Democracy / Liberty

Is direct democracy desirable and/or possible today?

Is direct democracy desirable and/or possible today? The question is addressed first theoretically, with reference to Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws, which actually categorizes direct democracy as one of the corruptions into which a democratic system can descend, by an insistence on too much egalitarianism. Direct democracy is considered as an ideal, which is desirable insofar as it offers a critique of contemporary politics, but whose possibility is limited by whether or not it can be feasibly implemented. Two contemporary case studies are brought in to examine the question further: the experiment with internet-organized direct democracy in Estonia, and the experiment with social-media-inspired direct democracy in the Occupy Wall Street movement. The Estonian model is critiqued for its heavy reliance on a highly vulnerable technological infrastructure, suggesting that direct democracy in Estonia is only possible for as long as Vladimir...
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