Overall representative democracy is more practical upon comparison to direct democracy. This is due to the fact that it is more practical for largely populated countries such as India and America. This is good as it means that for countries such as America where referendums are more less frequent the voter turn out is more likely to be much higher. However by having representative democracy it is still just as time consuming, complex, and costly as if they were to run under a direct democracy. This further means that while it may be time consuming and costly in the main long run it is more manage and practical as US elections can carry on for weeks and to hold multiple elections such as the Swiss Cantons where they can have up to 30 referendums a year which take far to long especially due to having to count and collect and have people to turn out. Meaning that upon evaluation representative democracy is superior and far more practical for the majority of the world especially countries with large and constantly growing populations. 

Representative Democracy is also far more superior when it comes to being able to hold the government to account. This is because each constituency has to vote an MP or representative for example in the UK through FPTP which means that if they do not feel that they are being incorrectly represented and their views and concerns are not being voiced then they know who to tweet, email or attend the surgery of. This is good as constituents are also able to vote their MP out if they are not satisfied with the job that they have done or if they are not able to accurately represent their constituents. However this isn’t always fair on the constituents as MPs don’t always respond or change their actions to fit in with their people. Therefore while there may be faults with how we aren’t able to immediately hold the government and democracy to account overall it is superior as any UK citizen is able to go onto the My Society website and see how their MP voted in important matters down at Westminster and are able to track all of their expenses, shares and assets. This I s especially true as recently many MP’s were questioned about their expenses and were forced to give £1 million back to taxpayers as well as 3 MP’s got jail time meaning that representative democracy provides people with the best accountability.

Furthermore representative democracy provides people with the best representation compared to direct democracy although they do have both similar flaws making both aspects of representation not ideal and to a perfect standard. Direct democracy fails to accurately represent its people as it means that countries such as the UK and US are usually left stuck between the two main parties, Conservative and Labour and republican and Democratic, meaning that people whose party is for example UKIP under represented as they won 12.7% of the votes in the 2015 general election but only got 1 seat compared to SNP who won around 4% of the votes but got 56 seats. So how is representative democracy better than this? Every 5 years a General election is held across the whole of the UK for them to pick their MP who will represent them for the next 5 years down in parliament meaning that the public has fairly good representation as they are given an annual chance to change who they have as their MP if they are not happy with how they are doing or feel that they are not being represented. However this is due criticism as by no means does it offer amazing representation as due to the FPTP electoral system it means that the person with the most votes gets voted in even if overall more people didn’t vote for them. For example in Dumfries and Galloway Conservative MP Allister Jack only received 42% of the votes meaning that many SNP and Labour voters will feel underrepresented. On evaluation while both have their negatives and positives representative democracy remains superior as while in the UK it can be unfair in Scotland via the system of AMS each constituency is given 8 MSPS which are elected in a number system therefore providing the person who the most people wanted to win or whom they would be more okay with being elected providing a better standard of representation. 

However for the participation in Democracy, Direct Democracy is far superior over representative democracy. This is based on studies done on the Swiss cantons where the population is only 8.4 million. The study concluded that for many smally populated countries this system of direct democracy had many benefits. The Swiss Cantons have very high voter turnout which has proven the  public will then have a greater political trust installed with the government which causes the voting turnout to be so high due to feeling that they have a political place and are engaged within society. This also means that the Swiss Canton voters also have a much higher satisfaction within the government and their votes. However this would be unable to dominate other countries as their democracy as it means that there would be loads for and regular referendums which would be too time consuming and impractical. So overall while it isn’t the most practical as a government system which would be able to be used across the world it is still the system that receives the best participation also due to that there is not financial barriers for neither the government or the public. 

Hello Ellie - thank you for this. I have uploaded a marked copy of your work to the top of this post.