I have studied direct democracy for years, but I was still unprepared to encounter at a conference last year the anger and alienation of American activists who rely heavily on California’s initiative and referendum process. They loved direct democracy, as I would have expected, but what shocked me was that this love stemmed from their total disenchantment with the institutions of representative democracy. This worried me.

This worried me a lot.

To be hooked on direct democracy while being dismissive of a democracy’s underlying representative institutions is like saying you love cheese but can’t stand pizza. Initiative balloting can fortify and complement modern representative democracy, but it can’t substitute for it.

Americans may not know it, but direct democracy is growing worldwide – nations, states, provinces, prefectures and all kinds of other jurisdictions around the world are taken in by the legitimizing and seductive appeal of putting questions directly to the governed. When “the people” vote in an initiative or referendum, we might say that “the sovereign has talked.” We must bow before such unfiltered democracy.

Given the spread of direct democracy, it is disconcerting to think that some of its practitioners in California see it as some end-run around representative democracy. This is a terrible message to be sending less developed democracies. You can skip wired phone lines and go straight to cell phones, yes, but it would be erroneous to think you can skip past the creation of solid representative institutions and go straight to direct balloting as a viable form of governance.

As a Uruguayan living and teaching in Chile, I know firsthand that representative government helps make me free in both my countries, despite all its deficiencies. And as I survey the world, I understand that I can be perfectly free under a representative government (of the type envisioned by the drafters of the U.S. Constitution) without direct democracy (of the type America’s progressive movement later embraced). The world, in fact, is full of many cases in which great freedom and human happiness exist without direct democracy. But there is not one single case of a country where freedom flourishes on the basis of direct democracy absent solid representative institutions.

Indeed, as an academic who has studied and catalogued every model of direct democracy I can find on the planet, I can assure you that direct democracy is a very mixed bag. Categorical claims that direct democracy is good or democratic – or bad or dictatorial – do not match the complexities and heterogeneity of the direct democratic world.

I define a mechanism of direct democracy as a publicly recognized institution where citizens decide or emit their opinion on issues – other than through legislative and executive elections – directly at the ballot box through universal and secret suffrage. Please note that this definition embraces cases as different as the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, California’s Proposition 13, a Uruguayan referendum to block the privatization of public companies, the Swiss popular initiative against the construction of new minarets, and Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s constitutional reforms of 1980.

Appraisals of direct democracy thus generally depend not on abstractions but on the context – the how, why, where, when and what of a particular direct democratic action. Conveniently for direct democracy detractors and for its defenders, there are so many types of modern direct democratic actions, which have produced so many different results, that one can always find an example supporting whatever your argument happens to be. Put simply, being in favor or against the posing of questions depends on whether you like the answers.

There is no better place than California to appreciate the oft-distorted shape of the battle between direct democracy advocates and opponents. The Golden State’s Prop. 13 may be the most argued-over instance of direct democracy. It is present in virtually all American literature on direct democracy. But the broad claims about the measure – that it produced irresponsible policies, or that it gave people enormous protection against taxation – seem absurdly overdone.

Californians and other Americans eager to blame direct democracy for various ills would do well to look at other political practices for culprits. Campaign finance, for example. Your country’s court decisions permit corporations to spend what they wish in elections. The courts have also held that there can be no contribution or expenditure limits on direct democracy campaigns. Thus critics of direct democracy should aim their darts at the right target: perhaps it is the money, not the popular votes, that is at the root of the problem.

And those who see direct democracy as a way to resolve problems should be reminded that representative government’s shortcomings cannot be solved by democratic crowd-sourcing. Yes, in some cases, direct democracy deserves a try. But the devil is always in the details – the type of direct democracy action, the issue covered, the context in which a ballot measure is brought forward, the timing of the votes. Even “good” direct democracy is a risky game, which does not mean that we should avoid it.

It is important to wrestle with the question of how to get direct democracy right, and it’s never right if it is sold as a shortcut to fix a flawed representative structure. The question of how to get representative democracy right is not something to be sidestepped or ignored. I worry that the activists I met in San Francisco take representative government for granted, or see it as being quaintly passé.>

We should be able to agree that direct democracy cannot replace representative government; it’s no Democracy 2.0. Representative democracy is freedom’s common predicate. Even direct democracy’s most avid fans in California must guard against the gradual erosion and vanishing act of its representative institutions. History shows that when countries lose their republican foundations, darkness ensues.

