in this first video go have a look at the introduction to the ideas of democracy and participation for UK politics and we're just gonna start by having look at the history of democracy as an idea have a little look at the different types of democracy and we'll go into a little bit of detail about two specific types of democracy that being direct democracy and representative democracy okay so the first question is what is a democracy or what is democracy as a definition and democracy is simply the idea of a rule by the people or the power to the people and it comes from the Greek word democratic meaning people power and it originates in ancient Athens the idea of people choosing or having a say in the political institutions that govern their lives and so a democratic system is simply where it gives the citizens a say in choosing politicians who make decisions who make decisions that they're bound to and whereas most countries today are seen as democratic countries that are seen as undemocratic that lack the ability for people to have power in politics our four examples of the former USSR you've got Nazi Germany you've got North Korea today are seen as undemocratic institutions so now we've got an idea of what democracy the definition of democracy is what are the different types of democracy because democracy can come in many different forms some more some closer to the original definition than the other okay so there are a number of different kinds of democracy in history and here are just a few of the types of democracy so you've got a representative democracy whereby citizens have a say in the people who they represent who they choose to represent them to make laws on their behalf okay you have what's known as a parliamentary democracy which is where the idea of the executive is parts of the government and is drawn from an elected legislature these are all key words and terms that you will learn about later on further down the line there's also majoritarian democracies where the government is based on the majority support of those who inhabit given territory you'll find out and you'll notice as you learn more on in this topic and in the a-level politics in general that these different types of democracies can also be interwoven within each other so for example a representative democracy could also be a parliamentary democracy and both of those could also be a majoritarian democracy these three are very interwoven within political systems however there are some kinds of democracies that are kind of separate one of them being is direct democracies a direct democracy is what seen is the most pure form of a democracy so a direct democracy is where citizens are given a direct input in decision-making processes and it comes from ancient Athens where freemen were able to have a direct input in the decision-making process now a lot of people talk about Athens being a very democratic part of them in history and also the word democracy originates from where as technically only free men were allowed to take part in politics slaves and women were not however it's where the idea of a direct democracy comes from so it's seen as generally the purest form of democracy and it's quite rare in this in the world today in modern in the modern world and there is only a couple of examples of a direct democracy today one is town hall meetings in New England states in the USA have a system of direct democracy where the general population all get a say in decisions made by town halls it can also be seen that a referendum or referenda the plural are kinds of direct democracy as well and we'll look about look at referenda more in a separate video but the idea of a referendum is the people having a say on a particular decision which is effectively what a direct democracy is another kind of democracy is a representative democracy we've had a look at the basic definition let's have look in a little bit more detail so start with a direct democracy sounds good on paper and is seen as the most pure the purest form of democracy however in a country like the UK with over 60 million citizens it'd be very difficult to coordinate direct democracy and direct decision-making it would also be difficult for normal people who have jobs and have to go and put a lot of working themselves in different areas to decide on every single policy that the government produces so for this reason what we do is we elect representatives to make those legislative decisions on our behalf we choose who we want to represent us and then they go and represent us in Parliament as is known as a representative democracy and your representative oh you not his industry but only his judgement which is a quote by Edmund Burke from 1774 and we'll have a little look at the thoughts and the thinking's of Edmund Burke a lot more in these first few videos because he really does go into a lot of detail on the political philosophy that is basically interwoven within these ideas of democracy and this quote really instills what's known as the Burkean view and that's that citizens elect individuals to represent them in the legislature which is a representative democracy now we've looked at the basics of a of democracy we've looked at representatives and direct democracies now think about this question for a little bit of a debate as an exam question to think about yourself is a direct democracy compatible with a representative democracy for that you have to look at the different types of direct democracy representative democracies and see if they come together and are part of a greater whole or should they be separate entities