Note: democracies are truly only democracies when the principles of a nation's constitution are acted upon. Confusion can exist when countries are labeled democracies when the actual practices of a country do not earnestly reflect the philosophies upon which its constitution are built. This page attempts to answer many questions about what democracy is, so that the discriminating observer can assign adjectives to nations based upon the purported philosophies of their constitutions and their actual practices.

Direct Democracy
A system where all citizens are eligible to vote on all major policy decisions. This is popular in many social organizations, but becomes increasingly more impossible to manage as the numbers of voting participants increases. Modern direct democracy attempts to form a hybrid, known here at WeakleyReport.com as Direct Representative Democracy. It is a system allowing for controlled representatives. In theory policy would be decided by referendums, initiatives, and recall elections. Representatives would not be able decide policy without the direct permission of the electorate.

While local governments, and states of the United States can and do use Direct Representative Democracy, no national government uses direct democracy or this hybrid to conduct all policy decisions. Therefore when countries are spoken of as democracies it should be understood that they are representative democracies.

Representative Democracy
Democracy is understood by many as having the prerequisite of multiple political parties. This comes from the idea that it is valuable to allow citizens to freely assemble and freely express their ideas. Citizens exercise these rights by joining political organizations and parties. Those who are not representatives exercise the same rights by supporting candidates for elected positions who best represent their ideas. However, representatives are not proxy representatives as they would be in a Direct Representative Democracy.

The use of representative democracy is not intended to encourage a gradual move towards direct democracy, or any form of it. The use of such a model implies that the initiators of such a system value the reliability of authoritative powers to provide security, yet also value the incorporation of the electorate in determining what is best for the citizens. Representative democracy is a balance to give the government the means by which to effect foreign policy, yet expects those same representatives not to abuse authority when making domestic policy.

Representative democracy implies the use of a legislative branch. The authority and power of representative democracies is often limited by a constitution, and a system of separation of powers into branches of government. Legislative authority and power can be checked by the judiciary and executive branches, and by a constitution, but additionally by an upper house in the legislature which is not directly elected by the people. There are numerous variations of how to do this, but some general systems exist:

• Presidential System (a.k.a. Congressional System)
• Semi-presidential System
• Parliamentary System