Modern direct democracy: Citizens take center stage

There are many misunderstandings and confusions linked to the very concept of modern direct democracy. This creates a feeling of insecurity or even fear when it comes to democratizing our democracies. However, the tools and practices of modern direct democracy are genuine aspects of each truly representative democracy, as well-designed direct democratic procedures can make representative democracy more representative. On the other hand, other forms of popular political activity, like street protests, are sometimes mixed up with direct democracy.

There are many misunderstandings and confusions linked to the very concept of modern direct democracy. This creates a feeling of insecurity or even fear when it comes to democratizing our democracies. However, the tools and practices of modern direct democracy are genuine aspects of each truly representative democracy, as well-designed direct democratic procedures can make representative democracy more representative. On the other hand, other forms of popular political activity, like street protests, are sometimes mixed up with direct democracy. Plebiscites (popular votes called by an authority) are sometimes labeled as referendums. Because of those problems and because there is a growing global need and willingness to increase the direct participation by citizens, it makes sense to have a look into a country like Switzerland.

Switzerland is unique in so far that it democratized its democratic system more than a century ago, without being involved in any external or internal wars and without any non-democratic leaders to reverse key achievements of popular sovereignty.

 

Gas pedals and breaks

 

The two main pillars of direct democracy in Switzerland are citizens’ initiatives and citizens’ referendums.

The initiative mechanism is the more dynamic instrument. It allows a minority of voters to place an issue of their own choice on the political agenda and to have it decided by a popular vote. Eligible voters thus have the right to participate directly in legislation, regardless of whether the government or parliament likes it or not. The initiative gives a minority of citizens the right to ask a question to all citizens and to receive a binding answer. This is the gas pedal in modern direct democracy.

It is the other way around with citizens’ referendums. It serves as an instrument to control government and parliament, and gives citizens the chance to apply the breaks. It gives a minority of eligible voters the right to force a popular vote on a decision passed by the parliament.

Swiss voters are well aware of their political rights and know the special status of these rights. As citizens of a Federal State with 26 cantons (individual constituent states or provinces) and more than 2,700 communes, Swiss voters have the right to cast their votes at federal, cantonal and local level. On average, four to six times a year, there are popular votes on substantive issues at all three levels. In a lifetime, an average Swiss citizen may have had a direct say in thousands of decisions on substantive issues and has been a part of as many agenda-setting processes as she or he wished. Such a continuous possibility to take responsibility has clearly shaped a genuine political culture.

The historical roots of today’s modern direct democracy can be found both in pre-modern, medieval forms of democracy. The Swiss cantons were bound together by a strongly rooted republican tradition, which set them apart from their monarchical neighbors. Therefore, the very ideas of popular sovereignty, developed during the American and the French revolutions, fell on more fruitful soil in Switzerland than in the countries of origin.

 

A never-ending story

 

The cornerstones of modern direct democracy on the national level are the introduction of citizens’ initiatives for a total revision of the Constitution and the mandatory constitutional referendum in 1848, the optional referendum in 1874 and of the citizens’ initiative in 1891. The referendum on international treaties was introduced in 1921, extended in 1977 and 2003. It allows citizens to be involved in decisions on foreign policy.

At the national level, a mandatory popular vote (referendum) must be held in the event of a total or partial revision of the Federal Constitution or to join an organization for collective security (e.g. the Unite Nations) or a supranational community (e.g. the European Union). Swiss citizens who are entitled to vote can also propose a partial or total revision of the Constitution. Before a citizens’ initiative can be officially validated, the signatures of 100,000 citizens who are entitled to vote (approximately 2 percent of the Swiss electorate) have to be gathered within 18 months. If the initiative is valid, a mandatory popular vote has to be held. The title as well as the text of a citizens’ initiative are determined by the proponents of the initiative.

 

As yet another key procedure, an optional referendum takes place when it is requested within 100 days after the official publication of a statute by either 50,000 citizens (approximately 1 percent of the Swiss electorate) entitled to vote or by eight Cantons. Subjected to an optional referendum are all federal as well as international treaties that are of unlimited duration and may not be terminated. With regard to an optional referendum, it is worth mentioning that of the more than 2,200 laws passed by the parliament since 1874, only 7 percent have been subjected to referendum. In other words, in 93 percent of cases, the citizens thought the legislative proposals of their parliament were good enough not to be opposed.

 

Becoming a global matter of fact

 

The instruments of initiative and referendum are available to Swiss voters not only at the national level, but at the cantonal (regional) and communal (local) levels too.

And because each canton can choose its own way of allowing citizens to participate, there are even extra possibilities here: In addition to the constitutional initiative and the legislative referendum, all the cantons except Vaud also have the so-called finance referendum. One example: In the canton with the largest surface area, Graubunden, any non-recurring expenditure in excess of 10 million Swiss francs ($8.6 million) has to be approved by the voters in a popular vote. Any expenditure from 1 to 10 million Swiss francs can be challenged by the voters in an optional referendum if they can gather at least 1,500 signatures (about 1.2 percent of the total cantonal electorate).

In terms of the continuous modernization of direct democracy, Switzerland has also turned to the internet. Since the first local e-voting tests in 2003, several cantons have started to offer e-voting during nationwide popular votes, developing technical systems which are ensuring the security of the voting process. This summer it was decided that from 2012, most Swiss voters living abroad (there are about 600,000 of them) shall get the right to vote electronically in elections, initiatives and referendums, and maybe also to sign initiatives — making modern direct democracy yet another worldwide matter of fact.

The Swiss experience offers many concrete lessons for countries, regions or municipalities that want to modernize democracy. However, there is no blueprint for such reforms, as each political community does have its own cultural context and historical background.

The upcoming Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy will offer a unique opportunity for the strengthening of political democracy in Korea and across Asia.

 

 

 

Bruno Kaufmann is a broadcasting journalist based in Stockholm, Sweden. He heads the Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe (www.iri-europe.org) at Marburg University in Germany and is the International Director for the 2009 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy in Korea (Seoul-Namhae) hosted by the Korea Democracy Foundation.

