Lesson video

Hello, my name's Mrs. Tamasi and I'm gonna be working through a review on your citizenship lesson today.

Hopefully by the end of the lesson today, you'll be able to explain what direct democracy is and explain its strengths and weaknesses.

There are two key words in the lesson today.

So if you look out for these, you'll see them in both throughout.

And if you ever like not too sure what that is, you can refer back to them here.

I'll go through the definitions now.

So direct democracy is where the people decide on the policy directly, for example, for a vote or referendum on each issue.

Next key word is referendum.

This is a general vote by the electorate on a single political issue, which has been referred to them for a direct decision.

It is a form of direct democracy.

So we'll make a start with the first learning cycle today.

This is how, does direct democracy work? So there are different ways that citizens can shape policies and influence decisions in democracy.

Some give more power to citizens than others.

Having an idea of what a democracy is, can you think of ways that citizens can help to shape those policies directly? What could they do? Maybe you've done some of this stuff.

Have you got any ideas? So these are things like citizens' assemblies, digital democracy, petitions and referendums. These were examples of shaping policies to influence decisions.

They aren't all forms of direct democracy.

This is because direct democracy involves citizens in the decision making process.

That's why some might give more power to citizens than others.

We are gonna focus on the ones that include direct decision making.

You can have a little look and think which ones that you think they might be, and then you'll find out because we will explore them further in the lesson.

So what is direct decision making? Kind of had a little bit of a hint earlier.

What do you think it might be then? It's this idea of citizens making decisions for themselves.

Did you manage to get that? Now it's them doing it instead of people that they elect or represent them, such as MPs or counsellors who might make decisions for them.

How does this work in a democracy? What do you think? How does it work? So in a democracy, it means that politicians allow citizens to be more actively involved.

For example, doing referendums. Now, not all democracies use direct decision making all the time.

In a representative democracy, who does the decisions? Well, this would be the representative.

So those MPs or those counsellors might make those decisions on people's behalf.

One way that is common for countries to use direct democracy is referendums. This is what we're saying.

Now, just to recap, referendum, that's a general vote by the electorate on a single political issue that's been referred to them to vote.

Usually these come as yes or no questions.

Why do you think might that might be? It's really for ease.

So it makes it simple when voting, it's either a yes or a no, and then the majority will then sway what happens in terms of decision.

To give you a big example, "Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country," was an example of a referendum previously in Scotland.

And the voters would vote yes or no.

True or false? A referendum is not a form of direct democracy.

That's false.

Why is it false? A referendum means citizens are involved directly in the decision making process.

So therefore it is a form of direct democracy.

Did you manage to get that one? So in a direct democracy, citizens decide directly on policies without choosing a representative.

Today, direct democracy takes different forms across the world.

So what this is saying is it looks different in each country.

It doesn't mean that if a country says, "Oh yeah, it uses direct democracy," it doesn't mean it's gonna look the same in every area.

So Lucas says, "Where my friend lives, they get involved in referendums multiple times a year and they compose constitutional changes as well." Jun says, "My dad says direct democracy does not happen often in the UK, but he has voted in a referendum twice before." So this here again shows you of how it can be used differently in different countries.

And as I said, we'll start to explore some of these further in the lesson.

So Lucas says, "I think direct democracy sounds good 'cause if I could have a say in decisions, I feel more involved and would be happy with the result as it's decided by the majority of the electorate." Whereas Jun says, "However, some of these issues might be complicated and referendums should happen often, so citizens do not always engage and this could create a low voter turnout." What do you think so far? Do you think maybe it's a positive thing or could you understand the disadvantages as well? As I said, as we go further along, you might have a bit of a better idea of where you stand on this, as we look at some more of the strengths and weaknesses.

So the advantages of direct democracy.

What do you think? Do you think it's good? What might those advantages be? Did you manage to think of things like decisions may be acceptable to the population? Why is that? Well, if we think about it, it's because if the majority are voting for it, then it means that hopefully, the majority would agree with the decision that's made.

If voters know they're voting on a specific issue they care about, it could encourage political engagement, so more people to vote because they feel passionate about the subject.

Prevents a concentration of power.

What does that mean? So it stops that power just being with those decision makers and it's dispersing it widely amongst the people.

