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Debate: Direct democracy
From Debatepedia
[  ] [  ] [  ] [  ] What are the pros and cons of direct democracy?
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Background and context
"Direct democracy is the term used to describe particular forms of vote within any democratic system. The term direct democracy is commonly used to refer to three distinct types of vote:
referendums, which are votes on a specific single issue or piece of legislation (rather than for a party or candidate);
citizen initiatives, whereby citizens can propose new legislation or constitutional amendments by gathering enough signatures in a petition to force a vote on the proposal; and
recalls, under which citizens can force a vote on whether to oust an incumbent elected official by collecting enough signatures in a petition.
The common characteristic of these mechanisms is that they all place more power directly in the hands of voters, as opposed to elected representatives. Direct democracy is therefore often seen as conflicting with representative democracy, in which voters elect representatives to make decisions on their behalf. In contrast, under direct democracy, voters can themselves make decisions about specific policies or issues." (See a focus on direct democracy for more background)
Does direct democracy benefit the state, or its citizens? Can it become a threat to democracy? Can it improve governance?
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[  ] [  ] [  ] [  ] Governance: Does direct democracy improve governance?
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[  ] Pro
- People can decide what is the best for them. Although people might be a bit less informed than the politicians (which is understandable), they are able to evaluate the pros and cons of a change in policy they vote for/against. We can look to Peru, where in 2007 was a referendum on plans for a huge mine took place. More than 90% of voters rejected the Rio Blanco proposals, because they were aware of the possible environmental impacts it could have on their country."Peruvians vote against mine plan", BBC, by Dan Collyns, September 2007 (Regrettably, the Peruvian government said the result was not legally binding.)
- People are intelligent enough to make good-quality decisions. As Lupia and Mc Cubbins argue, voters do not necessarily need perfect information to make reasonable decisions. They can rely on information shortcuts and cues - and even if they are sometimes affected by their emotions their decisions do not have to be worse than the politicians' ones. As an example we can look to Switzerland where direct democracy works perfectly well as the people are able to decide even on complex issues regarding taxes or other "complicated" policies.
- There is nothing wrong about NIMBYism. The people are right when they oppose a policy in their neighbourhood that would worsen their quality of life. The politicians who advocate new nuclear power plants or motorways are usually unwilling to have them at their own back-garden; why should the ordinary people be different? In summary, NIMBYism is beneficial for the society because it prevents wrong decisions made by people who wouldn't have to carry the burden of living in the particular area.
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[ ] Con
- Direct democracy enables fatal policy contradictions. In a representative democracy, people elect candidates who share their views and are qualified and informed on the issues at hand. In contrast, direct democracy means that people who decide about the issues are largely ignorant about them (because they make a rational decision not to spend 12 hours a day studying the finer aspects of new proposals, treaties etc.). People are willing to pass any ballot that can benefit them in the short-term, however, the vast majority of the people is unaware of the long-term impacts. [...] In California, when the infamous Proposition 13 (as an example of an implemented measure of the direct democracy) was passed, property taxes were kept low. Later on, after a number of other passed ballots on lowering taxes and increases in public spending, the Orange County went bankrupt and the state of California was on the brink of collapsing.
- Direct democracy disables unpopular but necessary decisions. The problem with direct democracy is that the general public can hardly ever think about the issues at hand in the long-term. People may be aware of the fact that something needs to be done about some burning issue, however, they are unwilling to propose any plan if some discomfort for them is about to happen. This is called NIMBYism - "Not In My Backyard" point of view. In practise it means that for example the majority of people would approve something, however,not in their town, village - not in their vicinity.
- In Chicago, there is a grave traffic situation and better infrastructure is desperately needed. However, local people protest against any changes, ignorant of the fact that Chicago may collapse within ten or twenty years completely. "Nimbyism in the Midwest", The Economist, September 2008
- Direct democracy makes the decision-making inflexible. Firstly, organising the referendum, informing the people and carrying out the whole process takes a lot of time (and costs a lot of money). It is the representative democracy that enables in certain situations to make quick decisions and act as soon as practicable. Secondly, the more referenda we have, the more likely is the situation when the government is implementing some policies to achieve one goal, while the population is pulling the other end of the string.
