What? Dictatorships? Huh? The question was posed to name a successful form of direct democracy. Middle Finger brought up Athens and I pointed out that it didn't work, at least not by today's standards because they didn't allow certain groups to vote such as women. Then genius comes in with something about children. It's irrelevant as they can't vote now and nobody sees that a a smirch on Representative Democracy (or any other form of government).
How do you define 'not working'? It just seems like if the legally allowed people can vote and they vote and laws are created based on that then how do you say it did not work? It seems like the system worked as it was designed to work. The only way I can see it not working is if the people elected got to do something contrary to the goals of the kind of government it is.
I define not working in that by today's standards denying groups based on sex, religion or race the right to vote is a failure. If blacks for example were not allowed to vote we wouldn't be a free society. 8 year olds, admittedly, I'd prefer if they wait a couple years before casting a ballot, but that's me being rational.