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About this Blog
Direct democracy -- the Switzerland-inspired system of initiatives, referenda and recalls that allows voters to make and repeal laws in 24 states -- is poorly understood. It isn’t even very direct. Direct democracy has become blockbuster democracy: a half-billion-dollar international industry of signature gatherers, consultants, and election lawyers who use ballot measures less as a method of making law and more as a tool of mega-communications to boost some politicians, hurt others, and supplement lobbying campaigns.
Blockbuster democracy is a decentralized business that practices wide-open politics. This blog aims to provide a center of news, analysis and conversation for and about the industry. We will report from blockbuster democracy’s capital -- California -- but we’ll monitor ballot measures from across the country and around the globe.
Your Blogger: Joe Mathews is an
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The Germans On The Bus....
Germans seeking to expand direct democray face a steep, historical obstacle: the Nazi use of plebiscites has widely discredited direct legislation. But a group of mostly young Germans (many of them with ties to the environmental movement) think the country should have the initiative and referendum all all levels of government.
So, for the last 8 years, they've been driving a bus around Germany. They take turns living on the bus, often for months at a time. They visit towns and talk with people about the virtues of direct democracy. They've been having success. Use of the direct democracy is now common in German localities. There have been thousands of measures, many of them on the same local development controversies that appear on American ballots. And more and more Gemran states are adopting direct democracy. But no such luck yet at the federal level.
The bus itself is quite an advertisement. Inside and outside, it is full of pro-direct democracy messages. I saw the bus today--it's parked outside the direct democracy conference I'm attending in Aarau, Switzerland. Michael von der Lohe, who started as an intern on the bus and is now one of the riders, explained, "Our inspiration is to be found not in politics but in art." Of course.
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Citizens' direct democracy
You write "the Nazi use of plebiscites has widely discredited direct legislation". We disagree.
There is no justification at all for restricting participatory democracy because of experience with plebiscites held in the Weimar Republic and Nazi period.
From our conference report (re. Germany)
"In the Weimar Republic, there were three popular initiatives and two national referendums (in 1926 and 1929); during the National Socialist period, three plebiscites were held, with biased questions and blatant manipulation of results."
Direct democracy conference London, LSE October 16-17 2004
http://www.iniref.org/conf.html
Direct democracy did not help the National Socialist party to seize power.
In recent years serious scholars have investigated this area. Prof. Otmar Jung (Berlin) studied reasons for exclusion of country-wide direct democracy from the "basic law", passed soon after World War II. He argues that the main aim of the "mothers and father of constitution" was to prevent the left wing from achieving gains via referendum.
The use of plebiscite "from above" by governments or dictators is NOT a procedure which we at I&R – GB recommend. See our case for partial direct democracy in Britain http://www.iniref.org/introduction.html
Regards,
Michael Macpherson
Founder
I&R ~ GB Citizens' Initiative and Referendum
Campaign for direct democracy in Britain
http://www.iniref.org/
http://www.iniref.org/steps.html Basic presentation
http://www.iniref.org/case.html The case for more democracy