Tollorin wrote:
I don't really trust direct democracy, it didn't work out very well for Athen and it may bring an unprecedented level of populism.
You think so? It worked rather well for them in my opinion. The decline of their political structure came precisely when the elites managed to grab so much power that they excluded the common citizen from their voting powers. In essence, the common citizens did vote...but it didn't count. Only the votes of the elite and the wealthy counted.
...which is literally the same system we have today.
Lets not forget that when Athens found itself with a massive surplus of money after a REALLY good season of harvest, trade and peace the people gathered to vote on what to do with that money. Some argued to distribute it among the citizens equally, others that it be used in construction works (like new temples and such)...the nobles wanted to use the funds to benefit themselves. ....but one man named Themistocles came up and said that the funds should be spent on purchasing a powerful navy (Athens at that point, had virtually none) of Triremes (basically battleships of those times). His argument won the popular vote and the funds were used to build the Athenian navy.
Those ships gave Athens complete dominance over the seas and opened distant trade routes. It kept the pirates under control and Athens as a city gained massive wealth because of it. Those ships paid themselves and then some.
Much later that same navy was the key to winning the Battle of Salamis which in turn became key in the survival of Greek civilization and by extension, Western civilization.
...and it was the people who voted for it that got those ships rolling.