hey there and welcome back to heimlich's history now in the last video we started our john into the ap government curriculum and in this video we're going to keep on jaunting last time we talked about the ideals of democracy but in this video it's time to talk about the different types of democracy so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked let's get to it okay so here's what we're trying to do in this video explain how models of representative democracy are visible in major institutions policies events or debates in the u.s easy peasy cottage cheesy okay so there are three different models of democracy that you need to know about and all of them show up in american institutions the first is participatory democracy which emphasizes broad participation in politics and civil society this model wants as many people as possible to come to the democracy party and in this form of democracy citizens vote on laws directly which is to say not by means of representatives i told you in the last video that the framers weren't really into this kind of democracy where everyone participates because most people according to them were uneducated and what would they know about the nation's best interest additionally the framers realized that participatory democracy would be an impossibility as the nation grew the more population you have the more complex the laws that are needed to govern them and it just wasn't practical to have everyone voting on everything however it'll be important for you to know that even though this model was rejected as the basis for the constitution participatory democracy still shows up in the united states not much on the federal level but more in local politics for example many small towns hold town hall meetings where everyone from the town can participate in local policy making but perhaps the most significant example of participatory democracy that exists in our system today is the initiative and the referendum so we have representatives who do the work of legislation but these two actions can hold those representatives accountable to the people an initiative is when voters put a measure on the ballot which they want passed into law if their representatives won't propose their desired law then the people will do it for them a referendum is when people oppose a law that is passed by their legislature and if the law is unpopular and enough people support the referendum they can call for a vote to defeat that law okay now the second model of democracy you should know is elite democracy if participatory democracy invites everyone to the party elite democracy only invites a few elite democracy emphasizes limited participation by a few well-educated and informed states people who are qualified to direct the nation through law making on behalf of the people and the argument for this model is that when you're dealing with a government as complex as the united states government is you've got to have specialists doing its work because only those who can devote their whole lives to governance even have a chance at navigating all that complexity additionally this model by having well-informed people at the helm can prevent the masses from making unwise policy decisions and there are many examples of elite democracy in our institutions today for example the president of the united states has the power to appoint judges to the supreme court which is the decision entirely independent of the voting population another example is the method by which the president is elected namely the electoral college it's not the people who vote the president in but rather a handful of electors from the various states and i know that probably sounds confusing and we'll talk about it more in another unit but for now just know that the electoral college is an example of elite democracy working in our system today the third model of democracy you need to know about is pluralist democracy and this one is kind of a middle ground between the other two in terms of who gets to participate in politics pluralist democracy describes group-based activism by non-governmental interests which work to impact political decision-making so the key word here is interest groups which again we'll talk more about in another video but for now you just need to understand that these are groups which form around a particular cause like gun rights or a particular demographic like retired people and by joining ranks with groups like these average citizens can pool their resources and have a big influence on the representatives in congress it isn't exactly participatory democracy it's not elite democracy but it's more like group based democracy and these groups raise money and try to persuade legislators to pass laws favorable to their cause and by joining an interest group it provides amplification to the voice of a single voter you might have heard of interest groups like the national rifle association or the national association for the advancement of colored people these are interest groups that operate today but it's not just interest groups that exercise this kind of pluralist influence states represent interests as well so each state represents the interest of its citizens and since there are so many states and so many representatives in the house and the senate they argue back and forth and try to win the best legislation for their group and by putting interest in competition with one another no one interest can dominate the rest okay now hopefully you can clearly see that there is a tension between those three models and for our purposes we'll look at how that tension is represented in a couple of our foundational documents for this course first you see the tension between these three models represented in the constitution you can see the elite model and the fact that the constitution provides for elected representatives that legislate on behalf of the people you can see the pluralist model and the law making process because in order to get a law passed various interests both states and otherwise have to compromise in order to get it done and you can see the participatory model and the separation of power between the federal government and the state government states can make their own laws provided that they don't conflict with the national laws now the word for that is federalism but we're going to give that concept its own video second you can see the tension between these three models represented in the debate between two other foundational documents federalist 10 and brutus won and again these documents have their own videos so if you want to know more check those out with respect to models of democracy though brutus championed the broad participatory model the group who wrote this feared the tyranny of a powerful central government and wanted to keep the majority of the power in the hands of the states federalist 10 argued that such a fear was unfounded because in a large republic like the united states with so much diversity in all the population all the factions would have to compete against one another and such competition would protect the union from tyranny okay that's what you need to know about unit one topic two of ap government click right over here grab a review back and if you need help getting an a in your class and a five on your exam in may if you want me to keep making these videos then by all means subscribe and i shall oblige i'm the route