 

Budgets by the People, for the People

NEARLY a month after the June 30 deadline, California’s Legislature and governor have finally agreed on a budget for the new fiscal year. The embarrassing debacle of paying the state’s bills with i.o.u.’s will come to an end — at least for a while. Though Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had pledged not to “kick the can down the road,” the budget he intends to sign today relies on $8 billion in accounting and revenue gimmickry, virtually guaranteeing another fiscal crisis next year.

NEARLY a month after the June 30 deadline, California’s Legislature and governor have finally agreed on a budget for the new fiscal year. The embarrassing debacle of paying the state’s bills with i.o.u.’s will come to an end — at least for a while. Though Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had pledged not to “kick the can down the road,” the budget he intends to sign today relies on $8 billion in accounting and revenue gimmickry, virtually guaranteeing another fiscal crisis next year.

For states as well as families, hard economic times require difficult choices. But some states find themselves in budget battles even when they don’t have the bad economy to use as an excuse. California is the prime recidivist, but since 2002, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin have also failed to close the deal on a budget on time. Government shutdowns resulted on five occasions.

Budget breakdowns most often occur under conditions of divided government — when Democratic and Republican lawmakers must compromise with one another to get a budget passed. Yet many voters like divided government, and for good reason. Distrusting of the extremes in both parties, these voters want their states to follow middle-of-the-road fiscal policies.

California’s Constitution has long required the Legislature to adopt a budget with a two-thirds vote; eight other states now necessitate supermajorities for some budget items. Such rules effectively force the majority party to negotiate with the minority on the budget since it is rare for one party to win two-thirds of the seats in a state legislature.

In California and elsewhere, politicians and analysts have called for constitutional conventions to revise the basic charter of state government. Believing that fed-up voters will reject any reforms on which political insiders have left their prints, some have suggested that delegates to the convention consist of ordinary citizens selected at random in a process akin to being called for jury duty.

But jurors are given a pretty limited task. They decide one case at a time and their basic choice is binary: guilty or not guilty, victory for the plaintiff or for the defendant. It is probably wishful thinking to expect random citizens to redesign state government from top to bottom.

We suggest a more modest role for an assembly of ordinary citizens: breaking budget stalemates. Here’s how it would work. If the Legislature and the governor fail to adopt a budget four weeks before the deadline for the new fiscal year, a group of randomly selected citizens — one from each legislative district — would be convened to resolve the stalemate. Three competing budgets would be drawn up: one by the governor, one by the Democratic caucuses in the legislative branch and one by the Republican caucuses. (These proposed budgets would have to be finalized before the citizens were selected.)

For two weeks, the citizens’ assembly would hear from and question government leaders, policy experts, interest groups and other supporters and critics of the proposed budgets. The citizens would then deliberate among themselves and vote by secret ballot on which of the budgets to adopt. The vote would take place on the budgets as originally submitted; neither the citizens nor lawmakers would be able to make amendments. The winning budget would become law.

This arrangement would have a number of virtues. First, it would ensure that states adopt budgets in a timely fashion, protecting bond ratings and freeing lawmakers to attend to other important business.

Second, it would give the three institutional actors in the budgetary process — the governor and the Democratic and Republican caucuses — strong incentives to devise budgets that appeal to middle-of-the-road voters, not political ideologues or special-interest favor seekers. Citizens who participate in the two-week assembly would also learn an awful lot about their state’s fiscal situation and competing legislative priorities. These citizen participants would not be as susceptible to sound-bite misinformation as in more traditional exercises of direct democracy.

Our scheme would also do wonders for accountability. When budgets are adopted under divided government (or supermajority requirements), it is hard for voters to figure out exactly who is responsible for the shape of the compromises. If the upside of divided government is centrist compromise, the downside is weakened retrospective accountability at the polls. Our approach to budgeting promotes accountability because the enacted budget would unequivocally belong to “the governor,” “the Republicans” or “the Democrats.” Dissatisfied voters would know exactly whom to reward or fault when they go to the polls at the next election.

Finally, our proposal honors Americans’ insistence on a strong popular voice in government, without demanding too much of citizen participants. It would require them to perform only a fairly simple task: rank your preferences among three proposed budgets, after hearing out the proponents and opponents of each.

Elsewhere, citizens have already proven themselves able to make measured, well-reasoned decisions about budgetary issues in small-group deliberative settings. The Brazilian city of Porto Alegre has been doing participatory budgeting since 1989, which has helped to equalize severe disparities in the standards of living among its residents. In Zeguo Township, China, citizens have been convened through statistically random sampling to establish spending priorities for road, building and construction projects.

Here at home, our participatory budgeting procedure would not be a panacea. But it should result in timely budgets, tailored to the concerns of average voters, for which elected officials can be held to account. That’s definitely better than the mess we have now.

Chris Elmendorf is a professor of law at the University of California, Davis. Ethan J. Leib is a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law.

Longtime New Brunswick political figure sets sights on governor’s seat

Longtime New Brunswick political figure sets sights on governor’s seat

By JARED KALTWASSER
STAFF WRITER

David Meiswinkle’s first political campaign was in the seventh grade, when he successfully lobbied his middle school basketball teammates to attend an end-of-season professional basketball game, instead of the pro hockey game the eighth-grade players wanted.

Longtime New Brunswick political figure sets sights on governor’s seat

By JARED KALTWASSER
STAFF WRITER

David Meiswinkle’s first political campaign was in the seventh grade, when he successfully lobbied his middle school basketball teammates to attend an end-of-season professional basketball game, instead of the pro hockey game the eighth-grade players wanted.

"We had to lobby and play politics with the sixth-graders. They were afraid the eighth-graders were going to beat them up,” Meiswinkle said. "So we voted and we won … so we go to the basketball game. It was in Hershey, Pa. It was the night Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points. I was there.”

If Meiswinkle, 59, is successful in his latest political foray it will be equally historic.

Meiswinkle, an attorney, public defender and longtime political figure in the city, has launched a longshot independent bid for the governor’s office, running on a platform of middle-class empowerment.

"The middle class don’t really have representatives because these two parties are controlled at the highest level by finance,” he said. "They’re not representing the average person.”