David Altman, an associate professor of political science at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, is author of Direct Democracy Worldwide (Cambridge University Press, 2011).

A film project about the power of mass collaboration, government and the Internet. In his student flat in Colchester, Jack Howe is staring intently into his computer screen. He is picking the team for Ebbsfleet United’s FA Trophy Semi-Final match against Aldershot.

Around the world 35,000 other fans are doing the same thing, because together, they own and manage the football club. If distributed networks of people can run complex organisations such as football clubs, what else can they do?

Us Now takes a look at how this type of participation could transform the way that countries are governed. It tells the stories of the online networks whose radical self-organising structures threaten to change the fabric of government forever.

Us Now follows the fate of Ebbsfleet United, a football club owned and run by its fans; Zopa, a bank in which everyone is the manager; and Couch Surfing, a vast online network whose members share their homes with strangers.

The founding principles of these projects — transparency, self-selection, open participation — are coming closer and closer to the mainstream of our social and political lives. Us Now describes this transition and confronts politicians George Osborne and Ed Milliband with the possibilities for participative government as described by Don Tapscott and Clay Shirky amongst others.

Watch the full documentary now

This film explores the historical role of the Democratic Party as the graveyard of social movements, the massive influence of corporate finance in elections, the absurd disparities of wealth in the United States, the continuity and escalation of neocon policies under Obama, the insufficiency of mere voting as a path to reform, and differing conceptions of democracy itself.

Lifting the Veil is the long overdue film that powerfully, definitively, and finally exposes the deadly 21st century hypocrisy of U.S. internal and external policies, even as it imbues the viewer with a sense of urgency and an actualized hope to bring about real systemic change while there is yet time for humanity and this planet.

Noble is brilliantly pioneering the new film-making – incisive analysis, compelling sound and footage, fearless and independent reporting, and the aggregation of the best information out there into powerful, educational and free online feature films – all on a shoestring budget.

Viewer discretion advised – Video contains images depicting the reality and horror of war.

Watch the full documentary now

ORONO — On May 18, Press Herald columnist Greg Kesich, in referring to the possible attempt to utilize the referendum process to veto the recently enacted health reform law, offered a column headlined "Mainers should just say ‘no’ to people’s veto."

Disciples of the initiative and referendum reforms adopted in Maine in 1908 viewed them as a political means of "returning power to the people" by circumventing the Legislature, its committee structure and the corporate wealth and political machines that allegedly dominated both.

The "citizen lawmakers" for reform argued that direct democracy was a political prescription necessary to cure a flawed political system. They believed that the initiative and referendum would neutralize the abuse of private power and improve the working and living conditions of Maine’s citizens, "especially" for "the working classes and farmers."

They anticipated an instant and peaceful political revolution from "plutocracy" to democracy would occur at all levels of government, and that the conflict between the "people’s will" and the "interests" would fade, citizen participation in the political process would be enhanced, the ends of justice served and the authentic voice of the community restored.

The reforms were inspired largely by economic issues, i.e., "taking from a few the power to control law-making bodies for their own personal profit." (This has a very contemporary ring to it.)

While the State Referendum League, created in 1905 to secure "the people’s right to a direct vote on questions of public policy," drew upon a mosaic of reformers, it was composed of "nearly all union men" frustrated by the numbing regularity of the "ought not to pass" reports emanating from various legislative committees that addressed labor-related issues.

Critics of the reforms argued that they would lead to political instability and that the general populace would fail to take sufficient interest in the new opportunity to exercise their sovereignty to make them a success.

Only a small contingent of voters, they claimed, would cast votes, thus giving the false impression that the majority of citizens had expressed their sentiments and convictions on a given issue. They feared that a passionate multitude, untutored in the intricacies of the legislative process and swayed by unprincipled leaders to think in terms of their own interest, might threaten the wealth, power, status and general well-being of others.

They admonished that the "people of Maine may be carried off their feet and that revolution may follow," and that direct democracy had "something to do with Socialism."

The floodgates of revolution would surely be opened, and one could only imagine the consequences. (The historical record indicates, however, that the reforms have been applied to a myriad of political issues far removed from class-based considerations.)

Maine joined the "rebirth" of direct democracy during the 1970s and 1980s as political cauldrons across the land were seething with initiatives and referendums. That surge brought with it contemporary critics who sought to hobble the "excesses" of democracy and the departure from the nation’s genuine republican political heritage of representative government.

