Introduction to the Special Issue ‘Beyond ‘Direct Democracy’: Popular Vote Processes in Democratic Systems’

ABSTRACT

Despite controversy over recent referendums and initiatives, populists and social movements continue to call for the use of these popular vote processes. Most political and academic debates about whether these calls should be answered have adopted a dominant framework that focuses on whether we should favour ‘direct’ or ‘representative’ democracy. However, this framework obscures more urgent questions about whether, when, and how popular vote processes should be implemented in democratic systems. How do popular vote processes interact with representative institutions? And how could these interactions be democratized? The contributions in this special issue address these and related questions by replacing the framework of ‘direct democracy’ with systemic approaches. The normative contributions illustrate how these approaches enable the development of counternarratives about the value of popular vote processes and clarify the nature of the underlying ideals they should realize. The empirical contributions examine recent cases with a variety of methodological tools, demonstrating that systemic approaches attentive to context can generate new insights about the use of popular vote processes. This introduction puts these contributions into conversation to illustrate how a shift in approach establishes a basis for (re-)evaluating existing practices and guiding reforms so that referendums and initiatives foster democracy.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizen participation
• deliberation
• initiatives
• referendums
• representative democracy

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Maija Jäske, Jaume Lopez, Michela Palese, John Parkinson, Theresa Reidy, Alan Renwick, Marc Sanjaume-Calvet, Jess Sargeant, Maija Setälä, Jane Suiter, and Ronald Van Crombugge for their contributions to this special issue. We are also grateful for the support and advice of the editors of Representation, especially Dr. Sarah Liu who closely followed the development of the special issue from start to end, and Ruth Puttick, who provided valuable editorial assistance. Our thanks extend to the many anonymous referees who reviewed articles for this special issue.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Alice el-Wakil is a postdoctoral researcher at the Chair of Political Philosophy of the University of Zurich. Her current research focuses on normative democratic theory, and especially on questions about how institutions and political processes (like initiatives and referendums) can help us better translate democratic principles into practice.

Spencer McKay is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow. He is currently writing a book on democratising popular vote processes, such as referendums and initiatives.

Notes

1 This was part of a speech in an episode of the Grand Débat, a participatory event organized in reaction to the Gilets Jaunes crisis, on January 15, 2019, in Grand Bourgtheroulde.

2 For more on the phenomenon of non-electoral representation and popular vote processes, see McKay (2019, Chapter 5) and el-Wakil (2020, Chapter 5).

3 Available at https://c2d.ch/

Additional information

Funding

Spencer McKay is grateful for funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada during the time that this article was written (Postdoctoral Fellowship 756-2019-0259).