Meiswinkle moved to New Jersey from Pennsylvania at the age of 14. He attended Rutgers College, where he started the Davidson Reconstruction Committee, a group of students advocating for better conditions at the Davidson residence hall, and was elected student body president, during which time he successfully worked to make Rutgers College coeducational.

After obtaining a master’s degree from New York University and spending two years in the Army, he worked as the coordinator of handicapped affairs at Rutgers, setting up the first transportation system for handicapped students.

In 1978, he joined the New Brunswick Police Department. Meiswinkle said a turning point in his life came in 1981, when he publicly accused police detectives of covering up a shooting and fire at an apartment in the city. Meiswinkle said he nearly lost his job over the matter, but he prevailed in a termination hearing, and he says the two detectives involved in the alleged cover-up were reprimanded.

Meiswinkle claims the two detectives tried to cover up the incident because the two suspects were politically connected. The mayor at that time was John Lynch.

"So when I saw what they were about, I said this is enough, I’ve got my cause now,” Meiswinkle said. "So these guys are the bad guys, so I challenge Lynch.”

Meiswinkle ran unsuccessfully against Lynch in 1982, 1986 and 1990. He also lost a bid for City Council in 1984. Meiswinkle found more success, however, publishing an independent weekly newspaper, which he used to investigate Lynch and others at City Hall.

"He (Meiswinkle) knew a lot of what was going on there… and he was able to really pinpoint it and zero in on it,” said Albert Valeri, a campaign volunteer for Meiswinkle during the 1980s. ""And he kept us in line from just getting soured on the system.”

Lynch pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges in 2006 and was sentenced to 39 months in federal prison. Meiswinkle believes former U.S. Attorney and current Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie let Lynch off too easy.

"They treated him with kid gloves, it was a gentleman’s agreement,” Meiswinkle said. "Christie didn’t do the job on that, he only did part of it. He (Christie) didn’t do anything to attack the system he (Lynch) created. It’ll be there when he gets back. It’s still in place.”

The Christie campaign did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

"I admire his dedication and his courage at great personal risk,” said Michael Cote, a friend and the editor-in-chief of Meiswinkle’s newspaper, the New Brunswick Reporter. ""I believe he is driven by a sincere desire to change the world for the better, and his political ambitions are not driven by greed, but it comes from a moral base.”

As governor, Meiswinkle said he would use direct democracy to empower the people. He wants to use voter initiatives and referenda to bypass the Legislature when it won’t pass laws the people want, or to repeal bad laws the legislature passes. Meiswinkle also believes in voter recalls to yank ineffective politicians from office.

"You have direct democracy and you have Main Street running things…” Meiswinkle said. ""Wall Street is running things into the ground. We want Main Street, and when I say Main Street, I’m talking about middle class, small businesses, small farms.”

Meiswinkle opposes trade agreements such as NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) and GATT (the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), which he says have resulted in a loss of American jobs.

Meiswinkle wants to restore jobs in the manufacturing and technology sectors by embracing green technology and also setting up a division of government designed to encourage innovation by connecting those with good ideas to universities or corporations that can make those ideas into realities.

Meiswinkle said he believes many of the politicians in power are corrupt and in government for the wrong reasons.

"We’ve become alienated from our government, so we speak bad about it. We should speak bad about it,” Meiswinkle said. "What are we going to do about it? We’re going to take it back. We’re going to make it our government.”

Meiswinkle acknowledges that he has a long way to go before he can be in serious contention for the governor’s office. But he said he plans a vigorous campaign, which he believes may result in a larger movement that lasts beyond the campaign.

"I feel that I’m compelled because I’ve got a message and I think I represent the sentiments of a lot of people,” he said. ""Lots of times people can’t express what their deep down feelings really are. I think I can touch that.”

Jared Kaltwasser: 732-565-7263; jkaltwasser@MyCentralJersey.com

A ballot initiative spin on a tea party video

A recent tea party video got me thinking about how to adapt this message to communicate about ballot initiatives.

A recent tea party video got me thinking about how to adapt this message to communicate about ballot initiatives.

Instead of hammering the need to protest, I think we need to hammer on the means of protest, and we need to depict the elected representative’s perspective, not the citizen’s perspective. For example, suppose there is a rally outside. Focus on the rep’s reaction: he turns off the TV or closes the window. Or suppose activists deliver a 100,000 signature petition. Focus on the rep’s reaction: he phones the Congressional shredding service and gets rid of the bulky paper. Or suppose activists mail into lots of tea bags. Focus on the rep’s reaction: he makes tea for his favorite lobbyists who are passing him suitcases full of cash. As a coda, show the recent clip of Congressman Baccus calling for more police at the health reform hearing.

Then present the solution: NI4D—a partnership in participation. Show a ballot with a contrived initiative summary like "I want my elected representative to work with me in partnership as an equal." with the NI4D logo. Mark the "yes" box.

Jump back to some of the scenes of corruption earlier. Show the police intervening—not by pouncing on the rep but just preventing the corruption. For example, show the rep trying to receive a suitcase full of money from lobbyists, but the police stopping the deal.[1] Then show congresspeople engaging in praiseworthy behavior: shaking hands with the common man. The common man gives his Congressman a hug. Show a newspaper article with Congressional approval ratings skyrocketing. Etc.

NI4D — today’s solution to yesterday’s unresponsive federal government

[1] It is important to show the whole chain of events: The lobbyist offers money; the rep accepts; the rep writes a note on a proposed bill; the police disallows the note (flash *potential* *referendum*); the lobbyist looks unhappy and takes back the suitcase; and the rep produces a big smile of helplessness.

Joshua Pritikin

How the U.S. Constitution Makes Democracy Impossible

Many Americans believe the Founding Fathers were good Christians.  Even more believe they were democrats.   But for the most part, they were neither.  They were propertied men of the Enlightenment, exquisitely aware of the depredations that organized religion had wrought on the polities of Europe and at the same time deeply afraid of democracy and "the people" who they viewed as a threat to property.