- Direct democracy hardly allows for well-informed and good-quality decisions. In the representative democracy it is the politicians and/or experts who make important decisions regarding laws, finance, etc. In contrast, in direct democracy we give the people the opportunity to decide on the issues at hand, although they most probably lack specific knowledge to make good-quality decisions. This can lead to short-sighted decisions that are after all not for the good. For example we can look at the referendum in Panama in 2006. Its people voted for a controversial 5 billion dollar scheme to expand the Panama canal's capacity, completely neglecting possible environmental risks.
- People decide emotionally. When presented with a single yes/no question, usually without any information on the issue at hand, people find it hard to divorce their own emotions and feelings from the voting process. And decisions driven by anger, fear and hatred while being made by uninformed public can hardly ever be the good ones. For example, in the first Irish referendum on Lisbon Treaty, 15% (!) of the voters made up their mind on the day of the referendum itself. [1]
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[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [  ] Does it respect all the democratic principals?
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[ ] Pro
- Direct democracy promotes democracy in practice. In a pure system of representative democracy, there is no way to stop the unholy alliances of the politicians and interest groups. However, if we implement measures of direct democracy, we gain an all-new option to counterbalance that. Initiatives, recalls, and referenda are the ultimate opportunity to the citizens to say "Hang on a minute, this is not in my interest at all".
- Direct democracy is not about package deals. Given that voters decide on single issues instead of a package of policies that they might not fully be in their interests, the voters are freer to choose what is the best for them.
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[ ] Con
- Direct democracy lacks accountability of decision-making. We have to realize that the principle of democracy is not defined solely by the exercised right to vote one of the key pillars of democracy is accountability and both political and legal liability for decisions that are taken. It truly is so: should an elected representative pass a bill that is undemocratic or not mandated, they will face a penalty both in not being elected again and in being sued by the harmed counterparts, either for abuse of their mandate or for various charges related to their transgression. However, this kind of liability is unknown in the system of direct democracy and its implementation. Additionally, in some countries, legal and political liability for decisions passed within the framework of measures of direct democracy is passed to the local institutions which are legally bound by the outcome of the referenda, even though they may not have had anything to do with it. It is impossible to hold anyone truly accountable except for the people, and you run into practicalities there, some of which are mainly that it would be undemocratic as well.
- We can look for an example of this to California. In 1994, Proposition 187 was enacted, scrapping illegal immigrants' rights. Immediately, this newly enacted law was challenged at a court, Temporary Restraining Order was issued and legal proceedings were held up until 1998. All those four years, state California had to carry the costs and finally, newly elected Governor Gray Davis took the political and legal impact for losing the case, even though he opposed the bill. See "Most Of California's Prop. 187 Ruled Unconstitutional", CNN and "California's Proposition 187 Shows Hate and Fear", by The Tech, November 1994.
- Direct democracy hardly allows for mixed and varied representation of all people in the passed policies. In the representative democracy, laws in the parliamentary bodies undergo a lot of scrutiny, repeated rewritings, curbings, mitigations and other checks that in the end, the law that is passed is usually okay on principle with most of the representatives. These represent all kinds of voters -- and indeed, a democratic decision is one that implements the majority decision while keeping all minority rights, even though the result of that may be a little hard to read. However, direct democracy and its means (mostly referenda) need simplification (commonly to yes/no questions). As a result, most things passed by measures of direct democracy are unbalanced and that very often, measures of direct democracy contribute to majority rule without any respect for the minority. For an example we can look to Arizona: Proposition 103 was passed, setting English as the only official language of the state, thus making life for Latinos in Arizona, who make up for a third (!) of the overall population, much, much more difficult. At the same time, as seen on ballotpedia [2], Arizonian Proposition 300 significantly restricted adults' access to public programmes which would help them learn English at least to the level of communication with ordinary people, not to say with the Government officials.