And we're gonna start to think of the other side.

Can you think of some disadvantages of direct democracy? We heard Jun say one earlier.

Can you think of any more? So sometimes it could generate an emotional rather than rational response from citizens and the media.

With the media, if the media's getting involved, what else could happen? Well then you could also have a spread of misinformation as well.

Many decisions may be too complicated for people to understand what that is actually, if you've got a yes or no question.

However, the concept of what's the referendum's about could be quite complicated and there could be lots of different parts to it.

People may not know about or may not understand, they might just hear that kind of face value question, and go off of that.

Then if deciding on too many issues, the population may not vote frequently.

So if they had to vote all the time, if you think actually lives are quite busy, you've got lots going on, would you have time to always be there to vote? And then what could the impact of that be? It could impact that people don't vote all the time.

And it can be costly and time consuming to run regular referendums. If you've ever seen the general election at all or you've ever seen an election, maybe a local election run, you would need each constituency, you'd have polling stations set up everywhere, you would then need the people who count all the votes and all the people that are working behind the scenes.

So it takes a lot of effort and organisation and time to run a referendum as well.

So doing that all the time could be costly and time consuming.

Can you decide if the following statements are advantages or disadvantages of direct democracy? So you've got three statements.

I'll read them out for you and then see if you can work it out.

So A, "People feel more involved in decisions that directly affect them, which can increase voter turnout." B, "With so many issues to vote on, people might stop participating 'cause it takes too much time." C, "Some voters may choose based on emotions or media influence, instead of thinking logically." Did you manage to get each one? So the first one is an advantage, the second one is a disadvantage, and the final one again is a disadvantage.

So hopefully you (indistinct) to understand the advantages and disadvantages of using direct democracy.

Now that's gonna move us onto our first task for today.

Jacob and Izzy are part of the school council and are debating whether to start using direct democracy in their school.

Jacob says, "It will help pupils understand how democracy works and get them more engaged." Whereas Izzy says, "Some decisions are too complex.

Pupils might not have all the information to decide properly." Decide who you agree with most and explain why.

So you might wanna take some time for this one.

If you pause and then you can unpause when you're ready and you've got your response, and then we'll go through the feedback together.

So how did you find that? Now you could have choose to agree with Jacob or with Izzy.

So we'll go through our responses for each one and then you can see how it fits in with your response.

So the first one, if you agree with Jacob, it could look like this.

"I agree with Jacob because direct democracy would help pupils feel more involved in school decisions.

If they know their vote matters, they might care more about what happens in school and take part more often.

It's a good way to teach young people how democracy works in real life." Did you have something like that? Or maybe you chose to agree with Izzy.

If that's the case, it could have looked like this.

"I agree with Izzy because sometimes school issues are too complicated like deciding budgets or rules.

Not all pupils will understand everything they're voting on, so the results might not be fair or well-informed.

Direct democracy can take a long time to organise, so it's better for the school council to decide some things for them as they can make decisions quicker and implement more change." Again, a different opinion and maybe you had something similar like that, but hopefully overall it's given you an idea of the strengths and weaknesses of direct democracy.

So now you know those strengths and weaknesses, can you put it into practise? So the school council has agreed to trial direct democracy and Jacob has suggested this topic.

"Should pupils be allowed to wear trainers every day instead of school shoes?" Help Jacob explain to the school council how they can use direct democracy to make a decision on this topic.

Include the type of direct democracy, who can vote and how the results will be shared.

So have a think, take some time to formulate your explanation and then when you are ready, we can go through the feedback.

So how did you find this one? Now again, you could have presented it in any form, but this is the kind of information that we'd be looking for.

So it'd be, "The decision we made for a referendum where all pupils and staff get to vote on whether or not the rule about school shoes should change." Now again, you could have picked different people who you thought would vote as long as you then got a reason why.

So in this case, "This means that everyone in the school community will have the opportunity to vote and take part in the decision.

To help everyone make an informed decision, there'll be one week before the referendum to share arguments from both sides.

This information will be presented in assembly so pupils can understand the pros and cons." So if you have a think here, this is now trying to mitigate those weaknesses that Izzy had earlier.

"The ballot will ask a simple yes or no question.