Many Americans believe the Founding Fathers were good Christians.  Even more believe they were democrats.   But for the most part, they were neither.  They were propertied men of the Enlightenment, exquisitely aware of the depredations that organized religion had wrought on the polities of Europe and at the same time deeply afraid of democracy and "the people" who they viewed as a threat to property. But even the many historians who are well familiar with the framers’ deep antipathy to democracy seem blind to real story behind the Philadelphia Convention, how the framers, frightened by Shay’s Rebellion and threats of paper money actually managed to PERMANENTLY prevent democracy in America.  

How did the framers prevent democracy in America?  They established a government based permanently on oligarchic institutions—campaigns and elections.  Of course that sounds crazy, since we view campaigns and elections as the heart and soul of democracy.  But that’s just our made-up Orwellian Newspeak.  Up until the time of the founding fathers, the classical political philosophers (Aristotle, Plato, Montesquieu, Rousseau) all viewed campaigns and elections as oligarchic institutions because they favored the rich and famous.  

When we think about that today, we of course must admit that campaigns and elections in our own time do obviously favor the rich and famous – Congress being engorged with multimillionaires and professional athletes and movie stars with the occasional comedian and pro wrestler thrown in.  The classical political philosophers believed that whatever class was in power would rule in its own behalf and at the expense of the other classes.  If the rich and famous are given the reins of power, it was argued, they will invariably create what all the classical philosophers called "oligarchy."  

But it wasn’t just campaigns and elections that made the United States permanently oligarchic.  Representation in the United States Senate gave equality not to human beings but to the "artificial beings" (Alexander Hamilton’s phrase) called states.  Because some states have more population than other states, this is not "representative" democracy.   In fact it is more like the opposite: the fewer people in your state, the better you are represented in the Senate.  Now in 1787 the inequalities this engendered may not have seemed extreme.  The difference in population between the most populous and least populous states was 12 to 1.  Today it is 69 to 1.  By 2050 demographers project that 50% of U.S. senators will "represent" 5% of the citizens of the country, and the other 50% will represent the remaining 95% of us.   And here’s the key point: The founding fathers made this unrepresentative  (or more properly, anti-representative) character of the upper branch of the legislature beyond the power amendment.  

In addition, by granting this unrepresentative upper branch power over nominations to the Supreme Court,  the framers ensured that all three branches of the United States government would be firmly in the hands of an oligarchic elite, with officials selected by campaigns and elections, with the "anti-represenative" upper house of the legislature and with the judiciary effectively put into the hands of this anti-representative upper house.

       In the early decades of the 19th century, to the great consternation of most of the framers, America did become much more democratic.  Campaigns and elections were not waged by mass media as they are today but by men on horseback and by town meetings.  In Democracy in America Tocqueville was amazed at the power of equality in America and how it seemed to be overpowering contrary impulses.  But already in his book Tocqueville was warning Americans that they would lose the great promise of democracy if they ever let the gap between rich and poor grow too great.  What we are living through in our own times, as thoroughly documented by writers such as Kevin Phillips, is the crushing of the would-be democracy under the growing power of the rich and the corporate interests.  

We live in the age of the Internet.  The Internet directly contradicts one premise of the Founding Fathers: that direct democracy is impossible in a large territorial state.  We select our American Idols by direct democracy today.  The "Wisdom of Crowds" argues that under the right conditions large groups of people tend to make better decisions than experts.  Our present system is breaking down under its own greed and excessive individualism.  The oligarchy has failed.  Is it time for a constitutional convention?  Or by what other means shall we gain for the first time true democratic control over our own destiny?

Mike Gravel on the Personal Democracy Forum

"Change is only going to come about when people have the power to act upon the knowledge that they will acquire through the new technology," says former Alaska Democratic Senator Mike Gravel. During the 2008 presidential campaign he became a YouTube "rock" star and now spends most of his time working in South Korea.

"Change is only going to come about when people have the power to act upon the knowledge that they will acquire through the new technology," says former Alaska Democratic Senator Mike Gravel. During the 2008 presidential campaign he became a YouTube "rock" star and now spends most of his time working in South Korea.

I caught up with him yesterday in New York at the Personal Democracy Forum — "the place to be," he said — to find out how technology is being used in South Korea, his thoughts on technology, and how he rates President Obama thus far.

For more information about Mike Gravel visit www.mikegravel.us

Finally, I was not the only reporter at PDF09 with a Flip Cam in hand. Check out CongressDaily’s Andrew Noyes video interview here.

Follow Eric Kuhn on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kuhn

Pilot project could improve state elections

Never underestimate the wisdom of Oregon voters. That is a guiding premise behind an experiment in having a group of citizens critique proposed ballot measures.

The Oregon Senate approved the proposal on Tuesday, sending House Bill 2895 to Gov. Ted Kulongoski for his signature.

That action follows the Senate’s approval Monday of legislation that would give the secretary of state greater power to crack down on petition circulators who fraudulently collect voters’ signatures. House Bill 2005 also is on its way to the governor’s desk.

Never underestimate the wisdom of Oregon voters. That is a guiding premise behind an experiment in having a group of citizens critique proposed ballot measures.

The Oregon Senate approved the proposal on Tuesday, sending House Bill 2895 to Gov. Ted Kulongoski for his signature.

That action follows the Senate’s approval Monday of legislation that would give the secretary of state greater power to crack down on petition circulators who fraudulently collect voters’ signatures. House Bill 2005 also is on its way to the governor’s desk.

Tuesday’s approval came on a bill that would give voters more information about the initiatives’ potential effects.

As a one-time pilot project, it would authorize a panel of randomly chosen citizens to review one to three initiatives on the 2010 ballot. Those citizens would meet for several days, look at the pros and cons of a measure, and write an evaluation for inclusion in the Oregon Voters Pamphlet.

Grants would be sought to pay for the work, so it shouldn’t cost the state anything.

The concept is that voters can make better decisions when they have straightforward, unbiased information from a source they can trust: their fellow Oregonians.

The Voters Pamphlet has grown so thick with pro and con arguments for initiatives that it routinely requires two volumes — one for measures and the other for candidates.