- Unequal competition. "Competing groups in a referendum do not necessarily possess equality in the resources which they have at their disposal and this may give one side an unfair advantage over the other in putting its case across to the electorate. This problem is accentuated if the government contributes to the financing of one side's campaign, as occured in the early stages of the 1995 Irish referendum on divorce." ("Teach Yourself: Politics", Peter Joyce)
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[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Politics: Is direct democracy always desirable?
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[ ] Pro
- Direct democracy checks shortcomings of representative democracy. Politicians are the victims of many things: be it their selfish interest (or bias) which may result in rearing to corruption, or just the pressure that rich and well-organized interest groups exert to persuade the politician that it is in his electorate's interest to pass (or vote down) the legislature in a move which is in all actuality detrimental to the majority of his voters (see a book by Fareed Zakaria Illiberal Democracy Home and Abroad). That means that often the politicians do not represent the people of the electorate, and thus act in contradiction to democracy. Direct democracy places a check on these shortcomings.
- Direct democracy encourages people to educate themselves on issues and the affairs of a state. And this clearly benefits the political culture in such countries.
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[ ] Con
- Referenda may devalue the role performed by by legislative bodies. "In some countries (such as France) they were deliberately introduced to weaken the power of parliament. Although they can be reconciled with the concept of parliamentary sovereignty when they are consultative and do not require the legislature to undertake a particular course of action, it is difficult to ignore the outcome of a popular vote when it does not theoretically tie the hands of public policy makers." ("Teach Yourself: Politics", Peter Joyce)
- Referenda can be seen as a way to protest against the government's policies. As the post-referendum survey in Ireland shows, one of the reasons people voted against the Lisbon Treaty was that some of them saw it as a good way to prostest against the government's policies (instead of a reason one might expect - that they were against the treaty itself).
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[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Economics: Is direct democracy always desirable?
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[ ] Pro
- Direct democracy is inexpensive. "One objection to widespread use of direct democracy concerns its alleged high direct costs. According to Kendall and Louw (Kendall, 1989, page 135), the Swiss Federal chancellery estimates the costs of a national initiative combined with a federal counterproposal to about 1 Swiss franc per voter. Even when special ballots have to be held to decide single issues, the costs are modest. In California such a special ballot was held in 1973. It cost the state about USD 20 million, or about 80 cents (USD 0.80) per capita. (Walker, page 93). In addition to the direct costs incurred by the government, comes the costs associated with launching an initiative. In Switzerland this cost is estimated to at least one franc per petition signature (Junker, page 122). In California initiative campaigns cost several million dollars. In per capita terms however, these costs are still marginal, which is why this method of making decisions is so effective. Even if we assume that the Swiss spend a few million francs (everything included) on national issues every year, this has to be compared with a Swiss federal budget of about 23 billion francs (1985) (Junker, page 40)." John F. Knutsen:Direct Democracy
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[ ] Con
- Direct democracy is expensive. "Direct democracy becomes too costly in other than very small political units when more than a few isolated issues must be considered. The costs of decision-making become too large relative to the possible reductions in expected external costs that collective action might produce." (Buchanan, J.M. and Tullock, G. (1962)The Calculus of Consent:Logical foundations of constitutional democracy)
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See also
External links and references
- Focus on Direct Democracy
- More on Chicago and its traffic
- Athenian Democracy
- "Is Swiss Democracy Exportable?", by Markus Somm, August 2002
- "Direct Democracy: Mob Rule", 2007
- "Direct Democracy or Mob Rule?", Think Tank, September 2003
- "Peruvians vote against mine plan", by Dan Collyns, BBC, September 2007
- Buchanan, J.M. and Tullock, G. (1962): The Calculus of Consent:Logical foundations of constitutional democracy
- Lupia and Matsusaka: "Direct democracy", 2004
- "The Effect of Direct Democracy on the Size and Diversity of State Interest Populations", by Frederick J. Boehmke, University of Iowa, November 2001
Books
- Fareed Zakaria, "The Future of Freedom"
- Fareed Zakaria, "Illiberal Democracy Home and Abroad"
- Peter Joyce, "Teach Yourself: Politics"
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