Direct democracy as a possible answer to problems arising from the justification of representative democracy

Abstract

In the Western democracies the justification of the representative democracies did not have to face too much difficulties in practice until the third quarter of the 20th century. Western democracy and capitalism have performed so well in contrary to the soviet-type political and economical structure that not many people have doubt their legitimacy. However since the mid 1970s due to the economical slow-down and the growth of the unemployment and income inequalities the western democracy has more and more loser as a result of wich more and more people doubt the legitimacy of the democratic structure. The central problem of my study is the difficulty of the justification of representative democracy and the practical consequences of it. In order to clarify the subject of the study first it is explained what we really mean under democracy. Then I briefly present the conditions of the justification of the democracy. After that as the backbone of the study I describe the advantages and disadvantages of the direct democracy, which can be a possible answer to the problem raised. In doing so I give a brief overview how the direct democracy can improve the representative demoracy and so how the whole democratic structure can get a stronger justification. As well as I try to overview briefly wich practical barriers this kind of structure has to face. Finally to conclude, I try to anticipate the direction of the developement.