People on either side pay to have their arguments published, which is a fine way to identify a measure’s supporters and opponents, but a bad way to judge the merits. Meanwhile, sorting through that maze of information and argumentation can be a confusing, time-consuming challenge for voters.

HB 2895 follows up on an experiment from last fall’s election. Healthy Democracy Oregon convened 23 registered voters to examine Measure 58, dealing with non-English learners. The panelists created a statement summarizing their views after hearing from proponents, opponents and a variety of experts.

That was a worthy process, but the impact will be greater by having a page of results published in the Voters Pamphlet, as the legislation allows.

This is the kind of experiment in citizen democracy that Oregonians tend to embrace: It’s not telling them how to vote; it’s giving them more information on which to base their vote. And it tests the concept on a small scale.

If evaluations show that the pilot project was fruitful, the "citizens initiative review" could substantially improve Oregon’s election process.

The Renewal of Democracy: An Interview with Paul Ginsborg

Paul Ginsborg is Professor of Contemporary European History, University of Florence and a frequent public commentator on politics and life in Italy. His books include A History of Contemporary Italy, Society and Politics 1943 – 1988

Paul Ginsborg is Professor of Contemporary European History, University of Florence and a frequent public commentator on politics and life in Italy. His books include A History of Contemporary Italy, Society and Politics 1943 – 1988 , Italy and Its Discontents: Family, Civil Society and the State , 1980-2000, and the bestselling biography Berlusconi: Television, Power and Patrimony.

He spoke to Daniel Finn of Irish Left Review about his most recent book Democracy: Crisis and Renewal , democracy in the EU and how the currently weak state of democracy internationally can be renewed. Democracy: Crisis and Renewal was reviewed in Irish Left Review last December.

Daniel Finn: The title of your latest book is Democracy: Crisis and Renewal. I’m sure a lot of people would look at that title and think, ‘What’s he talking about? What crisis?’ Because surely, Western-style democracy has never been more successful; in purely geographic terms it now covers the whole continent of Europe, with very few isolated exceptions, and many other places where dictatorship was once the norm have some form of democratic system. So what is the crisis that you are talking about? What are its main features?

Paul Ginsborg: There is a paradox of democracy. What we have is a quantitative expansion of democracy in some form or another, not only in Europe but throughout the globe. But there is a real crisis in the quality of democracy, particularly in its homelands. The crisis takes various forms, but perhaps the most important is the feeling of distance that separates what goes on in parliaments from people’s opinions and everyday life, and we can explore its manifestations in various forms.

One is that, whether we take Sweden or Britain or Italy-where the rates of confidence in institutions weren’t very high anyway-we see there is a decline in faith in democratic institutions. Not just in the political class-that’s a separate subject-but in democratic institutions. Parliaments are less trusted, people are less confident that the job will be well done and responsibly done and transparently done by modern parliaments. Then there’s the decline, with some exceptions, in voter turnout, and there is that deep cynicism about the political class. Those are some of the elements of the crisis that one can immediately point to, and the result of this is that representative democracy is really in quite a weak position in terms of having the confidence of the population.

 

If you extend that to the EU, the problem becomes gigantic, because in the last European elections in Eastern Europe the turnout was extremely low. And even where the voting is a bit higher, like Italy and Spain (let’s not talk about Great Britain), we find people expressing extreme dismay about the democratic gap that separates what is happening in the Commission and the Council of Ministers, and the citizens of Europe as a whole, so I think there is a problem.

DF: So how can democracy renew itself?

PG: Well the argument in my book is that we need to return to first principles and in particular we need to return to discussion of the two models of representative and direct democracy, going back to the Athenian model. Not because you can use the Athenian model straight away, just transfer it, but because there has always been a discussion – one can find it particularly strongly in the late 19th and early 20th century – about trying to give people more control over their lives whether in work or in the political system, through local government or new forms of participatory democracy. I try to explain this in my book through examples like Porto Alegre in Brazil and other cities, major cities of a million inhabitants which have experimented with things like the participatory budget, really giving people a sense that by turning up at meetings and by voting, they are contributing in a way that representative democracy could never offer them.

DF: Is it realistic to expect mass participation in politics? Don’t people want to leave politics up to the politicians and go about their private lives?

PG: This is one of the objections most often thrown at those of us who believe participative democracy is possible. And I think the answer is not to say ‘oh that’s just a silly point of view’, but to take it on fully and to acknowledge that people who say that are right at one level, one certainly doesn’t want to sit for endless evenings on uncomfortable benches. But I don’t think that’s the only part of the story. If we look at the number of people who take part in a variety of voluntary associations and who are active in civil society then we see that people are willing to participate-not every day, not for every aspect of their lives, but for certain parts and moments of their lives.

I see this sort of participation, whether it’s civil society participation or in democratic forms, as something that comes and goes within the arc of a single life cycle. So that you may be very active and interested in your twenties and then you may come away from it when you have small children, then you may want to come back to it later- this would be a form of sedimentation in terms of democratic practice and in terms of getting away from the family, getting out from in front of the television and doing something, and I don’t think people – particularly as waves of economic crisis hit us – are so alien to those ideas at all.

DF: One of the aspects of the democratic crisis that you talk about in your book is the dominance of the mass media by a small handful of private corporations. Rupert Murdoch’s media empire is probably the best known example of that, but you could also talk about Silvio Berlusconi in your own adopted country of Italy. What do you think we could do to democratise the mass media?

PG: Well that’s a very big and complicated question. I think that the simple answer is that we have to recognize differences in markets. As it stands at the moment, by the very nature of the capital investment in launching a TV station and mass media companies, the whole market points towards huge oligarchies of companies which are very heavily funded by either a single person or in corporate terms, and the question is ‘how can you break that up?’ Well I think here – and it’s not only in the field of mass media but in other fields as well – the role of an interventionist state is very important.

If the state puts as one of its priorities the growth of local new stations, the growth even of television stations that extend over one quarter of a city, if encouragement is given to independent film makers and there is a very clear sense that those films will get a viewing on public television, then I think a government initiative in this key cultural area could turn the tide. The one thing that is happening now that is totally negative is that public television is totally on the defensive and trying to ape in very many countries the commercial model. And the only way that public television can get out of that troublesome role is if government decides to back it – not on viewing numbers but on pedagogical principles and fair news. If governments will back that sort of television as well as independent producers and local television, local networks, I think that’s some sort of a program which could break the oligarchical controls.

