Explain the term 'direct democracy' (5)

Direct democracy involves people power, or the self-government of people, contrasting to a representative democracy by which representatives are elected in order to voice the opinions and interests of citizens. Direct democracy originated in Athens and was practised in a small city-state comprising of some 40,000 people. Pericles famously said ‘Our constitution is named a democracy because it is in the hands not of the few but of the many’. Direct democracy is no longer practised religiously in any country around the world, however there are elements of it within the UK; such as referendums. A referendum is a general vote by the electorate on a single political question which has been referred to them for a direct decision. An example of this was the Scottish referendum in November 2014, the question was ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’. In this the citizens of Scotland got to make a direct decision and their choices determined the outcome. An advantage of direct democracy is that it significantly reduces the democratic deficit as people have the opportunity to get politically involved during the time periods in between elections. This is seen by the 84.6% turnout at the Scottish Referendum. However, complete direct democracy is impractical in the modern state because there are too many people in the country for there to be an organised system.