Two kinds of democracy of representative democracy

First of all, the concept of democracy refers to the political form in which citizens directly exercise power. It can be said that the so-called democracy originally refers to direct democracy. The ancient Greek and Roman city-states where democracy originated practiced direct democracy. In Greece, the polis is an autonomous group composed of citizens. The city-state is small in scale, and citizens are a narrow privileged group among the residents of the city-state. Citizens hold the supreme power of the state (city-state) by attending the citizens' assembly (ecclesia) and the jury court in person. Aristotle defined a citizen as "a person who must participate in judicial affairs and power institutions". People who have the right to participate in citizens' meetings and jury courts. In the heyday of democracy in Athens, not only the legislation and judicial power were directly exercised by citizens, but even the administrative power was not in the hands of professional officials, but was held by citizens according to Aristotle's principle of "ruling by turns". In Athens, Perikles, with a few exceptions (generals, financial officials), all public officials are elected by lot, and some are rotated by day. Although Rome is not a typical direct democracy, the Senate and senior officials hold enormous power, and the people's assembly is far from the overwhelming power of the Greek city-state citizen assembly. But the People's Congress (Comitia) in Rome is not a representative institution, but an institution where citizens directly exercise their power. The people's congresses adopt a two-level voting system, that is, citizens first vote by curia, Centenary or Tribe, and then vote by the above groups. However, unlike representative democracy, citizens do not entrust power to representatives, but exercise power in person in a specific meeting place in Rome. When the size of the Roman state has expanded to a very large scale, the Romans still adopt this form of democracy. The imagination of the ancients seems unable to surpass this way of exercising power by "visiting the scene in person".

From a historical point of view, the popular representative democracy (indirect democracy) in modern times is a variant of democracy. Contemporary scholars who support direct democracy demand more "full democracy" or "pure democracy". For example, B.Beedham called representative democracy a "semi-finished product". The direct democracy in ancient times disappeared with the disintegration of the city-state, and democracy took the form of representative system when it was regenerated at the end of the Middle Ages. Although modern democratic thinkers admit that state power belongs to the people, they almost agree that people are not suitable for directly mastering state power. They agree with the representative democracy that grew up in the Middle Ages, and the people elected representatives to take charge of state power. Citizens' democratic rights are embodied in their right to elect representatives. The emergence of representative democracy scheme has enabled modern thinkers to solve a difficult problem that puzzles supporters of democratic system, that is, everyone must be recognized as equal in theory, but in fact only a few elites can master state power. Another absolute reason for implementing representative democracy is that the modern nation-state has a vast territory and a large population, and the limitations of economic development, social communication level and technical means such as transportation and communication make direct democracy impossible to achieve in practice. Therefore, among the political thinkers of that era, only Rousseau, a radical and romantic idealist, insisted on the scheme of direct democracy. He believes that the sovereignty of the people cannot be represented. When attacking the British representative system, he once pointed out: "The British think they are free, and they are all wrong. They are free only during the election of members of parliament. Once a member is elected, he is a slave, which is equal to zero. " Rousseau is Swiss, and Switzerland is the only country in Europe that still practices direct democracy. When he paints a blueprint for democracy, scenes of political life in his hometown will naturally emerge in his mind. But Rousseau also understood that his democratic ideal was only applicable to small countries and could not be realized in big countries. In the minds of politicians who create representative democracy, another reason for implementing representative democracy is to prevent so-called "mob" politics. Theoretically speaking, modern democracy is the democracy of the whole people, not the democracy of specific identity groups in ancient times, nor the aristocratic democracy in the Middle Ages. But in practice, an isolation buffer zone must be established between the people and the supreme power of the state. The Constitution of the United States chooses a "* * * and" regime instead of a "democratic" regime. According to the framers' explanation, it is to draw a clear line with mob politics. In the western political tradition, the fear of so-called "mob" politics is no less than the aversion to personal tyranny. The performance of civilians in the decline of democracy in ancient city-states recorded in historical books and the almost unanimous dislike of civilian politics by ancient literati are all part of the western political and cultural heritage and inherited by modern politicians. Representative institutions are regarded as "Mahler" to curb the irrational behavior of "mobs". After the disintegration of the ancient polis, the political form of direct democracy once flickered in the long river of western history.

The inhabitants of early Germanic tribes and medieval Alps once enjoyed a direct democratic life. Local autonomous regions in England and Wales can choose whether to hold district councils (direct democracy) or elect district councils (representative democracy). The township government in North America and New England has always been convened by town meetings, and every citizen can participate. Since 12~ 13 century, several Swiss cantons have been ruled by the people's assembly, and five of them exist today. Like the ancient Athenians, the citizens here went to the state capital square on a specific date to discuss and decide the important affairs of the country face to face. The above-mentioned special cases have little impact on history. Generally speaking, direct democracy at the level of sovereign States has disappeared for more than two thousand years. In modern times, representative democracy has ruled the world for hundreds of years. Rousseau's proposal that a group of simple farmers sit around a big tree to discuss the democratic blueprint of autonomy has not been taken seriously. It was not until the 1960s that some radical scholars rediscovered Rousseau's viewpoint. Therefore, people have a new interest in the direct democracy of rural commune or hippie commune. But Rousseau's followers have to admit that modern countries, even companies and student groups, are too big to be ruled by the general assembly of all members. Therefore, they greatly discounted the ideal of direct democracy and demanded that deputies should obey the National Assembly as much as possible, for example, they could be removed by voters at any time. Even the town meetings in New England, as a model of direct democracy, have been declining in recent years. Due to the increase of urban population, a large number of residents moved to the suburbs, making the original "everyone present" meeting unsustainable in many towns. Some towns were changed to the town people's congress meeting system, the mayor meeting system and the town manager system.