World Democracy Forum

What is your blogger up to in Switzerland?

I wasn't sure when I arrived. At the invitation of Bruno Kaufmann, a Swiss-Swede journalist who heads the Initiative & Referendum Institute Europe (which is affiliated with a public university in Marburg, Germany), I was invited to a meeting of academics and journalists from around the world. A handful of journalists who arrived early took a tour around the country in the days before the conference. Now we're in Aarau, the first Napoleonic capital of Switzerland (it's a small city between Bern and Zurich), for the big meeting. Switzerland was the choice of site because more than 50 percent of all popular referenda and initiatives -- at the federal or national level of a country -- have taken place here. And Aarau has a brand-new center for the study of direct democracy.

A WORLD DEMOCRACY FORUM: Bruno Kaufmann of the Initiative & Referendum Institute Europe contacted me recently with an update on his efforts to convene people from all over the world to talk about and study direct democracy. Bruno is working hard to establish a World Democracy Forum that includes tours, workshops, panels and other events. Watch this blog for more details as they become available. It looks like there may be events in Switzerland and the United States this fall.

KIRKUK REFERENDUM? The Economist takes a look at what might happen in the Iraqi province of Kirkuk if a promised June referendum takes place. Direct democracy is a blunt instrument, and a referendum could lead to more violence.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE: The European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso was in Dublin this week to reassure the Irish that the new Lisbon Treaty will not cost them control over tax rates. Ireland is the only EU country holding a public referendum on the treaty. It's scheduled for June 12, and Barroso predicted the "eyes of Europe" will be on the island nation.

UKRAINE NEEDS MORE THAN A VOTE: A referendum is not enough to change the Ukraine constitution, according to the head of its constitutional court.