Facts and Arguments about the Introduction of Initiative and ...

der your money to. You hand over your money out of sheer
necessity to the least unpleasant, who is later arrested by the
police. Then, during the confrontation, the man says to you:
“I didn’t steal your wallet at all; you gave me the wallet of
your own free will. After all, you were entirely free not to give
me the wallet.” The perversity of this argument is clear. You
were indeed free to either give or not to give the money to this
particular villain. But you were, however, forced (by the villain
concerned, among others) to surrender the wallet anyway
– against your will. You were denied the freedom to keep the
wallet yourself. Replace the robbers in this analogy by political
parties, and the wallet by your right to participate directly
in the decision-making process, and you get the argument in
favour of purely representative decision-making. Just as your
freedom to surrender your wallet was a sham freedom, the
mandate in a purely representative system is a sham mandate,
precisely because it is imposed. In this context, Friedrich
Nietzsche wrote: “Parliamentarianism, i.e. the official
permission to be allowed to choose from among five political
points of view, is popular among the many who would like
to seem independent and individualistic in fighting for their
views to prevail. Ultimately, however, it makes no difference
whether the herd has an opinion imposed on it, or that five
opinions are permitted.” (Nietzsche, 1882, 1999, p. 500)
The notion of ‘purely representative democracy’ is an internal
contradiction (comparable with the term ‘square circle’),
especially if the majority of people want direct decision-making.
If the majority of people want direct decision-making, a
purely representative system is undemocratic by definition,
because by its very nature such a system is contrary to the
will of the majority (because ‘being square’ implies the presence
of corners, a circle cannot be square by definition, because
the circle – by its very nature – has no corners).
Setting up a party oneself
Supporters of purely representative decision-making still
have a second argument. They say that everyone is still free to
set up a party themself and to stand for a parliamentary seat.
However, this response ignores the principle of the people’s
sovereignty. Popular sovereignty starts with the people’s opportunity
to be able to determine how a decision is made.
It is very possible that the large majority of the people want
to express their opinion on a specific issue directly, while
only very few people aspire to have a seat in parliament. In
a democracy, this wish should be respected. Anyone who decrees,
against the wishes of the majority, that direct decisionmaking
is not permitted and that one must achieve changes
by taking a seat in parliament, puts themselves above and in
opposition to the people and violates the sovereignty of the
people. If the people want to decide on a specific issue and
this is made impossible, then the people are clearly not the
ruling power. When an elite refuses the majority of citizens
the desired opportunity to make decisions directly, and puts
forward the setting up of a personal party as an ‘alternative’,
then they are patronising the majority and there is no question
of democracy.
Research into the motivation for voting behaviour shows in
no uncertain terms that the majority of voters do not vote just
because they want to grant a mandate [see 2-2]. The majority
of the electorate vote strategically: given the existing system,
which leaders appear to be least harmful? If the votes were
actually to be cast in a spirit of granting democratic mandates,
the current mistrust of the people towards their parlia-
1
ments – which polls across the whole of Europe repeatedly
highlight – would be completely inexplicable. There are no
mandataries in the real sense of the word sitting in parliament;
there are leaders, however, who are elected in preference
to others by the voters, simply because the electorate is
now forced to elect someone and just votes for the person (or
party) least likely to do any damage.
Thus there is a fundamental difference between political parties
that support the binding citizens’ initiative referendum
and those that resist its introduction. The latter must really
be considered as vested power interests. Only those parties
which unconditionally support the introduction of the binding
citizens’ initiative referendum can be considered to be
authentically democratic, in the literal sense that they strive
for an authentic form of ‘people power’.
Parliament and referendums
The purely representative system, therefore, cannot be considered
to be truly democratic. This system necessitates, a
priori, the appointment of a decision-making elite and opens
up the possibility for introducing laws that are contrary to the
will of the people.
Nevertheless, the representative system can operate reasonably
well in one special situation. When the large majority of the
voters approves a purely representative system and if, moreover,
the majority of citizens principally identify with one of the
existing political parties, the purely representative system is
reasonably legitimate (because it is desired by the citizens).
This situation existed to a greater or lesser extent, perhaps, in
many Western countries until approximately the 1960s.
But times have changed. The majority of citizens do want referendums
and most people no longer clearly identify themselves
with one political party or other (see inset 1-1). The
system of political decision-making remains unchanged, but
the democratic deficit is still drastically increasing, because
in this system the people’s ability to express their social convictions
continues to be eroded.
This can only be resolved by introducing the binding citizens’
initiative referendum. In conjunction with the representative
system, the binding citizens’ initiative referendum
can provide a system that, on the one hand, contains the essential
characteristics of the public assembly (equality, right
of initiative, majority rule, mandate principle) and, on the
other, is still usable in a modern society. However, we must
then introduce some new principles that determine how representative
and direct-democratic decision-making interact
with each other. In particular, if we want to retain the essential
advantage of representative democracy (no popular vote
on every issue), the citizens must be required to demonstrate
an active interest in direct decision-making. The parliament
or representative body would be considered to possess a mandate
for all those issues on which the citizens do not actively
make known their desire for direct decision-making.
If a group of citizens wants to obtain a referendum on a certain
matter, therefore, they must prove that a clear desire for
direct decision-making does actually exist among the people.
In practice, this evidence is provided through the collection
of signatures to apply for a referendum. In Switzerland, for
example, a referendum is held at the federal level if 2% of the
electorate request it.