It allows citizens more control over their lives

The argument

Proponents of direct democracy argue that its central advantage is proximity: citizens decide the questions that bear on their own lives themselves, rather than delegating those questions to an intermediary. On this view, representation is not a neutral conduit but an obstacle. Every issue that passes through an elected representative or a political party is filtered through interests that need not coincide with the interests of the people whose lives the decision will shape, and the citizen has no guarantee that the interests being served are their own. Referenda and initiatives, on this account, remove that filter. Where a question is put directly to the electorate, the outcome is determined by the people who will live with it, and the control they exercise over major decisions rises accordingly. The argument treats control as a matter of degree rather than an all-or-nothing property: a representative system gives citizens control over who decides, while direct democracy gives them control over what is decided, and the latter is held to be the more meaningful form. A second strand concerns what citizens are relieved of. Under a representative system, a citizen who dislikes a policy has no remedy except to wait for an election and attempt to replace the representative responsible, which means that correcting a bad decision depends first on correcting a personnel problem, and on persuading enough other voters to do the same. Direct democracy is said to dissolve that anxiety, because the question of whether a representative is corrupt or incompetent no longer stands between the citizen and the policy. Where key policy decisions rest with the electorate itself, responsibility for them is personal rather than delegated. Supporters conclude that a system in which people answer for their own choices, and are not obliged to police the choices made on their behalf, gives them more control over their lives, and is superior on that ground.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Direct democracy is heavily time consuming and requires that citizens are willing to engage with the process of governing and educate themselves on the issues. It requires a significant commitment from citizens to be able to understand the complex real world impact of their policy decisions. Many citizens simply do not have the time required to dedicate themselves to mastering the process of governing. This builds an inequality into society, as the demographics that have the time and resources to do so would be put at an advantage, wielding more power and influence over their fellow citizens.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] This is an unrealistic expectation of citizens.