much power, or when a large portion of the population cannot be represented, dangers of hasty legislation and/or poor decisions can result. This is, in fact, mob rule, and proved its own deadliness during and after the Peloponnesian Wars.
Today, in our Representative Democracy, devices such as filibuster and the built-in checks and balances between our branches prevent impulsive decision making at every level and branch of government, with each sharing power throughout our cooperative federalist system, ensure the voice of as every constituent as possible is heard.
-Gregory Mathias
Word Count: 192
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I think you did a great job of introducing your topic and making a case for your point that a representative style of democracy far exceeds that of direct democracy. As you stated in your blog, direct democracy makes it hard to reach consensus on various issues and the decisions conducted by a direct democracy can be very biased due to missing large portions of population. We had a chance to witness this in person through RTTP, as allowing every person to speak at any given time conduced chaos and indecision. On the other hand, you argue that the representative system provides more equal representation and convenience. While I completely agree with your argument, I saw an article that talked about the modern-day Occupy movement which is an organization inspired by direct rather representative democracy. The Occupy movement hopes to reinstate “real democracy,” as in direct democracy, in countries around the world in order to bring out social and economic justice. I think it’s really interesting that despite the clear drawbacks of direct democracy and the inability to scale it to modern and vast countries, as you discussed in your blog, organizations and people still believe it is a good idea.
-Lauren McDonnell
Word Count: 201
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