While often referred to by the synonymous alias of pure democracy, direct democracy is defined as a form of government in which the people decide via a universal consensus taken by individual vote on policy initiatives.
This is relatively opposed to the more standard form of democracy in which representatives elected from citizens of a state make the decisions. By placing the direction of politics in the hands of the people, they have a direct influence on the outcome, hence the term.
Depending on the particular system that is in use, direct democracy may include but not be limited to sortation, the passing of executive decisions, the direct dismissal and election of key officials, and the conducting of various trials.
The two primary forms of direct democracy that have manifested themselves as unique classifications include deliberative and participatory.
There exist semi-direct democracies where citizens remain sovereign despite the administration of representatives for the purposes of daily governance. In this specific case, up to three different popular action forms are permitted; including recall, referendum, and initiative. The latter two are instances of direct legislation.
A compulsory referendum binds a popular vote to subjected legislation that is typically drafted on behalf of political elites. Conversely, a popular referendum empowers members of the community to design a petition that calls a vote on existing legislation.
Numerous institutions are responsible for specifying the timeframe in which a petition remains valid and the figure of signatures that are required. Furthermore, they may require approval from diverse populations of citizens in order to protect the interests of the minority. This particular form of direct democracy grants the standard executive power of veto on laws that the elected legislature adopts straight to the public.
Power of Initiative permits the general public to submit proposals to constitutional reforms or specific statutory measures straight to the government and the subsequent vote is liable to be for advisory purposes or binding contracts.
Such initiatives may be indirect or direct. In a direct power of initiation, a proposition that is successful gets placed directly onto a voting ballot to be subject to opinion. Although a successful proposition is utilized in an indirect power of initiative and presented to the state legislature for consideration, the proposition will transfer into a popular vote if no acceptable form of action is taken after a finite period of time.
Power of Recall allows the public the opportunity to remove any and all elected officials from their political position before their term ends. A staggering number of anarchists have put forth the argument that direct democracy fails due to the fact that it serves as a natural opposition to a superior central authority where decisions can only exist at a single level: the people.
The earliest direct democracy in history is believed to have existed in the 5th century BC, representing the people of the Greek City-State of Athens. Despite the fact that it was an exclusionary form; removing any authorization to vote from slaves, foreigners, and women, the main bodies existing within it were an assembly, law courts, and the boulê.
While the assembly was composed entirely of male citizens, the boulê included 500 members and the law courts included a lottery-based selection of jurors without any kind of judge. Even with a population of only 30,000 citizens at maximum capacity, several thousand were politically active in many parts of a given year, and many of them on a regular basis for decades.
The Athenian democracy was considered direct for two reasons. As the decisions were made by an assembled group of citizens, the people throughout the three aforementioned institutions were responsible for manipulation and control of the entire political process; with a significant percentage of citizens constantly involved in the affairs of the public.
Another important form of direct democracy manifested in Ancient Rome, becoming known as the Roman Republic and first instantiated circa 509 B.C.
Beginning from the time of the Roman Monarchy until the very collapse of the Empire, Rome showcased many forms of both direct and indirect aspects of democracy.
For example, the Senate was created in the first days of the great city’s opening and lasted well until the Empire and even maintained itself until after Western Rome’s decline. Its regulations and structure continue to influence the various legislative groups existing worldwide.
As for direct democracy specifically, the Roman Republic introduced a system of lawmaking on behalf of citizens, known as citizen formulation, citizen legislature veto, and citizen passage of the law. A number of historians have marked the unfortunate end of the Republic with the Lex Titia law passage which destroyed many provisions of oversight.
Modern forms of direct democracy found they start within the towns of Switzerland during the period of the 13th century. In the year 1847, the Swiss people passed the statute referendum into their country’s constitution.
However, they quickly learned that simply possessing the ability to veto the laws of Parliament was not enough. Consequently, they introduced an addendum in 1891 known as the constitutional amendment initiative.
Since that very year, politics within the nation have provided the world with a valuable base of experience with respect to national-level constitutional amendment initiatives. For the past 120 years, over 240 different initiatives have found themselves put forth on referendums.
Of these, approximately 10 percent have been approved by the extremely conservative populace. Moreover, they have typically opted for a federal rewritten version of the initiative. Several issues that surround the related notion of direct democracy in the current society deal with internet-based voting systems, more commonly referred to as e-democracies.
This concept of “open source” politics applies the principles of the governance of people with the free software movement. In turn, the entire human population with access to the World Wide Web could participate in governmental activities directly and as little or as much as they desire.
In areas such as the New England region of America, towns around places such as Vermont make decisions regarding local affairs through community meetings that utilize a direct democratic process. As a result, it is considered to be the oldest living example of direct democracy within the entire country and even predates the founding by greater than or equal to a century.
Therefore, it is clear that direct democracy was understood, but not accepted by the founding fathers as a template for the American Constitution. This is primarily due to the fact that they envisioned a strong possibility of tyranny from the majority in times of crisis.
To solve this potential issue, they instead opted for a form of representative democracy which manifested into a constitutional republic over the direct democracy alternative. For instance, in Federalist №10, James Madison specifically advocates for representational government by stating that “a society can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction…a common passion or interest will be felt by the majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party”.
Despite the intentions of the founding fathers at the start of the republic, historical influence on account of direct democracy has found its way into several forms of modern policy.
