Direct Democracy

Direct Democracy
Author: Fouad Sabry
Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2024-08-10
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

What is Direct Democracy? "Direct Democracy" explores how citizens can directly shape decision-making in politics, contrasting it with representative models. It offers a thorough analysis of this participatory system's principles, practices, and challenges, shedding light on its role in modern governance and citizen engagement. Chapters Overview: 1. Direct Democracy - Introduction to direct democracy, its history, and current relevance. 2. Politics of Switzerland - Detailed look at Switzerland’s extensive practice of direct democracy. 3. Referendum - Explanation of the referendum process and its impact. 4. Representative Democracy - Comparison of direct and representative democracy. 5. Initiative - Insight into citizen-initiated legislative actions. 6. Deliberative Democracy - Exploration of deliberative democracy and its role in direct democratic practices. 7. Participatory Democracy - Examination of broader citizen involvement beyond voting. 8. Initiatives and Referendums in the United States - Analysis of U.S. initiatives and referendums. 9. Swiss Federal Constitution - Overview of the Swiss constitutional framework supporting direct democracy. 10. Voting in Switzerland - Details of the Swiss voting process. 11. National Initiative - Concept and implications of national initiatives. 12. Arizona Ballot Proposition - Case study of direct democracy in Arizona. 13. Popular Referendum - Focus on the popular referendum process. 14. Legislative Referral - Explanation of legislative referrals and their significance. 15. History of Direct Democracy in the United States - Evolution and milestones in U.S. direct democracy. 16. Citizens' Assembly - Concept and challenges of citizens' assemblies. 17. Optional Referendum - Overview of the optional referendum process. 18. Referendums by Country - Comparative analysis of global referendum practices. 19. Outline of Democracy - Overview of democratic systems and the place of direct democracy. 20. Deliberative Referendum - Innovative approach combining direct and deliberative democracy. 21. Citizens' Initiative Referendum (France) - Case study of France's citizens' initiative referendum. "Direct Democracy" offers deep insights into how direct citizen participation transforms governance, making it an essential resource for anyone interested in the intricacies of democratic systems.

Democracy Without Shortcuts

Democracy Without Shortcuts
Author: Cristina Lafont
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2020-01-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0198848188

This book articulates a participatory conception of deliberative democracy that takes the democratic ideal of self-government seriously. It aims to improve citizens' democratic control and vindicate the value of citizens' participation against conceptions that threaten to undermine it. The book critically analyzes deep pluralist, epistocratic, and lottocratic conceptions of democracy. Their defenders propose various institutional ''shortcuts'' to help solve problems of democratic governance such as overcoming disagreements, citizens' political ignorance, or poor-quality deliberation. However, all these shortcut proposals require citizens to blindly defer to actors over whose decisions they cannot exercise control. Implementing such proposals would therefore undermine democracy. Moreover, it seems naive to assume that a community can reach better outcomes 'faster' if it bypasses the beliefs and attitudes of its citizens. Unfortunately, there are no 'shortcuts' to make a community better than its members. The only road to better outcomes is the long, participatory road that is taken when citizens forge a collective will by changing one another's hearts and minds. However difficult the process of justifying political decisions to one another may be, skipping it cannot get us any closer to the democratic ideal. Starting from this conviction, the book defends a conception of democracy ''without shortcuts''. This conception sheds new light on long-standing debates about the proper scope of public reason, the role of religion in politics, and the democratic legitimacy of judicial review. It also proposes new ways to unleash the democratic potential of institutional innovations such as deliberative minipublics.

