Direct and Representative Democracies

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Unit I

• Direct and Representative Democracies
• Parliamentary and Presidential Democracies

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What is a democracy?
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Key Terms

• Democratic Government
• Direct Democracy
• Representative Democracy
• Presidential Democracy
• Parliamentary Democracy

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• Democracy is a political system where rule is by
  the people.
• Today, there are 2 types of democracies.
• In a direct democracy, individuals directly
  guide the activities of the government by
  voting on every issue.
• In a representative democracy, individuals select
  representatives to make decisions for them.

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What is a direct democracy?
Direct democracy works best in small communities,
as decision making for large groups can be time
consuming and very difficult to manage. Some New
England town meetings use direct democracy. They
meet to discuss and vote on community matters.
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Representative Democracies

• In contrast to direct democracies,
  representative democracies allow large nations
  to ensure that rights of individual citizens are
  represented without everyone voting on every
  issue.

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What is representative democracy?
Representatives elected by the people make
decisions in government.   If the representative
fails to promote the common good and the
interests of the people, those officials can be
voted out of office in the next election. Because
the great number of representatives has to work
together to make decisions, the work of
government can be time consuming.
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• What is meant by separation of powers?

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• There are two kinds of representative
  democracies
• Parliamentary Democracy
• Presidential Democracy

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Parliamentary PresidentialDemocracies
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Parliamentary Government

• Both executive and legislative functions reside
  in the elected assembly, or parliament.
• In the Great Britain Parliament, the national
  legislature, holds almost all governmental
  authority. ?

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The Prime Minister

• Great Britain has no separation of powers between
  the executive and legislative branches of
  government. ?
• The leader of the majority party in the House of
  Commons becomes the prime minister and chooses
  other ministers to head executive departments and
  serve as a cabinet.
• A prime minister who loses support of his or her
  own party resigns from office. ?

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Presidential Government

• Another way to organize democracy is by
  presidential government.
• The United States created the office of the
  president to carry out the laws. ?
• The Constitution separated the executive from the
  legislative and judicial branches. ?

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