Democracies expand participation to promote liberty.
They limit participation to promote stability and efficiency. They continually debate how to achieve a proper balance between these competing pressures for freedom and order. In the United States the balance has taken a representative form of government working through checks and balances. This has served to limit the power of the majority, but at times allowed minority interests, such as industry-based and narrow economic interests, to achieve too much control over the political process by influencing elected representatives. Gerber explains that since the late l9th century Americans have promoted direct legislation as a way to counter such minority control, mobilizing in populist, progressive and other movements to do so.