Direct democracy in the constitution: good or bad for democracy?

But, J.J.; Jongkind, D.K.; Voermans, W.J.M. (2022)

Article / Letter to editor

Concerns about democratic decline and deficit have recently led to repeated calls for institutional changes that could enhance civil participation and direct voter participation in public decision-making (forms of direct democracy). An evergreen among the instruments proposed is the referendum, and in particular the constitutionally embedded referendum. This would grant a constitutional right to trigger a referendum and is something that is currently under consideration in the Netherlands. It is often assumed that constitutionally embedded referendums can correct systemic flaws in a representative democratic system, thus enhancing the overall democratic score of a country. This contribution considers these premises. By means of an empirical study, it examines whether the democracy index score of a country is related to constitutionally ratified rights to direct legislative influence of citizens, such as referendums and legislative initiatives by citizens. The initial results indicate that codifying referendum procedures as a constitutional right does indeed positively relate to the democratic scores of countries worldwide. This effect, however, does not hold true for the sample of EU countries studied.

• Direct Democracy
• Constitution
• Referendum
• Citizen Legislative Initiative
• Democratic Deficit
• Empirical Legal Studies

• All authors: But, J.J.; Jongkind, D.K.; Voermans, W.J.M.
• Date: 2022-10-11
• Journal: The Theory and Practice of Legislation
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 52 - 82
• DOI: doi:10.1080/20508840.2022.2131150
• Dataset: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14812887.v1