DF: You spoke about the example of the participatory budget in Porto Alegre in Brazil. Could you say a little about how that has worked in practice and how it might work in other societies?

PG: It has been experimented with throughout Europe with mixed success, but basically the way it works is that at the beginning of every year the mayor and the municipal council in Porto Alegre, which has 1,300,000 inhabitants, report back to the populace as a whole in a mass meeting about what they have done the previous year and then the cycle begins. People meet at a very micro level-at a street level, or a neighbourhood level-to formulate their first demands, and then there are larger meetings, thematic ones, and whole areas of the city meet to decide on part of the budget; it’s not the whole budget because of course a lot of municipal council budget goes in salaries and fixed overheads and all the rest.

Then these various thematic and other meetings elect a budget council, and that’s the most innovative moment of all this process. So you have a municipal council which has been elected in traditional representative democratic ways, but you also have a budget council which has come up from the base, from this local direct democracy, and these 40 delegates will then debate through the summer with the municipal council, and particularly with the mayor, to hammer out the details and priorities of that part of the budget that is up for grabs in a democratic fashion.

They report back to the neighbourhoods and then, at the end of the whole cycle, which is an annual cycle, the mayor assumes that as his own program and starts to put it into action. What is very interesting about Porto Alegre, and really runs counter to European experiments, is the number of working-class people, both male and female, who are involved in it, as well as the large number of ethnic minorities. In Europe these experiments have seen the participation largely of the middle classes, and one of the great problems in Europe and in America is the political mobilization of the working classes. There was a time, certainly in this country, when the Italian Communist Party mobilized on a large scale. Now that’s no longer the case and the left has gone backwards

DF: In the case of Brazil, obviously the emergence of a participatory budget was nurtured by the simultaneous emergence of the Workers Party as a mass force in Brazilian politics based on trade unionists and radical elements in the Catholic Church. Do you think that type of political organization is essential if something like the participatory budget is going to work in European countries?

PG: I think there is no question that we need in all European countries a democratic left which puts at the top of its agenda the idea of a renewal of democracy. I think we definitely need organization but we haven’t found the form of it, because the Leninist party, I think rightly, is in disrepute and democratic centralism is the last thing you want if you really want to build democracy from the base. The problem is what form would a modern organization take that doesn’t wind up producing the forms that traditional parties embody, namely, a kind of cartel accessing and managing the resources of the state, which they then distribute, both to the populace and clients, of course, but also to themselves. There is a great need for fresh thinking in the organization of a left alternative along more democratic, more controllable, more transparent lines, and I’m afraid there are very few examples of that indeed.

DF: You speak in the book about the need for economic democracy as an essential component of the expansion of democracy in society. What do you mean by that?

PG: Well I think what I mean is people working at a workplace having a clear say about the conditions in which they work, about the overall strategy of the firm or corporation which they belong to and where they have time to meet, debate and decide with their own representatives during working hours. The model I have in mind are the workers’ councils, in Italy in the 1970s, where the workers’ delegates intervened at every level in the factories, on a whole series of issues, like health and safety, like the question of the mensa, that is, the canteen, like having assemblies within work time and so on and so forth. Not only assemblies but also the right to go and improve their education. It was called the 150 hours education scheme, where workers had the right to 150 hours of education in work time during the course of a year, so that they could slowly work to a degree or higher qualification in the sort of work they were doing within the factory.

This period was from about 1971 to 1976, the highest moment of economic democracy, not just in Italy, I think, but in Europe, where you had the real feeling in a city like Turin, 50 years, 60 years after Gramsci, that there was an alternative political culture and alternative political leadership on a mass level coming up. Unfortunately, it came to a halt by the end of the 1970s, as did the whole movement of 1968.

DF: During that period of the 1970s -and you’ve written about this in your earlier book A History of Contemporary Italy – the Italian employers may have had to put up with the workers’ councils because they effectively had no choice, but they certainly didn’t welcome the existence of the factory councils, which they saw as a very unwelcome interruption of normal business affairs. Do you think in the long run that a model similar to the one that existed in the 1970s could co-exist with a predominantly capitalist economy or does it imply the need for an alternative economic system?

PG: Well I think it certainly implies going beyond the present forms of capitalism. I’ve no doubt about that at all. The economic crisis of the past few months has been also a major event in calling into question how capitalism is organized or disorganised. A difficulty – at least my difficulty – with this is the question of how you go beyond and transform the present economic system in a peaceful manner.

The Left in Italy, after the assassination of Aldo Moro and the terrorist violence of the 1970s, has by and large turned its back on violent means. Is it possible to build an alternative movement that is based on the culture of peace that nonetheless has the power to build a majority in a democratic fashion that would then be able to go beyond present day capitalism by the force of persuasion and mass presence? No one has ever done it. There was the idea of the Meidner scheme in the mid-‘70s in Sweden where gradually the workers would have more and more shares in the factory until eventually the overall ownership of the factory no longer belonged to proprietors or to the workers themselves but to regional boards who had members from the trade unions, etc., on them. That was a very extraordinary scheme, but it never got anywhere.

I think for anything to get anywhere there has to be a huge traumatic moment of mass rejection of the economic system as we know it, and of course, as you know better than I do, it’s quite unlikely that mass unemployment leads to that mass rejection. The movement of 1968 – 69 came on the crest of very low levels of unemployment and Nazism came on the crest of very high levels of unemployment so we can’t just automatically say that the great global crisis of 2008 and 2009 is a wonderful chance. It may turn into something like a nightmare.

DF: The program of reform you are calling for would certainly require a revival of the left in Europe. How do you explain the present weakness of the European left? I know that’s a very broad question but could identify two or three of the main elements?