Direct Deliberative Democracy

Direct Deliberative Democracy
Author: Crittenden Jack Crittenden
Publisher: Black Rose Books Ltd.
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2019-10-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1551646730

As American politics becomes ever more dominated by powerful vested interests, positive change seems permanently stymied. Left out in the cold by the political process, citizens are frustrated and despairing. How can we take back our democracy from the grip of oligarchy and bring power to the people? In Direct Deliberative Democracy, Jack Crittenden and Debra Campbell offer up a better way for government to reflect citizens' interests. It begins with a startlingly basic question: "e;Why don't we the people govern?"e; In this provocative book, the authors mount a powerful case that the time has come for more direct democracy in the United States, showing that the circumstances that made the Constitutional framers' arguments so convincing more than two hundred years ago have changed dramatically-and that our democracy needs to change with them. With money, lobbyists, and corporations now dominating local, state, and national elections, the authors argue that now is the time for citizens to take control of their government by deliberating together to make public policies and laws directly. At the heart of their approach is a proposal for a new system of "e;legislative juries,"e; in which the jury system would be used as a model for selecting citizens to create ballot initiatives. This would enable citizens to level the playing field, bring little-heard voices into the political arena, and begin the process of transforming our democracy into one that works for, not against, its citizens.

Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions Catching the Deliberative Wave

Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions Catching the Deliberative Wave
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2020-06-10
Genre:
ISBN: 9264725903

Public authorities from all levels of government increasingly turn to Citizens' Assemblies, Juries, Panels and other representative deliberative processes to tackle complex policy problems ranging from climate change to infrastructure investment decisions. They convene groups of people representing a wide cross-section of society for at least one full day – and often much longer – to learn, deliberate, and develop collective recommendations that consider the complexities and compromises required for solving multifaceted public issues.

Deliberative Democracy

Deliberative Democracy
Author: Jon Elster
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 300
Release: 1998-03-28
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780521596961

This volume assesses the strengths and weaknesses of deliberative democracy.

Designing Deliberative Democracy

Designing Deliberative Democracy
Author: Mark E. Warren
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2008-02-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780521885072

Is it possible to advance democracy by empowering ordinary citizens to make key decisions about the design of political institutions and policies? In 2004, the government of British Columbia embarked on a bold democratic experiment: it created an assembly of 160 near-randomly selected citizens to assess and redesign the province's electoral system. The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly represents the first time a citizen body has had the power to reform fundamental political institutions. It was an innovative gamble that has been replicated elsewhere in Canada and in the Netherlands, and is gaining increasing attention in Europe as a democratic alternative for constitution-making and constitutional reform. In the USA, advocates view citizens' assemblies as a means for reforming referendum processes. This book investigates the citizens' assembly in British Columbia to test and refine key propositions of democratic theory and practice.

Democracy as Public Deliberation

Democracy as Public Deliberation
Author: Maurizio d'Entreves
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 339
Release: 2018-02-06
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1351522876

One of the most remarkable developments in the last twenty years has been the revival of the idea of deliberative democracy. Set against aggregative models of democracy derived from economics, such as the theory of rational choice, the idea of deliberative democracy, or decision-making based on public deliberations among free and equal citizens, represents a highly significant development in democratic theory. Exploring this development, this book provides a fresh and original perspective on a theme at the center of current debates in democratic theory and practice. The essays collected in this volume offer a series of powerful arguments in support of the view that fair and equal treatment of groups is best defended on the basis of a theory of public deliberation. Such a theory has both a normative and institutional dimension. It provides a framework for the normative justification of state policies toward socially or culturally disadvantaged groups, and suggests several institutional mechanisms, such as deliberative forums and citizen's juries, where the voices of disadvantaged groups can be articulated under fair conditions and become effective in shaping' public policy. Democracy as Public Deliberation reminds us that the issue of democracy is not simply one of top-down management and control, but bottom-up considerations that are often located in ethnic, religious and linguistic groups. The great virtue of this volume is to identify statist systems that claim to be democratic, but only in terms of the dominant culture. Democracy as Public Deliberation indicates that democracy often comes in small packages--and in that very fact, it tests the actual ambitions and standards of the macro-state. This is an especially powerful volume for those interested in the strengths and weaknesses of third world structures.