> Your right to vote is the mechanism by which your right to participate is ensured.
It's a shallow form of participation. Being educated, informed, and being part of the decision process - drafting bills, finding alternatives - forming political parties, being part of committees , being available for election, all the work that is done before a vote his held is arguably more important. And if most people aren't involved in that part, you don't IMNHO have what can reasonably be called a real democracy.
It's of course much easier to just present "the people" with the choice of a red or green bike shed, rather than discuss alternative economies that might make the nuclear plant less relevant.
I manged to get several thousand people a better pension by using the democratic process but I suspect as a dual wonk/nerd I am in a minority.
I did half consider going to work in the HOC if one of my colleagues had got the speaker ship.
In representative democracies [1], they usually don't get involved at all. You delegate your rights to someone else (eg members of parliament), who then act on your behalf, so to speak.
The alternative of direct democracy [2] is much rarer.
This is exactly my point - real democracy means engaging in the political decision process on all levels, and taking/feeling a sense of ownership of/to it.
> It's a shallow form of participation.
It's not a form of participation at all.
>Being educated, informed, and being part of the decision process - drafting bills, finding alternatives - forming political parties, being part of committees , being available for election, all the work that is done before a vote his held is arguably more important.
You are arguing about how the right to vote is exercised. With the right to vote as a given, I would agree with you on all of the above.
However, none of the above is relevant without the right to vote (and other rights), hence why I'm arguing that the right is more important.
That's just one mechanism. Your right to participate is also ensured by freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the ability to get your name on the voting ballot.
Your right to vote is the mechanism by which your right to participate is ensured.
If you have participation, where all are heard, and real work is made for a consensus, voting doesn't have to have centre stage
And yet in practice, the only reason for a political party to hear all (including its opposition) and to seek consensus is to seek the number of votes need to pass a rule. Therefore, in practice, voting does take the center stage.