Why is it important for the citizen in any country to have more power than there government?

I think this is more of a critical thinking question so here we go:

The citizens feel it is important to have more power than the government because we don't want to feel left out of decisions that will affect us directly. The government makes the citizen feel that they have an active participation in the decisions they make when they really don't. I mostly think that citizen power is all an illusion.