ABSTRACT
The political systems that we in ordinary language – and in academic language as well – call “democratic” are mainly governed by institutions of indirect – or representative – democracy, a political regime that Robert A. Dahl prefers to call polyarchy (1971; 1989: 218–22). However, whereas direct and indirect democracy are logically exclusive, they are not exclusive in political practice. Even though representative institutions are predominant, no political system of substantial size is governed exclusively by such institutions. If institutions of direct democracy are not found at the national level, such as in the USA or Germany, they are found at the state, regional or local level. Even though representative democracy is predominant, direct democracy is not completely rejected, and it has even been argued that it can strengthen representative government (Qvortrup, 2002: 152–61).
