2. “-Cracy” in democracy: in direct and indirect ways

The way the mass become “masters” prominently determines the essence of democracy. In political community, if the citizens, as masters of the country, directly participate in and manage political affairs instead of agents or representatives, this kind of political order and institution is direct democracy. In this sense, direct democracy means that the public is the “master” of its own. Direct democracy has two kinds of meanings: the first one is that the citizens usually do not participate in political rule personally but will, in terms of specific problems or particular affairs, make direct decisions in the form of direct election and referendum. For example, on September 18th,2014, Scottish citizens, in the manner of referendum, intended to decide whether to get independent from England and become an independent country. The second one is that the citizens can directly exercise their political powers to manage and make decisions on all public affairs of the country, that is to say, the whole country is ruled by direct democracy, making every citizen act as both the ruler and the ruled, such as democratic practice implemented in Athens. With this political practice, public affairs of countries or polis are handled by ecclesia which contains all citizens in the form of discussion and voting. Up to this day, such ancient democratic forms as “discussing political affairs in squares” and “voting by show of hands” are remained in numerous places such as Switzerland where “direct democracy” or “semi-direct democracy” is applied for rule of the country.

We can see that direct participation, direct management and referendum constitute decisive factors of direct democracy, thus perfectly reflecting the political will of “people ruling themselves”. Under this way of rule, the citizens can get actively involved in political life through voluntary participation and “appearance” in political stage, so as to make collective decisions in the form of the minority obeying the majority and then directly make decisions on national affairs, important or not. We can say for sure that direct democracy is the purest and the most ideal democratic form which is supposed to be what we pursue. Nonetheless, direct democracy, theoretically or practical ly, has not gained enough recognition and has been, most of the time, regarded as impossible mission. For one thing, the implementation of direct democracy is constrained by the scale. Mill has once said:“In a society bigger and more populated than a town, in-person participation of all people in public affairs is next to impossible except for some extremely minor parts of public affairs.” Direct democracy requires the public to govern themselves and the authenticity of selfgovernance depends on time, space and participant's quantity of selfgovernance. More participants, higher time span and higher space span bring about more difficulty for the public to directly express their voices in the manner of direct participation, leading to more obstacles to self-governance. For another, direct democracy can easily result in “tyranny of the majority”. Direct democracy wants every citizen to participate in public affairs, the result of which shall satisfy the principle of the minority obeying the majority, that is to say, the more direct the democracy is, the more expressive and closer it is to truth. The opposite, however, is usually the case. The citizens possess different ability to take part in political affairs, which means that absolute advantage in quantity does not necessarily equal to practical advantage. Opinions held by the majority might be wrong. Therefore, we must create decision-making mechanisms to execute self-correction when opinions of the majority are not right. However, direct democracy runs in the name of all citizens without self-correcting mechanisms, thus likely leading to absolutization of “majority principle”. In this way, wrong decisions in the name of “the people” and “democracy” are imposed on everyone as general will, which can easily result in tyranny. In history, for example, Athenian citizens voted to sentence Socrates to death for his “infidelity” and “demoralization”, which is a typical example of “tyranny of the majority”.

It is the consideration of population size and professionalization and refinement of national governance that makes direct democracy disappear, and indirect democracy dominate (i. e. representative democracy) in modern democratic states. In this form, radical changes have happened to realization way of democracy. The public do not exercise political powers directly but retain voting rights. They give their legislative, executive, and judicial powers to the elected representatives through election. Apparently, “rights to make decisions on political issues” and “rights to elect representatives who make political decisions” have been strictly distinguished in form to effectively solve the problem about how to realize democracy in large modern political society. Meanwhile, indirect democracy, through emphasis on constitution's authority and application of various correcting mechanisms and supervisory mechanisms, can properly avoid autocracy or tyranny the direct democracy may result in.

Because of the numerous advantages of indirect democracy compared to direct democracy, many a people naturally regard democracy as “election” and its modern form, that is “representative democracy” when they are talking about the democracy to be implemented in our country. When comparing the two modes of democracy, some scholars even deem indirect democracy in state system as the only reasonable and feasible way. Obviously, we will find this opinion illiberal once we dip into the essence of indirect democracy. Rousseau, in The Social Contract, has indicated sharply that:“The people of England regard itself as free; but it is grossly mistaken; it is free only during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it, and it is nothing.” In the mode of indirect democracy, the public act only as tools for election rather than real decision-makers. In this sense, the public's election has evolved from original political participation into “choosing of ruler”. Meaning of democracy has also been transformed from “the rules of people” to “the consent of people” as well as the subsequent “the rule of politician”. It is clear that this democratic form differs greatly from the originally ideal democratic form. It is not a real democratic system at all.

According to above discourse, both direct and indirect democracies have their own advantages, disadvantages and preconditions for realization. In modern political society, it is invalid to insist in only one democratic form. Robert Dahl once pointed out that:“Sometimes, the small one (direct democracy) is good; sometimes, the big one (indirect democracy) is better.” As far as we are concerned, the right thing is to establish a new democratic mode consistent with our own features which will not only achieve the real democracy where the people are masters of the country and enjoy powers to manage national affairs, but also ensure the realization of such real democracy, so as to make direct democracy and indirect democracy coexist, intensifying, supplementing and integrating each other.