PG: I think there is no doubt that the central question which I pose in my book is one element of rebuilding. It’s not enough by itself. You can’t base a whole movement on the renewal of democracy, but I think we are all very aware now, that there is a need for a renewal of economic thinking and economic democracy, for asking what would an alternative economic system look like, what are the power of pension funds, what are the power of cooperatives?

There is a crying need for more debate and for propositions and for those propositions to take an organized form. When the Italian Communist Party was very strong in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, even the single militant, who on Sunday morning would go out to sell the newspaper L’Unità, had an idea that his microcosm of action was linked to a larger program by which socialism would eventually be introduced into Italy. Utimately it was based on a chimera. It wasn’t true. What was happening in all those years was that the Communist Party was gradually getting more and more moderate. But I think the key is to be able to communicate a program of action that appears realistic with goals that are realistic and favour self-organization and participatory democracy, that gives people the idea that there is an alternative.

At the moment we have what is left of a communist tradition, what is left of a social democratic tradition, and we don’t have that new thinking, or a new synthesis or indeed a new analysis of capitalism at the beginning of the 21st century. It’s terribly important that those debates rage now as vigorously as they can.

DF: One question that is very topical in Ireland at the moment is the question of the European Union and how the European Union can be democratised, if indeed it can. Do you have any ideas in that area?

PG: Well, I think that the European Union is a very important institution, with regard to world politics. The fact that these countries have been able to get together and overcome what were historic divisions and terrible wars, is for me a very remarkable thing. It does seem to me to be a tremendous step forward. Then there are all the criticisms by the likes of Perry Anderson, and I share very many of them indeed. We have this great trading area but we don’t have any democracy. And it’s obvious that the European parliament needs to have much more power, but there also needs to be a rethinking of what participatory democracy could look like, because the whole idea that ‘subsidiarity’ is in some way a democratic answer to that problem is just ridiculous.

Subsidiarity has taken us nowhere in nearly 30 years of practice (it’s funny you should ask me that as I’ve just been asked to speak at a great big conference on participatory democracy in the European Union, so I shall go with all guns blazing). They’ve gone backwards on that. But the European Union still offers possibilities and hope, and explorations. So, let’s take on board the most radical of the criticisms, but also try to think of new things that again the individual interested person could be mobilized on.

DF: There seems to be a strong contrast between the process of constitutional reform in Europe and Latin America at the moment. The EU constitution, which became in turn the Lisbon Treaty, was drafted by political and administrative elites and then presented to the people, or in many cases not presented to the people but sent to parliament . . . whereas in Latin America in a number of countries constitutional assemblies have been elected to go through a process of debate, with delegates presenting ideas for reform and the final document then being presented to the people – do you think there is a case for a constituent assembly for Europe or is the whole European polity too wide, too fragmented or too diverse to repeat that experience?

PG: I think that there ought to be a constituent assembly and that it ought to be based on the democratic process. Perhaps there has to be a mixture between the constituent assembly and local initiatives but unless you start thinking of alternative methods you never get anywhere on these things, and so I would be very much in favour of some process of democratisation both at the highest level and at the more modest levels-regional, municipal, etc.-and you would have to get together and see what came out of the brainstorming on those issues.

I don’t think it is necessarily too large an entity. I mean, the United States of America is a large country and they manage, although there are many things about American democracy that we don’t want to copy in any way at all. I do think there is the demand for that, for a fresh start. We should try to pursue ideas more vigorously than we have up to now. I certainly think rejection of the European Union as such is very negative and very, very unhelpful, I don’t support the idea that we just have to start again. I think we have to be insistent, but at the same time very patient.

DF: Italy at present seems to condense many of the negative trends that you identify about Western democracy. What do you think explains the success and endurance of Berlusconi and his coalition, and why has the Italian left been so weak in opposing him?

PG: Well the Italian left is post-Communist, and one of the worst things about the post-Communists is that they are always trying to establish their credentials, and this has made them very, very weak. So that’s one thing

The other thing is that Berlusconi in many ways interprets very, very well the deepest animal spirits of this country. Italy has a very high level of self-employed people and small entrepreneurs, family firms, particularly in the North of the country, in Lombardy and Venetia, where he’s strongest, together with the Northern League. And these small entrepreneurs basing their work on not having to pay too many taxes, and the State turning a blind eye to their tax levels, not being interfered with by the state, not being asked to make contributions to collective welfare, this is all very strong in Italian society, in the most advanced areas of the country. Berlusconi represents those mentalities very well indeed.

It’s going to be very tough to break out from that. He now wants to become President of the Republic and I think that it’s going to be very difficult to stop him. That’s the highest position in the state and although it has no great powers, it comes with strong opportunities to set the political and cultural agendas for the nation. The idea of Berlusconi as President of the Republic is really horrifying, but the left seems quite content to come to some sort of compromise, to say “let’s forget who Berlusconi is.” That’s the moderate left, [Walter] Veltroni and the Democratic Party.

This is absolutely fatal. Fatal also to the ethics of the country. But here in Italy as in so many other parts of Europe the left is so fragmented, especially the radical left, that it’s extremely frustrating trying to make any progress. Three times in the last seven years I’ve been involved in the processes to unite the radical left and make of them one single organisation and every single time they break away into their ex-communist or still communist bits.

There’s one other thing that may be of interest to you: the German translation of my book was taken up by one of the federal government organizations, the Centre for Democratic Formation, and they published 5,000 copies of their own and distributed them free in government offices-

DF: In Berlin?

PG: Yes. I was very, very pleased about that because my book doesn’t pull its punches. It’s a radical book, and the German publisher Wagenbach was delighted that the Centre for Democratic Formation had taken it, made their own edition, 5,000 copies, and put it in government offices. That gave me some hope as well as a lot of satisfaction.

DF: That’s good news. I think we’d be waiting a while before the same thing happened in Dublin, it would probably be considered subversive for a TD to be seen reading a book at all.

PG: Or Gordon Brown. I can’t see him taking to it either.

Mike Gravel interviewed in South Korea on “Let’s Talk Pusan”

Former Democratic Senator and Libertarian presidential candidate Mike Gravel is on a trip to South Korea, trying to bring about a national ballot initiative system there.  He was interviewed recently on the show “Let’s Talk Pusan.

