In emphasising the general will, many populists share the critique of representative democratic government previously espoused by the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This approach regards representative governance as an aristocratic and elitist system in which a country's citizens are regarded as passive entities. Rather than choosing laws for themselves, these citizens are only mobilised for elections in which their only option is to select their representatives rather than taking a more direct role in legislation and governance. Populists often favour the use of direct democratic measures such as referendums and plebiscites. For this reason, Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser suggested that "it can be argued that an elective affinity exists between populism and direct democracy", although Stanley cautioned that "support for direct democracy is not an essential attribute of populism."