American Democracy Vs Liberal Representative Democracy

Democracy originates from antiquity in which, in Athens, all citizens (demos) participated in ruling the community (city-state or polis) in which people had a control over their own future (Hyland, 1995).However, what one now calls liberal representative democracy has very little to do with the Athenian model. Modern Liberal democracy starts, arguably, with John Stuart Mill who argued that the ideal polity is that of a representative democratic system in which the population of a territory periodically elects deputies through whom they practice ultimate power (Hand, 1996).

Before Mill, representative democracy was considered a contradiction in terms (Dahl, 2015). Mill argued that such a system would require freedom of press, speech, and assembly (Hand, 1996). However, Hand (1996) points out that Mill’s theory led to a dilemma between the liberal and the democratic part of liberal democracy, such as the legitimate limit of state action or how much democracy there should be, and this is still an issue until this day (this will be discussed later in this essay).The representative democracies originate in Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Scandinavia (Dahl, 2015). Such democracies had some basic political

Due to time constrains a participatory democracy is not viable and therefore have many citizens means more delegation of authority (Dahl, 2015). Weber argued that such a state finds its legitimacy in rational-legal authority in which the state is considered competent to rule according to rational argument and in which the rulers themselves are bound to the rule of law (Hand, 1996). Weber’s notion of capitalist economy with a parliamentary government and competitive party system became the foundation for many twentieth century liberals (Hand,