DIRECT DEMOCRACY, ESSENCE OF The ALTERNATIVE OF THE XXITH CENTURY. (file N03).
Afrogouvernance – By Gustave Botela Lipo – April 16th 2008.
…it
is necessary to wonder about the way contemporary political authorities treat and manage requests formulated by referendum way, when
they could not tell their appearance in agenda. How to tranquilize game? In other words, the different modern political systems are
also endowed in means, or in will, to negotiate ex post with the authorities of popular initiatives?
To answer this question,
and to avoid any ambiguity[1], we must clarify and suppose that the difference between a half direct and semi-representative democracy
domiciles in the importance granted in the techniques of direct democracy (referring to referendum and to popular initiative), that
is to say in the largeness of means which the citizen has to express himself directly about a question.
What a referendum means?
Referendum
has several faces depending on circumstances of instant. In general, they define referendum as being a vote of all the citizens to
approve or reject a rule or a decision.
Referendum can concern Constitution, while said t he Constitutional, or touch a law then they
speak about legislative referendum. A vote supporting on an international treaty is called conventional referendum and the one who
relates to expenses of a certain sum, it is financial referendum.
On the other hand, referendum is considered constituting when the
result of polls links authorities. When the stemming of vote does not compel authorities, they suppose that referendum is advisory.
Referendum
is said obligatory if need be by virtue of a requirement of Constitution, without a request being formulated. The obligatory referendum
in case of review of Constitution is envisaged in certain countries such as:
- Austria[2], Denmark, Spain[3], France[4], Ireland, Iceland[5] and
Switzerland (Swiss).
In the last development, referendum is renowned facultative when it intervenes only by request of a fraction of
electorate, Member States of a confederation, members of the Parliament, government or leader of the State. In that case, so that
the people can be pronounced, it is necessary that one asks for referendum. When this request can be expressed by a fraction of electorate
(in Switzerland by 50 000 citizens, in Italy by 500 000 voters) one qualifies facultative referendum ordinarily. As also, referendum
can be immediately triggered off by the people or the committee representing the people, ordinary facultative referendum is considered
to be an institution of direct democracy.
But when the request of referendum does not emanate of one party of the people but a state
organ, for instance the leader of the State (President) or the Parliament, they suppose that it is about an extraordinary facultative referendum,
since the impulsion of extraordinary referendum does not come from the people, it is not about an institution of direct democracy,
but rather about a technique of direct democracy striving for the legitimization of state power.
They must add that, the Parliament
or the government of a country can organize an extraordinary facultative referendum, even if Constitution does not envisage it specifically.
To follow …
[1] See in this site the article on: Direct democracy is present in all Western democratic
systems. April-03th, 2008.
[2] In case of it is a complete review only.
[3] In case of it is a complete review of Constitution
and for partial review, if it affects fundamental principles.
[4] The obligatory constitutional referendum in France is not that
very partial. A referendum must take place only if the initiative of the review of Constitution comes from the Parliament and only
after both Chambers voted for it in equal terms.
[5] Referendum is requested in Iceland only if constitutional review changes
the position of the Lutheran Church.
Afrogouvernance - 26 January 2008.
Compared Analysis of the
direct democracy in the political systems in Occident: Switzerland, Italy and California (the United States).
Nowadays, the referendum
procedures know an infinite variety all over the world[1]. The majority of the European countries and more of the third of the Member
States of UN tried out the referendum in their history.
The only democratic countries of long date to have never had on the national
level are the United States of America and the Netherlands, but we will see that in the United States the direct democracy is extremely
widespread on the level of the States.
Among the most important referendums of these last decades one could count, in addition to the
votes with repetition on European integration; it were votes on the divorce and the abortion in Ireland and Italy, in favour of the
Republic in Greece after the fall of the colonels, on NATO in Spain, independence in a great number of republic of the ex-USSR and
components of ex-Yugoslavia, in Quebec, etc.
In Uruguay, in Chile, referendums played an important part in the transition from the
military dictatorship to the democracy, just as in Poland and Hungary, in the passage of Communism to the liberal mode. Still recently,
Irish so much of North (Catholics and Protestants), that South decided by this way on the future of Ulster. France knew twenty two
referendums since the Revolution, of which some those organized by both Bonaparte, and even the referendums gaulliens had a more or
less obvious plebiscitary dimension.
Only under 5th Republic French voted over the new Constitution in 1958, the self-determination
of Algeria and the agreements of Evian in 1961 and 1962, the same year on the election of the president of the Republic by the vote
for all, in 1969 on the regionalization and the reform of the Senate (vote which led to the resignation of General de Gaulle), in
1972 on the widening of the EEC with nine members, in 1988 on the self-determination of New Caledonia, and finally in 1999 on the
treaty of Maastricht.