This will make the vote counting quicker and after the votes are counted, the results will be shared with the whole school for an assembly, so everyone knows the outcome." Now how did you find that? Hopefully you managed to get some similar ideas there.

We're gonna take what we've learned from this learning cycle to move on to the second learning cycle.

So where does direct democracy exist? I suppose now you have an idea of the referendums and things like that, you might have heard of some countries that run referendums. Could you think of any already? So Izzy says, "Does direct democracy happen in every country?" Different countries use different forms of democracy.

However, just because a country has a representative democracy, does not mean they can't use forms of direct democracy.

So what this is saying is actually there are some countries that are known as representative democracies, but they might use forms such as referendums from time to time.

A good example if you managed to think of one earlier, is the UK here.

The UK is a representative democracy, but there have been some referendums before.

So this first country we're gonna look at, do you know this country? So this is Switzerland and it is an example of direct democracy.

This is because citizens get to vote in regular referendums up to four times a year.

So it happens regularly.

On around 15 federal proposals, and we're gonna have a look at some examples of them in a sec.

And then issues affecting their local constituencies.

So to give you an example of an issue that can affect a local constituency, November, 2024 citizens in Basel-Stadt voted in a referendum on whether to approve a grant of just under 35 million Swiss francs, which is about 30 million pound to host the "Eurovision Song Contest" in 2025.

This referendum, the majority voted in favour and it allowed the event to proceed.

If you watch the Eurovision at all, you might have seen where it was hosted.

It was the citizens that voted in that referendum to approve that money that hosted the event.

Next, you've got federal proposals.

Now what these do is they give the Swiss citizens a direct say in shaping national law and policies.

The previous one we looked at was local.

And some of these topics include areas like healthcare, animal welfare, climate policies, immigration.

To give an example here in 2022, a referendum was held to introduce presumed consent for organ donation.

Now this was approved because the majority voted in favour.

So this will start to give you an idea of some of the ways that the citizens in Switzerland get involved in direct democracy.

Now, there's another thing that they can do in Switzerland, and this is called the popular initiative.

What it does is it allows citizens to propose constitutional changes and this means that they could propose it themselves.

So it doesn't have to come, so like the federal ones will come from the government and the members of the parliament, whereas this initiative comes directly from the citizens themselves.

Now, if they can gather a hundred thousand signatures, then it's put to a national vote.

To give you an example, in 2021, a popular initiative gathered enough signatures and Switzerland voted on whether to ban face covering clothing such as the burqa or niqab in public places.

The proposal was supported by some citizens who felt it was important for security and social integration.

Now in this case it was approved by 51.

2% of voters.

So the law came into effect in 2025, banning face coverings in public spaces.

Again, this shows you something that might not be suggested by government or parliament, is if specific citizens or groups suggest something, how then it can become law in Switzerland.

So which of the following are forms of direct democracy used in Switzerland? A, elective representatives b, popular initiative, c, referendums? Did you managed to get it? It is b and c.

Now, Switzerland does use elective representatives as Lucas says here, but that is a form of representative democracy, not direct democracy.

So Izzy says, "Are there other countries that use direct democracy regularly?" So Switzerland is an example of a country that uses it regularly.

However, as we were saying earlier, many representative democracies include elements of direct democracy on occasions, so not as regular.

And these include places like the UK, New Zealand and the US.

So in the UK it has used direct democracy before in referendums. Can you think of any examples? You've got a flag there that might give you a bit of a clue.

So in 2016, the UK government held the European Union, which the EU referendum and UK citizens voted on whether to stay or leave the EU.

The majority, 52% voted to leave the EU and then therefore that was the decision that was taken forward.

It's rare in the UK to hold referendums. Usually decisions are made in parliament by representatives.

To give you a bit of an example, there has only been three referendums held in like the past 50 years or so.

So it isn't common practise to hold referendums in the UK.

Now New Zealand is another example that have used forms of direct democracy before, such as referendums. To show you an example, they actually have two types.

So one is government-led and the other is citizen-initiated.

Now the government-led ones are binding, so they have to be acted on, whereas the citizen-initiated referendums don't.

The government could choose not to implement the result.

To give an example in New Zealand, so the public can request the citizen-initiated referendum, but they're not legally binding.

So in 2013, over 67% voted against selling shares in a public companies, but the government went ahead and sold the shares anyway.

