Reflexive Accountability and Direct Democracy

Abstract

The concept of democratic accountability is almost exclusively discussed in the context of representative forms of democracy, and with a strong focus on the electoral realm. This means that a large part of the literature deals with the accountability relationship that exists between political authorities and the electorate, with the former having to justify their acts to the latter. This paper attempts to shed light on potential connecting points between accountability and direct democracy. When the people have the last word, are the people responsible for the decision taken? And if so, to whom? Both questions are answered in the affirmative: when the people decide, the people are responsible for the decision. And they are responsible, as the highest organ of the state, to themselves. The accountability relationship created in such a situation departs from the classic, vertical vision and is best described as a form of ‘reflexive accountability’. It is claimed that for reflexive accountability to fully deploy, provisions for popular initiatives should complement the set of direct democratic institutions.

Acknowledgements

I would like to warmly thank my colleagues and friends who read, commented on and discussed with me earlier versions of this paper. In particular, I would like to mention Andreas Auer, Jean Blondel, Daniel Bochsler, Dorothee Bohle, Cornelius Cappelen, Jens Ehrhardt, Josef Hien, Richard S. Katz, Mel Marquis, Yannis Papadopoulos, Philippe C. Schmitter, Nenad Stojanovic, Kristjan Vassil and Thomas Zittel. Very special thanks go to Peter Mair without whose support, encouragement, insights as well as outright menaces (‘you better hand it in now!’) this paper would not have seen the light of day. I also thank the anonymous reviewer for the most useful comments and suggestions. Finally, and as per usual, I bear the entire responsibility for any mistakes and unconvincing arguments.

Notes

1. In Eastern Europe the data presented by Schmitter and Trechsel (2004: 82) mainly refers to referendums held after 1989.

2. Note that today consultative referendums rarely lead to outcomes which are not respected by governments, even if this outcome is contrary to the government's political preference. In modern, liberal democracies the de iure consultative referendum has by and large become a de facto binding referendum.

3. Note that a supplementary accountability relationship exists between the people – acting as a legislator in a referendum vote – and the government, with the latter having to enact the legislation. I owe this important point to the anonymous reviewer. In this sense, government enters an accountability relationship with citizens for either affecting or ignoring the popular will. As I will try to show later, the mechanism for citizens to hold governments accountable for the implementation (or the non-implementation) of the popular will is the same mechanism with which they can hold government accountable – either directly or indirectly – for any of its actions or non-actions.

4. For an illustration of the limits of popular decision-making at the polls, see, for example, the important work by Auer (2009) on naturalisation procedures in Switzerland. Note, however, that Auer does not treat the question of accountability for decisions that are, from a legal point of view, legitimately taken in referendum votes. He limits his argument to popular decisions at the polls which should not have been taken by the electorate in the first place, i.e. naturalisation decisions in which the popular majority may well be arbitrary, unjustifiable, discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional. This is not in any disagreement with my argument. I do not treat the question of what should be put to a vote. What I am interested in are decisions taken at the polls that are perfectly legitimate, for example, a popular vote on whether or not to raise a tax on combustible energies. Auer (2009: 14) goes too far when he concludes that the people cannot be held accountable for its decisions at the polls simply because its composition is irregular and incomplete and because individual voters do not have to justify their personal decisions. This is the same for any modern parliament (which is not less irregularly and incompletely composed) and in which individual MPs do not have to justify their personal decisions. Auer argues that despite the free mandate granted to MPs, the latter is, in his/her decision, ‘unconditionally tied to the constitution’, prohibiting therefore any discrepancy between the will of an individual decision-maker and the collective decision-making. First, I doubt that this is sufficient for prohibiting MPs to take arbitrary, unjustifiable and discriminatory decisions. Second, even if this were the case, this does not tell us much about legitimately taken decisions at the polls, such as the abovementioned vote on energy taxes.

5. Source for this English version to be found on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertolt_Brecht (accessed 14 February 2010).

6. Again, I am not discussing unconstitutional popular decisions at the polls. I am limiting my argument to decisions which are in perfect harmony with the legal order that provides for them to be taken at the polls.

7. Thanks to Philippe C. Schmitter for suggesting this.

8. Any decision, that is, except those that are (logically) impossible to come back to, such as launching the Apollo program to send astronauts to the moon. Typically, institutions of popular initiatives must respect the principle of ‘executability’.