There was much attempt at several authors, with more or less of success classifying the referendums according
to various tests. They cannot repeat such systematic experiments here, nor even to discuss them. On the other hand, if they intend
to compare the role played by the direct democracy in various countries, it is advisable all the same to put a little order in these
political technologies, quite simply to compare what is really comparable in a largely heterogeneous universe. Thus, not only would
be it excessively ambitious to compare the various modes of exercise of the direct democracy, that it would be quite simply absurd
within sight of their diversity.
In this chapter, we will base ourselves more on the effects of the exercise of the direct democracy
on the political systems. It is obvious that, these effects vary according to forms' of the referendum and that they are exerted in
their turn on several levels: - in the field of the individuals; - their decisional competence in policy, their possibilities of participation;
- in the field of the organizations; - their strategies in comparison with the windows of opportunity of which they lay out, their
internal cohesion, the relationship between the militants and leaders; and finally on the mechanics of the political system as a whole,
defining actors impossible to circumvent, suggesting modes of decision, influencing the treatment of the minorities, etc.
With this
intention, we will analyze political there systems which all are confronted with the same type of the referendum pressures, of the
pressures which have the characteristic, even if it acts of a somewhat diagrammatic presentation to emanate from "bottom".
Thus, it
will not be held account nor of the obligatory referendums from which the authorities cannot escape bus lily are imposed by constitutional
requirements; referendums which are for example rather frequent when it is a question of an abandonment partial of sovereignty as
in the European construction industry, where that of Quebec in 1980 and 1995 to separate with Canada; neither of the organized consultations
in a discretionary way by the authorities by tactical concern or of legitimatization, nor a fortiori of the personalized plebiscites.
This
deserves some explanations: in one of the rare studies on the political role of the referendums, Gordons Smith (1976) class tools
of direct democracy according to two dimensions: if they are pro or anti-hegemonic, and if they are controlled by the political authorities.
The
first criterion is definitely vague: what is this to be pro or anti-hegemonic? It acts then of the hegemony of which? The anti hegemonic
consultations where the government or the Parliament east demolishes? But it is perhaps well because they wanted to go against certain
largely shared values. Hegemony, at least since its conceptualization by Gramsci, is not directly deductible starting from the options
from the political system, because it indicates phenomena of domination on a broader sociocultural level[2].
The compared analysis
is very useful because it makes it possible to develop two complementary arguments on the management of the direct democracy:
1- Vis-a-vis
with equivalent pressures caused by the mechanisms chief clerks and emanating from bottom, the political authorities worked out more
or less integrative answers;
2- When integrative attitudes are visible at the political elites where institutions chief clerks of bottom
exist, they are not therefore necessarily ascribable with the pressure of the direct democracy.
Analyze answers of the political authorities
to the referendum pressures of bottom in Switzerland, Italy and California: the comparison has a function of control here, in fact
of the assertion that the direct democracy, in spite of or perhaps because of its abrupt and majority character, would have contributed
to the installation of consensual mechanisms of decision making it possible to prevent its use or to channel it.
This paradox was actually
observed in Switzerland: they is well because the opponents with the federal capacity, initially the preserving Catholics at the 19th
century, then the Socialists, disturbed his operation with blow of initiatives and referendums that representatives of these parties
were co-opted, by successive waves, with the government. Mutatis-mutandis it was the same for the lobbies considered as likely to
resort successfully to the weapon referendum; they are systematically consulted in an initial phase of the decision-making process
at the time which them point of view is seriously taken into account, precisely to avoid the failure of the law referendum. In other
words, in Switzerland the direct democracy played a determining part in the production of consensual attitudes on behalf of the political
leaders, at such point that it would have been at the origin of the development of a democracy of negotiation (Neidhart, 1970).
It
is advisable to wonder about the way in which the contemporary political authorities treat and manage the requests formulated by referendum
way, when they could not prevent their appearance on the agenda. How to calm the game? In other words, are the various modern? Political
systems also equipped in resources, or will, to negotiate ex post with the authorities of the popular initiatives?
To follow...
[1] And
even within the same country. On (1985:591) written in connection with France: "the feeling prevails that each referendum operation
presents an irreducible singularity, which allows neither generalization nor a total assessment."
[2] One can refer here to work of Claus Off (1984), which considers that the epicentre of the conflict in the capitalist companies resides in the quarrels of border between the political system and the economic system about the total orientations as regards taxation, of social policies, etc.
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DIRECT
DEMOCRATY, BASIC ALTERNATIVE OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY. (File N0 1).
Afrogouvernance - 07 January 2008.
Starting from the ancient
city, it's lack of ethics recall of direct democracy without referring to the City of Athens, which served as a prototype for many
political thinkers and reformers. Athens was not the only Democratic city in Greece, but it was the most stable, the strongest militarily,
culturally the most prolific, and it is ultimately the city on which the investigator has more information.
However, despite the pride
of Athenians of their political regime, the word "democracy" has made its appearance late in ancient Greek. His fatherhood seems to
be due to Herodotus 25 centuries ago[1]. Moreover, it contained a negative connotation, and Aristotle in his Politics listed democracy
as a form of corrupt regime because it was not hybrid type.
