Popular Assembly
A popular or people's assembly is a gathering called to address issues of importance to participants. Assemblies tend to be freely open to participation and operate by direct democracy. Some assemblies are of people from a location, some from a given workplace, industry or educational establishment others are called to address a specific issue.
The term is often used to describe gatherings that address, what participants feel are, the effects of a democratic deficit in a representative democratic systems. Sometimes assemblies are created to form an alternative power structure, other times they work with other forms of government.
Read more about Popular Assembly: Examples
Famous quotes containing the words popular and/or assembly:
“And all the popular statesmen say
That purity built up the State
And after kept it from decay;
Admonish us to cling to that
And let all base ambition be,
For intellect would make us proud....”
—William Butler Yeats (18651939)
“That man is to be pitied who cannot enjoy social intercourse without eating and drinking. The lowest orders, it is true, cannot imagine a cheerful assembly without the attractions of the table, and this reflection alone should induce all who aim at intellectual culture to endeavor to avoid placing the choicest phases of social life on such a basis.”
—Mrs. H. O. Ward (18241899)