So it shows how the citizens initiated referendums don't always lead to change.

Circle the correct word.

In the UK or New Zealand, referendums are rare.

The last was held in 2016 on leaving the EU.

In the UK or New Zealand, there are two types of referendums, government-led and citizen-initiated.

The citizen-initiated referendums do or do not have to be acted upon.

Can you circle the correct word? So the first one was the UK, and then it is New Zealand where there's two types of referendums, but the citizens initiated ones do not have to be acted upon.

We'll have a look at another country now.

So some states in the US use forms of direct democracy, and remember we're talking about the specific states here, and they might also use citizens' initiatives as well.

Now citizens' initiatives are a bit like what we saw in Switzerland with the popular initiatives.

So it's the same idea.

So the citizens propose a new law or policy, they get enough signatures from voters, if they collect enough it can go on a ballot for voters to approve or reject.

In California that happened and it took place to legalise cannabis.

Now over 600,000 signatures were collected and it qualified for the ballot.

So in 20 16, 57% of voters voted in favour and it passed.

It made cannabis legal for adults aged 21 or over in California.

So again, it is showing you another example of how something that may not be suggested by the representatives has been suggested by citizens and then passed.

True or false? The US use a popular initiative is a form of direct democracy.

This is false.

Why is it false? It's Switzerland that uses a popular initiative.

Some states in the US use a citizens' initiative and it allows citizens to propose a new law or policy.

This moves us onto the final task for today.

So you've got a statement here.

Direct democracy is the most effective form of decision making.

How far do you agree with this statement? Can you mark an X on the judgement line and explain your reasoning? So you might wanna take some time, maybe you might wanna plan out and you might wanna have one side with why you might agree and another side with a disagree.

And then kind of work out where roughly you stand on this issue.

Remember as well, when you're doing the GCSE, you always want to be able to give those counter arguments.

So even if you do agree or you do disagree, can you think of a counter argument that you could add in as well to help show that you can see the different sides and you've critically thought about this response.

So if you take some time to prepare it and then when you're ready, if you unpause, then we can go back through the feedback.

How did you get on? Now hopefully, like we were saying, you managed to get an argument either side.

If that's the case, you might have a bit of a mix between these both responses.

But also it might mean that your response maybe might sit along the line like this example here.

So you're not all the way to the end because you have thought about some of the other arguments.

So we'll have a look through.

This response says, and you could have included something like this, "I mostly agree with this statement 'cause direct democracy gives citizens a real say in decisions that affect them.

When everyone votes on important issues like referendums, it means a decision reflects the will of the people, not just what elective representatives want.

This can make people feel more involved and lead to higher trust in the system.

It encourages people to learn more about politics and be active citizens.

Although it can be time consuming, I believe that it's the most fair and democratic way to make decisions." Hopefully you can see there that last sentence has shown there has been thought about the other argument, but they've explained why they still agree with this statement.

Now you've got this one here that disagrees.

So, "I mostly disagree with this statement 'cause direct democracy asks everyone to vote on major issues, but many citizens might not fully understand complicated topics or may not have time to research them properly.

This could lead to poor decisions that are based on emotion.

Takes a lot of time and money to run regular public votes.

So while it sounds fair in reality, it can be quite difficult to use effectively all the time." So again, you might have had something like this.

Hopefully if you were looking at a GCSE response, you might have included elements of both of those paragraphs.

And also always make sure you're adding a conclusion to the end.

So if you did want to practise at all in terms for the GCSE, you could go back and make sure that you've got those two paragraphs with a conclusion to help you get in that style.

But if not, we are gonna summarise the end of this lesson.

To summarise, direct democracy helps to involve citizens in direct decision making.

This can take many forms, including referendums and initiatives.

Direct democracy looks different in each country.

Switzerland's direct democracy offering citizens decisions regularly.

However, other representative democracies use direct democracy methods from time to time.

For example, New Zealand and the UK use referendums whilst the US has citizens' initiatives.

Direct democracy can increase political engagement and trust, but can risk oversimplifying complex issues.

And as I said, that brings us to the end.

So hopefully you've managed to have a better understanding of what direct democracy is and some advantages and disadvantages of it.

Thanks so much for working with me today and enjoy the rest of your day.