Alfred Maurice de Zayas Quotes

I do not want to abandon representative democracy. I want to see it balanced by popular sovereignty, especially the variety known as deliberative democracy.

The power should be in individual democracies in individual communities. It shouldn't be an oligarchy or some small group of elite. Power should be with the people and not with some politician or some heir to the throne or some madman.

Well, I would say that we've got to redefine democracy, that we have been stuck in concepts of representative democracy, that we believe that it's getting other people to do things for us that we progress.

I wish to make it clear from the onset that at the coming election I want support on no other understanding that the new Parliament is to destroy once and for ever, the power of the hereditary chamber to reverse the decisions of the representatives of the people.

A town meeting is a legislature of citizens, for citizens, and by citizens. The fact that each citizen of the town is also a legislator separates the New England town meeting from all other forms of democracy.

It depends on the consent of the people to decide whether kings or counsuls or other magistrates are to be established in authority over them, and if there is a legitimate cause, the people can change a kingdom into an aristocracy or an aristocracy into a democracy, and vice versa.

Polling can undermine the ability of officials to lay out, debate, analyze, and implement their plans. By turning to instant [electronic] polls we would eliminate the captain and the officers and leave every shipboard decision to the passengers.

In our system of government, nobody has the last word except the people.

The direct primary is the salvation of American politics. It vests responsibility where it belongs—in the people.

Democracy, in brief, requires government by parties because the citizens are too numerous, too ill-informed and too preoccupied to come together spontaneously to choose the policies and leaders they wish to prevail. Political machinery has to be worked. The parties work it.

A power of recall that depended solely on the electorate and was not subject to unnecessary hurdles of Parliamentary procedures would show trust in the good sense and fairness of the British people. In return, they might trust Parliamentarians a little more.

I believe, in America, we're a nation of people that are self-governors. This idea that only a chosen few elites have the ability to make decisions is foreign to me.

True democracy is not inconsistent with a few persons representing the spirit, the hope and the aspirations of those whom they claim to represent.

Here, sir, the people govern; here they act by their immediate representatives.

With the people, especially a people seized of property, resides the aggregate of original power.

All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed. That is a milestone we left a long time ago.

The court makes an amazing amount of decisions that ought to be made by the people.

The Paris Commune was first and foremost a democracy. The government was a body elected by universal suffrage.

A messy participatory process is representative democracy at its best.

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

It's true that most American citizens think of themselves as living in a democratic country. But when was the last time that any Americans actually sat down and came to a collective decision? Maybe if they are ordering pizzas, but basically never.

In a democratic set-up, people who are being governed should also be a part of the governing system. They should be drafted into the governance.

A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.

The strength of representative democracy is its ability to slow down those in power who wish to govern by blank cheque, but also those not in power who wish to yank the state about on the sole basis of their self-interest.

One of the chief principles for which I have stood is the genuine rule of the people. I hope that the people may be given the chance, through direct primaries, to express their preference as to who shall be the nominee.