Criticism crested in Maine in 2001 when numerous "anti-citizens’ initiative" bills were defeated, e.g., measures that increased the number of signatures required to have a referendum, required that petitions originate from all counties, banned referendum petitioners from polling places, and kept failed referendums from being resubmitted for six years.

The Coalition to Protect the Referendum, composed of more than 70 state groups and individuals — a mix of ideological interests such as environmentalists, labor, religious conservatives and others united in the common purpose of preserving direct democracy — held the fort.

Recently, some have called for amending the constitution to ban citizen initiatives.

Yes, issues are complex. But now that we have learned that corporations are "persons" and money is "free speech," and a frayed labor movement is confronted by a new and transparent and orchestrated offensive against it, where is the countervailing power to be found? Surely, part of the answer is in direct democracy.

Rather than adopt Kesich’s advice, which seeks to hobble the direct voice of the citizenry on complex issues, perhaps it is preferable that The Portland Press Herald take whatever steps are necessary to help educate its readers by dedicating its columns with the knowledge essential to make informed judgments and thus help improve and secure direct democracy — the "town hall" writ large.

– Special to the Press Herald

RICHARD LAMING

Today @ 09:18 CET

EUOBSERVER / COMMENT – The dust is now settling after the referendum in the UK earlier this month on changing the electoral system. The result, on a 41 percent turnout, was 68 percent in favour of keeping the existing system, and only 32 percent in favour of change. This is only second national referendum in British history, and there are lessons for everybody, both in the UK and in the rest of Europe.

The first lesson is for advocates of direct democracy: be careful what you wish for. It may seem a good idea that changes to the political system, such as the means by which we elect MPs, should be endorsed by the citizens rather than simply left to the MPs themselves. A referendum serves as a check on the political class. But does it?

The campaign in Britain was very poor, with little focus on the issue that was actually on the ballot paper and most debate about other issues altogether. There were various reasons for this.

First, the proposed change was quite complicated and technical, from First Past The Post to the Alternative Vote (if you must know), which not many people understood and even fewer understood properly. Claims and counterclaims were flung by both sides about the two systems that bore little relation to the truth.

Secondly, the state of the economy has left many voters more interested in using their votes to punish political parties rather than change the voting system. Who did supporters of the opposition Labour party prefer to hurt: Conservative prime minister David Cameron (supporting a No vote), or Nick Clegg, leader of the junior coalition partner, the Liberal Democrats (advocating Yes)? Nick Clegg, as it turned out.

And thirdly, and perhaps above all, the issue on the table was not the one that people really wanted to discuss. The idea of holding a referendum was born in the coalition negotiations between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats after the general election last year, but the Conservatives could not agree to a vote on the Liberal Democrats’ preferred STV system, the one used in Ireland. Instead, they settled on the AV system, along the lines used in Australia. This was a compromise between the two parties, and everybody knew it. Splits and divisions within the two sides in the referendum became as much a part of the story as the splits and divisions between them.

With all this confused background, it is hardly surprising that the debate was low quality and the turnout small. The result was a decisive No, although campaigners for a Yes vote can tell each other quietly that their arguments in favour were never really tested. This is a bad result for British politics.

And it is a lesson for Europe. Think about those recent referendums on the constitutional treaty or the Lisbon treaty. All of those three reasons I have listed above applied then, too. Voter confusion, the intrusion of personalities, and an unsatisfactory compromise all sound familiar, don’t they? Referendums sound better in theory than they do in practice.

A second lesson lies in the result itself. As I said, it was a decisive No to change, in favour of keeping the system that has been used more or less since parliament was first established and elections first held. The science of electoral systems has been studied thoroughly and the inadequacy of the British system for a modern multi-party democracy has been well-established. But, basking in the glow of the royal wedding, the British voters preferred medieval romanticism to scientific modernity.

This is also a lesson for Europe. The UK government is writing into law the requirement that any future changes to the European Union treaties that pool more sovereignty within the EU must be approved by the British people in a referendum. This applies to significant steps such as joining the euro or the Schengen area, and also to small ones such as changing the decision-making procedure relating to the operational cooperation between the customs authorities of the member states.

Imagine trying to win such a referendum in a country where the people want an irrational and unfair electoral system. Future development of the European Union has suddenly become a lot more difficult, thanks to the evident British attachment to the ways of the 19th century. A lesson for us all, and a problem for Europe. Sorry.

