Lurking in the background is a fundamental democratic dilemma If our goal is to establish a democratic system of government that provides maximum opportunities for citizens to participate in political decisions, then the advantage clearly lies with assembly democracy in a small-scale political system But if our goal is to establish a democratic system of government that provides maximum scope for it to deal effectively with the problems of greatest concern to citizens, then the advantage will often lie with a unit so large that a representative system will be necessary This is the dilemma of citizen participation versus system effectiveness