Note that direct democracy has its own drawbacks: for example, in some cantons the franchise was only extended to women on February 7th, 1971: http://news.bbc.c

Note that direct democracy has its own drawbacks: for example, in some cantons the franchise was only extended to women on February 7th, 1971: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/7/newsid_2738000/2738475.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/7/... (Pressure for social change tends to come from the young, voters skew old, so in practice many direct democracies tend to be very slow to adapt to widespread grassroots social change.)