Aristotle was not alone among the scholars and historians of antiquity
that would lead to such disbelief, which has left footprints in the history of concepts, since most of the great works of antiquity
stem from opponents democracy. The venerations that the lack of regulators could arouse even above all have led opponents to absolutism
to be reserved facing the democratic regime[2]. Until the end of XXVIII century, it was politically possible and semantically paying
to downgrade it’s antagonistic in dealing with the "democrats". By contrast, even among the most radical, and not describing its principles
and aspirations[3].
If the obvious feeling of democracy seemed ignored in antiquity, it is nevertheless the same according to Jean-Jacques
Rousseau of the idea of representation, which comes to us from feudal government, this unjust and unreasonable government in which
the species human and degraded, and where the name of man is in disgrace.
In the former republics and even in monarchies, the people
never had representations; we did not know that word then. Even frowned upon, democracy in its configuration could only be direct;
there was no other form and alternative than this. As for the election of representatives, instead of their appointment by lot which
harmed person and gave everybody a fair chance to get involved in public affairs, she was a partner noble principle[4]. Thus, the
elders would find it difficult to recognize citizens among voter’s contemporary representative democracies[5]. After antiquity, we
heard no more talk of democracy for a long period. During this period of silence, there have been changes on both sides of contemporary
institutions. Since democracy was again right of citizenship, it was soon associated with the concept of representation. The Association
of representative democracy is apparent in the late eighteenth century, simultaneously with the American Revolution, first in the
work of Jeremy Bentham (1776, and then in a letter to Alexander Hamilton dated May 1777, see Möckli, 1994: 33).
Furthermore, the appointment
of governors is not without its role in the presumption to reach a de facto power Aristocratic. Over the draw is widespread, the average
person has a chance to get a burden of responsibility. This has the advantage to neutralize the effects of the census on the political
participation[6], by promoting equal opportunities to take an active role in the decision.
Benjamin Barber (1990: 291-293), one of
the theoreticians participating the best known, is optimistic about the decision-making capabilities of individuals, as opposed to
another author as Burnheim (1995). According Burnheim, while being hostile to the development of what he considers to be a state increasingly
pervasive, at the same time remain sceptical about the ability of all individuals to express them through direct democracy.
Benjamin
Barber suggested that, designate local assemblies in this way their delegate’s regional assemblies, as well as people with loads leaders
at the local level, where he believes that no skill or expertise is required. This author is himself come to the conclusion that:
It's probably going a little too speeds of implementation; think that the particular local tasks are simple in essence seems to point
to an over-simplification. So he sees the problem, since it also proposes that the delegates be chosen from a group of volunteers,
to avoid the risk that people are incompetent drawn. Then he admits himself that it could replicate the cens hidden Daniel Gaxie…
We
will return to develop around this questioning the competence of policy makers in connection with direct democracy.
It is nonetheless
true that the draw of elected officials seen as a curiosity in the theory and practice modern politics. Not only does it involve Does
democracy and representation, but she combines it with the election, not for the draw: "None of the regimes established representative
for two centuries has allotted by the fate of the tiniest political power, neither sovereign nor execution, neither local nor central[7].
"
Seen by thinkers such as Montesquieu and Rousseau as much more consistent with the democratic principle that the election, the lottery
has persisted long enough in some places, for example in the Italian republics for certain charges, but he is now confined to the
judicial system , for the appointment of juries. It is found too few decades now, in the opinion poll, but as strong as their influence
is, no one has seriously considered replacing through this election, and the draw does not include any elected, but only voters[8].
The
disappearance of this option can be explained in the American and French revolutions by the fact that it does not base the exercise
of authority on the consent of the governed, even if the draw is more egalitarian point for the distribution of loads. Indeed, this
concern has risen to second place. Thus it any longer as public functions is distributed more or less equally between citizens. The
only thing that really matters is that the incumbents are appointed by the consent of the other[9].
To follow…
[1] Sartori, 1987:
292 n.1.
[2] Arblaster, 1994:Pages 16-17; Lavau and Duhamel, 1985 :Pages 35 and 44-45.
[3] Dunn, 1990: Pages 303-304.
[4] Based on the
theory of Montesquieu (Rosanvallon, 1993: Pages 11-12).
[5] Held, 1996: 7.
[6] This affects both on participation in the elections than
in direct democracy. Take the idea of census in the broadest sense: when the same becomes universal suffrage, the socially disadvantaged
on the economic and training find it more difficult to participate. With elements of the thinking of some writers such as Pierre Bourdieu
and Daniel Gaxie (1978), you can see us in the wake of a series of work in sociology American election cleverly arranged; he calls
it the "hidden" cens.
[7]Manin, 1995: page 18.
[8] In the coming issues, we will consider a specific case of poll, one that includes
a deliberative.
[9] Manin, 1995: page 123.