For example, referendums and ballot measures have been widely utilized at city, county, and state levels. Many case laws that were instantiated from the beginning of the 1900s until the dawn of the new millennium have since protected the rights of the people to each of the existing components of direct democracy.
The very first Supreme Court ruling that favored citizen lawmaking included the 1912 case of Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Company v. The State of Oregon.
In his speech known as the Charter of Democracy, former President Theodore Roosevelt addressed the Ohio constitutional convention that same year; stating that he believed in both the referendum and the initiative; claiming them to be tools that should not destroy representative government but instead correct it and check for corruption.
Many states provide such referendums allowing the people some room to rule which include referrals, constitutional amendment initiatives, statute law initiatives, statute law referendums, and recall. Referrals by the state legislature to the people include both proposed statute law and proposed constitutional amendments.
Initiatives include a constitutionally defined process of petitioning law by the citizens where a successful majority vote leads to the provisions getting written directly into the constitution. Given that law from within the constitution is unable to be altered exclusively by the power of state legislature, this form of direct democracy automatically empowers citizens over their representatives.
It is regularly used in up to 19 different states around the country, including Arizona, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, and Oregon.
Among the aforementioned states there exist three classifications of the constitutional amendment initiative with different levels of state legislature involvement designed to distinguish between the various types. A citizen-initiated and constitutionally defined process of petitioning proposed statute law if successful rights law directly into the statutes of the state is known as statute law initiative.
This particular component is utilized at the state level in 21 different regions including Alaska, Arkansas, California, Idaho, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington. However, Utah has the exception for a lack of citizen lawmaking as it was replaced solely via state statutes.
In the majority of states, there is no form of special protection related to citizen statutes as the legislature is able to create amendments for them instantaneously. Statute law referendum includes the proposed veto for some or all of a law made by the legislature. If successful, it immediately repeals the law in question.
Given the three most desirable characteristics which encapsulate the ideal systematic process of direct democracy, theorists have identified a trilemma that is extremely challenging to deliver at once. These characteristics include widespread participation by the individuals affected, a rational discussion and deliberation in which all major perspectives are weighed based on evidence, and a sense of equality such that the opportunity for one’s individual decision to take into account.
Dozens of studies have compiled empirical evidence which suggests that deliberation ultimately catalyzes superior decision making. Coincidentally, the most disputed classification of participation includes the referendum. In order for the principle of equality to be respected on this particular political scale, every single citizen needs to be involved or a representative chosen from a random sample of the population needs to take part in discussions.
When defining deliberative democracy, scholars including James Fishkin have stated that it is a classification of direct democracy which properly satisfies the two tenets of equality and deliberation yet fails to provide inclusion for everyone in the discussion. He continued further by stating that participatory democracy allows for inclusion and deliberation but only at the cost of equality.
This is due to the fact that if widespread participation is granted, a sufficient amount of resources will almost never be available to compensate those who sacrifice their personal time to participate in deliberations. As such, participants who regularly attend will be those with a vested interest in the particular issue at hand and their personal opinion will often fail to reflect that of the general population.
To counteract this issue, Fiskin argued that a random sampling of votes must select a representative. Although he allows for the possibility of a solution that transcends the problem, it will require incredibly radical reforms.
The most recent form of direct democracy to be proposed in politics includes electronic direct democracy (EDD), alternatively referred to as direct digital democracy (DDD). This format implements telecommunications to facilitate the participation of the general public.
Open-source governance such as this requires a way to register and issue votes electronically. As in any other form of direct democracy, EDD allows the citizens the right to vote on and author in new forms of legislation and subsequently recall any corrupt representatives (given that they are preserved in this government).
The Florida Institute of Technology has been researching and developing the tools to support EDD. Many others are working on similar forms of software development, and most now collaborate via a cross-platform set up under the title of Metagovernment. Although this particular system has not found itself implemented in an existing political government anywhere on the planet, many different initiatives that support it continue to form.
One of the first advocates of such a system includes Ross Perot when he put forth the argument for digital town halls during his two United States presidential campaigns which took place in 1992 and 1996, respectively. An Australian political party known as Senator Online first proposed in 2007 an EDD system that would allow for local citizens to decide the manner in which their representatives voted on each and every incoming bill.
An initiative similar to this was first formed in Sweden during the year 2002 in which the political party running for the Swedish parliament known as the Aktivdemokrati offered members the ability to decide on all actions of the party. However, the first mainstream party to be registered with the electoral commission of a country includes the United Kingdom’s People’s Administration Direct Democracy party.
This group has developed and subsequently published a completed architecture for which to reform the British government from Parliament to EDD. Initially established by political activists and musicians, the People’s Administration supports the use of mobile phones and the web to enable the majority of citizens to propose, create, and vote upon the implementation of all policies. Since 1998, their blueprint has been published in numerous formats and to this day the Administration remains the only party officially registered for election anywhere in the world; allowing for possible transition with majority support instead of a violent revolution.
Still, one more political movement in this category includes Flux, a party whose goal is to entirely place all elected legislatures in the world with an alternative electronic system known as issue-based direct democracy (IBDD).
Although the group originates and has the highest rate of activity within the nation of Australia, it has a form of international presence; with a group based in the South American nation of Brazil. Even with the freedom and simplicity that EDD offers, many have put forth the obvious argument that allowing political decisions to be placed in the hands of the people digitally presents a staggering number of security and integrity risks.