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

ment (often indiscriminate), family values that rely heavily
on conventions, and few relationships with outsiders, who
are often judged in stereotypes.
Although there was no question of a deterministic link, the
division into ‘extensive’ and ‘restrictive’ personalities produced
a 70% certainty of accurately identifying whether or
not a particular person had acted as a rescuer during the
persecution of the Jews. Using Maslow’s terminology, one
could say: lack of gratification of the basic needs in the early
years produces authoritarian personality traits, which lead
to behaviour that produces the same traits again in the next
generation. We find again here the contrast described by
Putnam between ‘civicness’ and ‘amoral familialism’. Both
civicness and amoral familialism have the tendency to perpetuate
themselves from generation to generation. Whether
‘what is beautiful in myself’ (Manuel Lubian) will come
to expression depends largely on the social capital in the
society in which one grew up.
4-2: Direct democracy, welfare and social
capital
One of the few countries in which the effects of direct democracy
on social capital can be directly studied is Switzerland.
The extent and form of direct democracy differ –
sometimes markedly – from canton to canton. Some of the
26 cantons have a well-defined system of direct democracy,
while others have a type of administration that is much
closer to the purely representative system, with far fewer
opportunities for participation.
Frey (1997b) looked at a number of cantons to see whether
there was a connection between the system of democracy
and the citizens’ attitude to tax. In cantons where the citizens
have extensive rights of participation in decision-making,
the annual undeclared income per taxpayer was 1,600
Swiss francs (around 1,000 Euros) lower than the average
for the 26 cantons; in cantons with less direct democracy, the
undeclared income was actually 1,500 Swiss francs (about
900 Euros) higher than the overall average. The difference
in undeclared income between the two types of cantons thus
amounted to around 1,900 Euros a year per taxpayer. At a
marginal tax rate of 30 to 35 percent, the figures meant an
average difference in tax paid of some 625 Euros per taxpayer.
In the UK, which has 35 million income tax payers,
this would work out at some 21.9 billion Euros per year.
Frey investigated whether other factors, such as the level of
fines or differences in average wealth between the cantons,
could explain the effect. This appeared not to be the case.
There is a high probability that the differences in the levels
of tax evasion can be accounted for by the fact that taxpayers
in cantons with a strong direct-democratic tradition are
able to develop a stronger feeling of social solidarity and a
greater sense of responsibility towards the administration.
The Swiss observations are confirmed by the findings of
Abers (2000) in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, where in
1989 a direct-democratic system was introduced, in which
the inhabitants themselves prepare the annual budget (see
inset 2-1). The introduction of the participation process led
immediately to a spectacular increase in efficiency. Whereas
in the preceding years a maximum of 17 kilometres of
sewers were laid per year, this figure rose to an average
of 46 kilometres a year during the period from 1989 to
1996. In the three years prior to the introduction, around
4 kilometres of roads were built per year. This became 20
kilometres a year afterwards and, moreover, the roads built
then were of much higher quality. According to Abers, the
participation process leads to a ‘culture of asking questions’.
Participants at the budgeting meetings put questions about
facts and figures, statements and decisions to the officials.
The latter have to provide answers and are usually able to
do so, but the constant possibility of having to account for
their decisions publicly persuaded the administration to
adopt measures that they could really justify. Transparency
and accountability in the public domain improved considerably.
It was no longer possible for money to just disappear,
contracts were no longer overpriced, and promises
were no longer forgotten. Before the introduction of the
‘Orçamento participativo’ there were close links between
the construction companies and the local politicians: lucrative
contracts were granted in exchange for support in the
election campaigns. When the ‘Partido dos Trabalhadores’
(PT, Labour Party) first came to power, the building companies
boycotted the public administration: they formed a
cartel and refused to submit quotations for public work.
Later, the cartel fell apart and the companies discovered
that they no longer needed to pay bribes to get a contract.
One extraordinarily interesting phenomenon was the rise
in income the city began to enjoy from 1992 onwards, due
to the decrease in tax evasion. People were much readier to
pay their taxes. Abers saw two reasons for this: on the one
hand, the taxpayers saw that their money was being spent
efficiently and on things which were really necessary; and,
on the other, the more the popularity of the PT increased,
the more hardened evaders lost hope that a different administration
would come to power that would grant them
a tax amnesty.
4-3: Naive cynicism
Naive cynicism is an important term for direct democracy.
The naive cynic believes that other people attempt to take
as much credit for themselves as possible and shift the responsibility
for negative matters onto others as much as
possible.
Indeed, research shows that people do not have a very clear
perception of their contribution to the production of positive
or negative achievements. There is a classic study by Ross
and Sicoly (1979) on the attribution of responsibility by married
couples. You could, for example, ask both partners what
is their share of the task of walking the dog. The husband
and wife might answer 70% and 50% respectively. The answers
are incompatible, because the sum of the real percentages
must of course be 100%. Almost always, however, the
sum of the two answers proves to be more than 100%.
One could imagine that this is because both partners want
to exaggerate their merits, but this is not correct. The sum
of the estimated contributions for negative actions also usually
appears to exceed 100%. A more probable explanation
is that people remember their own performance better than
the performances of others. Their own contribution – positive
or negative – seems relatively larger as a proportion of
what was achieved in total.