The writer is chair of Federal Union

The elections of fall 2010 have long been over, and the new members of Congress have been in their seats since January. Nevertheless, it still appears that there are openly hostile relations between various members of Congress and the two political parties as a whole. This comes at the expense of the great citizens of this fine country, who want and need to be more involved with the decision making of our nation, above and beyond merely voting for those who will make all of the decisions, which is very little power indeed.

We must remember that a functional democracy, at least in the USA, must invite everyone to join in the process of domestic government decision making, and at least initially, will require a transition from a representative democracy to a direct democracy. This kind of governmental evolution would end, or at least substantially impede, the bureaucratic paralysis and voter anger/apathy that has been present in our society for the past few decades.

High level politicians must remember that an elected and divided government whose members are constantly bickering amongst themselves, while ignoring the will of the people, cannot forever last.

Ray Gattavara

Auburn, Wash.

By Mike Gravel

The Economist Magazine’s report on direct democracy in California is an excellent compendium of existing direct democracy’s shortcomings. However, all those failures in California exist (and then some!) at the federal level of American government — where no direct democracy exists. The point being that failure of governance need not be associated with direct democracy. The report relies on history grade-school knowledge to interpret Madison’s role in our founding.

Who are the Sovereigns of the Polity – the People or Government Officialdom?

On three separate occasions in 1787 and 1789 James Madison pointed out that, "The people were, in fact, the fountain of all power, and by resorting to them, all difficulties were got over. They could alter their constitutions as they pleased."

That most of the Founders believed that the people had every right to exercise their sovereignty to make laws, amend constitutions and to alter their governments is reflected in the following quotes:

"The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government." George Washington,

"All power is originally in the People and should be exercised by them in person, if that could be done with convenience, or even little difficulty." James Wilson,

"Each generation has a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes is promotive of its happiness." Thomas Jefferson.

Why did the constitutional Framers, informed at the time by their experiences with the successful town-meeting system of governance, fail to provide procedures in the Constitution so the people could do what was generally accepted as their sovereign right: amend the Constitution and make laws to promote their happiness?

This failure stems from the decision at Philadelphia in 1787 to abandon the principles articulated 11 years earlier in the Declaration of Independence-that all men are created equal. The decision to permanently embed slavery in our vaunted (but imperfect) Constitution had to be protected from the people. Madison and the Framers were well aware of the Massachusetts experience where citizens refused to ratify a state constitution in 1778 that legalized slavery (in 1780 they overwhelmingly ratified one that excluded slavery).

Madison, Pinckney and others devised the convention ratification scenario of Article 7, which permitted the Framers to circumvent the people. These state conventions permitted the political elites, for and against the Constitution, to gather and duke it out without being pestered by the people opposition to slavery.

The Framers’ fear that the people would remove slavery from the Constitution, if so empowered, was well founded. The first lobbying effort in the first Congress was an assault on slavery by Pennsylvania Quakers led by Benjamin Franklin. It was successfully thwarted by James Madison and the slavery faction in the Congress. Slavery was so effectively embedded in the Constitution that its removal, short of a civil war, was impossible.

Of the five features locking slavery into the Constitution, only one-that of a slave being counted as three-fifths of a person for representative purposes in the U.S. House-had been removed by the Civil War; the other four (1. the Electoral College, 2. Article V, 3. the Senate and 4. state and local government control of federal elections) all, highly undemocratic features of the Constitution, have remained to work their mischief on our governance to this day, long after the official demise of slavery.

That representative government model has since become the norm copied by nation-states calling themselves democracies because it more easily maintains the elites of earlier systems of governance in power. The one exception is Switzerland, which copied our Constitution but added the people as lawmakers, creating a very successful governing partnership with their elected officials. This type of partnership was the road intended by the Founders, but not the one taken by the Framers of the American Constitution.

The failure of the Framers to include legislative procedures in their draft of the Constitution whereby citizens could make amendments and laws was the price paid for slavery and the fear of mob rule was a convenient cover.

Initiatives and Referenda

The fist fundamental change in the structure of American governance since the founding took place at the turn of the last century without amending the Constitution. Starting in 1898 and up until the First World War, more than 20 states amended their constitutions to permit their citizens to initiate and enact laws and amend constitutions. The motivation for this change was the abusive corruption of government by the business community in the post-Civil War boom and the "robber baron" era.

