A Level Politics – Advantages of Representative Democracy
The fundamental benefit of representational democracy is that government is carried out by professional politicians who must be well-informed on political topics. As a result, they are more likely to make politically informed decisions than the general public, who may be driven by emotion and may not completely comprehend the complexity of a situation. A parliamentary bill, for example, will have been meticulously drafted by ministers and civil servants, debated in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and further scrutinised in committee stage, when modifications may be added. When making choices in a representative democracy, elected leaders must strike a balance between competing interests. This is critical for safeguarding the rights of all citizens, particularly minorities, and ensuring that the consequences of a decision are thoroughly considered by all members of the community. In direct democracy, on the other hand, citizens vote based on their own self-interest, without regard for the impact on others. This is more likely to promote a majoritarian form of democracy, in which minorities' rights and interests may be overlooked. An MP's representational function. 'Your representative owes you, not only his labour, but his judgement, and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion,' Edmund Burke (1729–97) said in an address to the voters of Bristol in 1774. Given that Burke was an outspoken opponent of slavery and that the merchant elite of Bristol was built on the slave trade, this was a bold assertion that, if elected, Burke would act on his conscience rather than what his electors expected. These words are frequently used to describe the concepts that underpin representational democracy. Representative democracy also includes the notion of accountability, which means that people can determine whether or not to renew their representatives' mandates in regular elections. In other words, if the public disapproves of a government's policies, it has the option of electing a new one.
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