Representative Democracy Prevents Domination by Special Interests  Governments often have to pass decisions which anger small, well-organised special interest groups – like teachers unions – but are in the long-term interest of the country. Under representative democracy, the government can simply make the decisions it has to, and resist the political pressure these groups put on them. But under more direct forms of participatory democracy, the special interest groups can organise their members to campaign and vote against proposals which are good for the country but against their private interests. The reason why they are likely to be successful is that most voters won’t have the technical knowledge to recognise the importance of the proposal (curbing unaffordable public sector pensions, for example), they may be uninterested if they do not see how it directly affects them, and will probably be exhausted and bored of referendums if they are held very regularly – an effect observed in Switzerland called “election fatigue”. [1] As a result, turnout amongst regular voters is likely to be low, but the unions or interest groups will be well organised and will be active in campaigning and voting, since they know that they are fighting for their interests. The effect of this will be to enable organised interest groups to dictate policy on issues where they have a major conflict of interest. An example of this is a Californian initiative in 1990 to raise billions of dollars on the bond markets to invest in railways. The initiative was passed after a campaign funded by railway companies. [2]  [1] Buhlmann, M. et al. (2006) “National Elections in Switzerland: an Introduction” Swiss Political Science Review, 12(4) 1-12   [2] The Economist (17 December 2009) “The tyranny of the majority”