Let me state at the outset that all 24 initiative states have bad laws. As a result, representative government controls the process of direct democracy and continually limits or corrupts the process. The Swiss model imported by the legislatively inexperienced reformers works well for the Swiss but has proven inadequate for the modern complicated demands of the 21^st Century.

Lawmaking is the central power of government and requires a deliberative process, what you call "dialogue" in law-making. Such dialogue is lacking in every initiative state. Additionally, an agency implementing the legislative procedures on behalf of the people must be independent of representative government if the people are to become the fourth real check within our system of Checks and Balances. Even without the ability of citizens to legislate, that system is often voided when one political party controls all three branches of government.

The problem we have with governance in the U.S. is not the excess of citizen participation, but the lack of deliberative citizen participation. That is true not only in those states with initiative laws, but in all states and at all levels of government. It has never been easy for people to participate in the political process except under the direction and control of political parties that hold a monopoly over the electoral process.

More fundamentally, the structure of representative government keeps citizens in civic adolescence. We want the largesse of government, but are reluctant to pay for it. We give away our policy-making powers to elected officials on Election Day and then we blame them when things go wrong. That is the definition of civic adolescence. When citizens become deliberative lawmakers, they are forced to take responsibility for the public policies they enact. This brings about a process of civic maturation within the constituency-a human development that will benefit all facets of human life. Civic maturity is the most important result of deliberative citizen lawmaking, forcing us to take responsibility for our public policy decisions. This process is exactly what we do in rearing our children — giving more and more responsibility, leading them to adulthood.

Is Change Possible?

There are only two possible venues for change: we can look to our elected representatives wherein the problems exist, or we can look to the people. Your preference for referendums as a tool of direct democracy underscores the paternalistic tone of the entire report. Legislating by referendum is not direct democracy, but rather a device used by representative government to submit measures to the constituency for up or down votes, devoid of any deliberative "dialogue" that you so admire. Implicit in your recommendation is that Californians’ legislative power be limited to statutes alone, as is the case in a number of initiative states where citizens cannot amend their constitutions

Our dilemma is that all of our efforts at improving governance are attempted within the context of representative government. Unfortunately, we continue to believe that electing the right people to public office will bring about structural improvements, which has repeatedly proven not to work. This does not diminish the vital need to elect people of integrity to public office. The point I make is that the structural flaws of representative government cannot be corrected within a system that profits its elites and their representatives.

The answer to the problems of human governance in California and in our nation lies with the people — not with their leaders. Adding direct democracy to our representative government would correct all of the shortcomings the magazine’s report identified and much more.

The enactment by the people of proposed meta-legislation — the National Initiative — will empower citizens in all jurisdictions of government as lawmakers, not only solving California’s dysfunctional system but that of the more egregious dysfunction of the federal government. Since the Congress will never enact the dilution its powers, the National Initiative must be enacted the same way the Constitution was enacted as the law of the land in 1787-1788. With Article 7 of the Constitution as precedent, we need not employ a convention system. Present technology permits us to ask all American voters if they wish to empower themselves as lawmakers as the Founders had envisioned.

Is this legal?

It is if you believe in the Constitution, wherein We, the People, "do ordain." Certainly the people as sovereigns cannot be limited by what they create–the government– in making changes to the government. The people as sovereigns can enact the meta-legislation, the National Initiative, thereby completing the work of the Framers, who were waylaid by the tragedy of slavery.

Cicero defined freedom as participation in power. Giving your sovereignty away on Election Day through the manipulations of the electoral process is not meaningful participation. Only by exercising the central power of government – lawmaking — can we have meaningful participation and safeguard our freedom. It is our birthright, if we dare to claim it.

The elections of fall 2010 are over, and the new members of Congress have been in their seats since January. However, it still appears that there are openly hostile relations between various members of Congress and the two political parties as a whole. This comes at the expense of the great citizens of this fine nation, above and beyond merely voting for those who will make all of the decisions, which is very little power indeed.

We must remember that a functional democracy, at least in the USA, must invite everyone to join in the process of domestic governmental decision-making, direct democracy. This kind of governmental evolution would end, or at least substantially impede, the bureaucratic paralysis and voter anger-apathy that has been present in our society for the past few decades.

High-level politicians must remember that an elected and divided government whose members are constantly bickering amongst themselves, while ignoring the will of the people, cannot forever last.

Ray Gattavara

Auburn, Wash.