The case against direct democracy

At this point, it is worth considering the argument against trusting the public with the kinds of decisions that elected representatives have hitherto taken on our behalf.

Parvin and McHugh (2005) argue that a "move toward direct democracy would be a mistake"^[i].

They say that one reason any attempt to recreate the Greek model of civic participation will fail is that populations are now far more diverse than they previously were.

"The democratic republican model was fine when the only views that needed to be united were among the generally like-minded, white men who constituted the Greek demos, or the propertied male members of Italian city-states or newly formed republics; however, the demands made by democracy for the widespread, inclusive and unanimous agreement on laws and policies by the citizen body have become difficult to meet in the crowded, complex, multicultural and shifting world of nation states that exists today." ^[ii]

Microgovernance means that there is, in fact, less need for administrative unity of this kind. And if it is possible to harness a diverse range of opinions, as will be considered shortly, then this can lead to better judgments than those made by homogenous groups that are less open to alternative ways of thinking.

A further concern of Parvin and McHugh is that direct democracy would place power "in the hands of those who are – by luck or accident – in the majority on any given issue" ^[iii].

It is hard not to observe that the same argument equally applies to decisions made inside a legislature as outside it. This argument also skips over the fact that the collective opinion may just be the right one, and that someone or some group is always going to be in the minority unless an almost unbelievable degree of consensus happens to exist.

But their wider point is that political debate would become static and minority groups would be permanently marginalised.

"Politics would stagnate further; despite finding it easier to contribute to political debates, minority groups would find it harder and harder to influence political decisions, as more and more issues would be decided by a vote, carried through by the moral and political majority from which they are excluded. As a result, direct democracy actually sows the seeds of greater apathy and disengagement among disillusioned citizens, and it sows too the seeds of inequality, oppression and the systematic marginalisation of those whose views are not of the mainstream." ^[iv]

One point here is that no individual is likely to be in a minority on every issue, so even those who feel most excluded on some issues will be included on others.

It is also the case that minority groups could not be trampled over given that human rights protections exist to prevent such an outcome.

And the suggestion that minorities could become disengaged if they do not get their way also rings hollow. It may be more likely that minority viewpoints will feel excluded when decisions they oppose are taken by remote representatives than by the public at large. In fact, the much more alienating possibility with representative democracy, that politicians ignore not just a minority but a majority, is unlikely to arise with a form of direct democracy.

Microgovernance also has the benefit of allowing multiple groups to 'have their way' within a single state, unless a metaframework is passed which prevents this, again minimising the apathy which a minority group might feel.

This criticism also assumes that majorities are static, which would negate the entire purpose of political debate, leadership and campaigning. If any significant political change is to be meaningful, it needs also to carry the bulk of the population with it, and therefore the requirement for a campaign to win over a majority of the public to a particular minority viewpoint may be more beneficial in the longer term than one which is imposed from the top down by politicians who are easily labelled as 'elite' and 'out of touch'. This, again, is a criticism that cannot be applied to decisions made by the public at large.

At heart, it is useful to remember, microgovernment is about systems adapting to people, rather than requiring that people get used to the systems they have.

Parvin and McHugh also put forward the case that representative democracy results in better laws.

"Advocates of representative democracy believe that dedicated, elected representatives are able to make better laws because they have the opportunity to be more fully informed about, and better able to judge, the implications of laws for society as a whole." ^[v]

This suggestion can be questioned on two counts. First, much legislation, which can run into hundreds of pages of complex legal text, is poorly scrutinised. Second, it is far from clear that representatives drawn from a narrow range of backgrounds and experiences can understand the needs of a whole society. And given the requirements of party loyalty in any legislature, it is rarely the representatives whose opinions matter but those of their leaders.

But do representatives act as a check on emotional responses and short-term thinking? Again, this argument doesn't stack up, or if it does then it can be applied as much to representative democracy as it can to direct democracy. Politicians and their parties, driven by competition and a quest for short term advantage, frequently put forward not just laws which turn out to be counterproductive, but laws which cooler heads tell them ahead of time will have negative outcomes.

Another take on the practical problems with direct democracy comes from Paul Evans, a local democracy expert, who has cited four reasons why "harvesting of expressed opinion will not necessarily (or even usually) result in good quality policy-making"[vi].

The first of these he describes these as the detached wisdom problem; the need to ensure a representative cross-section of people set out their mild preferences so that the conversation is not dominated by those with strong views and vested interests. And the second, related, challenge is that of the active citizen who has the time, and often the wealth, to make their strongly-held views heard.

Third is the convening power problem which means that wealthy or influential individuals or organisations can lead campaigns on issues which come "at the expense of the issues that have more general lightly-held support from a wider range of people". Related to this is the groupthink problem, with the media and parties attacking those outside the mainstream until only a narrow range of viewpoints can be aired freely.

Evans says the best way to make use of the public's viewpoints is to "quietly eavesdrop upon it rather than do it in a high-profile way", while asking for descriptions of problems rather than ideas about solutions is also important.

What his points have in common is the need to ensure that debate is balanced and free, not distorted by any structural constraints which prevent some people participating, power differentials which make some voices louder than others or systemic imbalances which push expressed (although not necessarily private) opinions in a specific direction.

These are undoubted problems, and may go some way towards explaining why so many of the comments left at existing places of debate, such as blogs or the websites of media organisations, seem to be gratuitously extreme. Although this is not to say that such comments are not representative of a large, perhaps very large, section of the public.

Direct democracy has its potential flaws, and these would certainly need to be guarded against in a system of microgovernment. Some of the ways they can be addressed are considered in the next section and later in Part III when the factors which contribute to the quality of debate are examined.

But having considered the drawbacks of direct democracy, it would be useful to turn to the advantages for decision-making that greater public participation could bring.

Footnotes:

[i] Parvin, P. and McHugh, D. (2005), p. 644.

[ii] Parvin, P. and McHugh, D. (2005), p. 644.

[iii] Parvin, P. and McHugh, D. (2005), p. 654.

[iv] Parvin, P. and McHugh, D. (2005), p. 654.

[v] Parvin, P. and McHugh, D. (2005), pp. 633-634.

[vi] Evans, P. (2010), 'The Conservatives' £million question'. Available at http://blog.localdemocracy.org.uk/2010/01/05/the-one-million-pound-question [January 21, 2010]