Former Democratic Senator and Libertarian presidential candidate Mike Gravel is on a trip to South Korea, trying to bring about a national ballot initiative system there.  He was interviewed recently on the show “Let’s Talk Pusan.”  You can listen here – the interview itself is in English, just click play on the player underneath the number one.

The first half of the interview is about Mike Gravel himself and his political career, while the second half is about direct democracy, South Korea and its government, and why South Korea is likely to adopt a national initiative system.

(Full disclosure:  I was a volunteer for Mike Gravel’s presidential campaign and I’m a volunteer for his campaign for national ballot initiatives in the United States.  I’m also helping his effort in South Korea in a very small way.)

The National Initiative needs your support

Many keen observers of our representative democracy comment again and again about our broken political system, especially because of the corrupting influence of money on our elected representatives.  Too often, the resulting public policy provides benefits to the corporate-military-industrial complex rather than enhancing the public interest.

Many keen observers of our representative democracy comment again and again about our broken political system, especially because of the corrupting influence of money on our elected representatives.  Too often, the resulting public policy provides benefits to the corporate-military-industrial complex rather than enhancing the public interest.

During my many years in elective office, I saw the trade-offs and pay-offs (direct and indirect) that are common in the political arena.  I saw how difficult it was – and is – for the most well intentioned elected officials to bring about the needed changes because of our flawed government structure.  And, typically, in their attempts to navigate a flawed system, the legislators themselves become flawed.

How can we achieve public policy that more closely reflects the public interest?  Bring the people – American voters – into a decision-making role in government as citizen-lawmakers in partnership with their elected representatives. The National Initiative for Democracy (NI4D), a legislative proposal that amends the Constitution and provided legislative procedures in a Federal Statute, does just that: empowers citizens (you and I) to be able to vote on the public policies that affect our lives – empowers citizens (us) as lawmakers.

I ran for president to bring attention to the National Initiative. As a result:

  • There is a growing list of volunteers
  • We are sending out monthly news letters
  • Other people than myself are now speaking out about this in public
  • People are planning film projects about NI4D
  • More and more people are blogging about the National Initiative
  • A very real grass-roots effort has begun which will be difficult to ignore
  • NI4D is far more well known today than before I ran for president.

However, the problem now is that the Obama presidency has generated a renewed optimism that representative government may work this time. Donations have greatly decreased.  It will take some time before Americans realize that electing a new cadre of politicians will not bring change. As I said in the campaign: “follow the money if you want to know the kind of government you’re going to get.” Wall Street continues to rule the economy, banks are getting most of the stimulus, and the military defense budget grows. 

The rhetoric of White House policy is considerably improved and sounds cooperative but with one thousand military bases around the world, our nation’s policy remains imperialistic, even though we are broke and going the way of all empires.

I continued to speak out against these misguided policies and offered the obvious solution: empower American citizens as lawmakers. At a conference on direct democracy, last October in Switzerland, a professor from South Korea heard me speak about the National Initiative and asked if it could be applicable in Korea. My research before and since my subsequent trip to South Korea has convinced me that South Korea is one of the likeliest venues in the world to enact a National Initiative.

Democracy is a lot fresher in the minds of Koreans, evidenced by the people’s candlelight protests. They have the highest per capita savings rate in the world, so are the least likely nation to be affected by the global meltdown. Korea is one of the most Internet-wired nations in the world.  And English is a mandated educational requirement from kindergarten on.

Most significantly, the South Korean Constitution is superior to our own.

  • Article 1 of the Korean Constitution states:“all power emanates from the people”   .
  • Only the people can amend the Korean Constitution – they did eight times. The U.S. Constitution has been amended 27 times – not once by the people.
  • American federal elections are conducted by state and local governments and as a result are subject to partisan corruption. The Korean Constitution creates a non-partisan Central Election Management Committee to conduct all elections.
  • Korean citizens enjoy a lifetime voter registration regardless where they live.

The host of my initial trip (Korea Democracy Foundation) was not able to extend financial support for my return trip to Korea due to delays in government funding,. Nevertheless, some members of the Foundation and others have facilitated setting up lectures at universities and civic organizations. The title of my lecture says it all: “This Generation of Koreans has a Rendezvous with Destiny.

I use the lecture to motivate volunteers from the audience to join teams committed to inform Koreans about the Korean National Initiative (KNI) and to seek its enactment by Korean voters in a national election. KNI is a recast of the American National Initiative. In three weeks starting from scratch, I have been able to develop eight teams with more than sixty members. The quality of the volunteers is awesome.  Teams meet weekly and have 5 to10 members; when they acquire more than 10 members, they will replicate themselves into new teams.  I personally meet with each of the teams to get them organized. The team strategy is the beginning of a grassroots educational movement to acquaint Koreans about the empowerment opportunity of the National Initiative.

I firmly believe we can succeed in enacting the National Initiative in Korea. The global attention generated by this success will become the catalyst to enact the National Initiative in the U.S. The KNI will then become the 21st century national model for direct democracy copied by most G-20 countries.

My wife, Whitney, and I are funding my present trip in Korea from our modest personal resources. We cannot continue beyond June, even though my message is resonating with Koreans. The fees, when available, for my lectures do not cover all of my living and travel expenses. It will take at least five months before I can secure the government authority for a foundation in Korea that will then permit us to raise funds from Koreans.

The Democracy Foundation (the sponsor of the National Initiative) needs funding to prosecute its programs in the U,S. and to finance my travel expenses until we can do a Korean fund raising campaign. I desperately need your help.  Therefore, I am appealing to you – the 8,000 supporters on my Facebook political account, and the 20,000 in the U.S. National Initiative database – to make a donation to keep the National Initiative vision alive.

I hope you will respond to this appeal. The situation is critical and the opportunities enormous. I need your help, and I need it now. Thank you in advance and for your help in promoting direct democracy. Follow our progress at www.mikegravel.us and at www.NI4D.US.

Sincerely,  Mike Gravel

 

P.S. Click on the Donate link below, It will take you to a secure site for your tax deductible donation. Thank you.

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