Why Do We Have It, How Have We Used It (including in the European Union Field).
1. Direct Democracy is a set of participatory rights, which on the local and regional level even richer than on the federal level.
2. From 1848 until 2015 we had in CH 617 popular votes; in a quarter of them the majority of the people disagreed with the majority of the Parliament. Two third of them happened in the last third of this 167 years, which means that since the end of the 196o’s the use of DD (as well as the production of laws and the revision of laws) is much more intense. Since 1980 295 Initiatives were launched, 106 failed to get enough signatures, and 124 came to the ballot box (14 of them were accepted by the majorities of the cantons and the citizens) and 65 were retired because they produced sufficient indirect effects. The Parliament decides in about 14% of the initiatives to launch a counter project; in 39% of the initiatives you see indirect effects in the sense of the initiative.
Concerning the Referendum you see that only against 7% of the laws a Referendum is launched; a third of them is rejected by the majority of the people.
3. The power of Direct Democracy, which changed the Swiss political system and the Political culture during the last 125 year lies in the openness of the system towards it’s citizens and their associations; You never now, when a referendum against a law might be triggered. You never now, who could when start a initiative process, by which a relatively small group my force the Nation to the discussion of e issue or a question, the elites or the government or the mainstream-parties might dislike. Also the government becme much more inclusive (“Konkordance”) ; each issue has to find it’s own majority which makes politics much more communicative and transparent – no fixed majorties; no quick fixes)
4. This kind of democratisation of democracy produces enormous benefits for the society: Reduces personalisation of politics and increases issue-orientation; reduces alienation between citizens and institutions/state; politics become more communicative and deliberative; integrates a diverse society and enables collective learning; engagement serves identification; contributes to the democratisation of parties, parliamentary-groups and even the media.
5. Switzerland belongs to the states with most experiences with votes also in European Affairs. Depending on their scope and character international treaties can or must be put to peoples vote. Since 1972 people in Europe voted about 55 times on European affairs – about ten of these votes happened in Switzerland.
6. In the last 15 years Switzerland discovered deficits in the context of it’s DD which have to be overcome especially if Switzerland does not want to undermine the attractiveness of DD:
· The DD-process has been colonised by oligarchic money; CH is the only country in Europe without any laws concerning the transparency and the balance of money in politics;
· The competence of the Constitutional Federal Court has to be increased; initiatives which can not be realised because of the ECHR or other important international treaties should not be put on the ballot;
· The crises of the Press reduced the space for political deliberation in swiss political matters especially in german-speaking part of CH drastically so that the public deliberation does not find the space it needs anymore; we have to learn to include the quality press in the public service and support it.
· The political education as well as the support of civil society engaged in politics is underdeveloped and has to be strengthened.
7. The European Union needs more Democracy and DD as much as Democracy needs the transnational level and the EU in particular. Both can only be strengthened with the help of the other. DD at home helps to create the new people’s movements we need in order to transform the EU from a treaty-based governmental structure to a constitution based transnational democracy where the citizens also feels him- and herself at home as much as in Dublin, Berlin or Rome.
Andreas Gross is political scientist (Lausanne/Berlin/Stanford) and historian (Zürich); theoretical and practical expert on Direct Democracy (DD) since 1977, lectured on DD in global comparison at German, Austrian and Swiss Universities from 1992-2014, is Director of the Atelier for Direct Democracy in St.Ursanne (CH) since 1989, MP from 1991-end of Nov.2015, Leader of the Social-democrats in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from (Jan 2008-Jan2016). Forthcoming books: „The unfinished Direct Democracy, texts from Switzerland and beyond 1984-2015“, 320 p. (March 2016 in German) and Die Demokratie als Mosaik und politisches Gesamtkunstwerk, die ersten 100 Mosaiksteinchen (October 2016, in German and French): www.andigross.ch; info@andigross.ch
Post time: Oct-21-2017
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