political science

From this point of view, there is also a scholarly consensus that direct voting by all

citizensonindividualpoliciesisthemostdirectwayofensuringthattheirpreferences
arenecessarily reXectedinpolicy(e.g.Mill 1861 / 1910 , 217 – 18 ).Thishasledtomeasures

forextending direct democracy being placed among the key demands of most radical
and progressive groups, and accounts for its growing popularity and use in the late

twentieth century (Budge 1996 ; Mendelsohn and Parkin 2001 ; Le Duc 2003 ).
At this point, however, the scholarly consensus veers the other way, seeing
long-term disadvantages and many short-term threats to democratic stability

and order associated with direct democracy. The major criticisms can be summar-
ized as follows:

1. General elections already let citizens choose between alternative governments
   and programs.


2. Itisimpossibletohavedirectdebateandvotingonpoliciesinmoderndemocracies

owing to the impossibility of getting all citizens together for the requisite time.

3. Ordinary citizens do not have the education, interest, time, expertise, and

other qualities required to make good political decisions.

4. Good decisions are most likely to be produced where popular participation is

balanced by expert judgment.

5. Those who vote against a particular decision do not give their consent to it,

particularly if the same people are always in the minority.

6. No procedure for democratic collective decision-making can be guaranteed
   not to produce arbitrary and unwanted outcomes (cf. Arrow 1951).


7. Without intermediary institutions (parties, legislatures, governments) no
   coherent, stable, or informed policies will be made. Direct democracy
   undermines intermediary institutions including parties and opens the way to
   the tyranny of a shifting majority.

With few exceptions, classical political theorists from the eighteenth to the twen-

tieth centuries have viewed direct democracy in these critical terms, the most
inXuential perhaps being the authors of theFederalist Papers(Madison 1787 – 8 /

1911 ) with their distrust of popular majorities and emphasis on representation,
balance of powers, and institutional constraints. The great exception has been

Rousseau ( 1762 / 1973 ) withhisfocus on untrammeled popular sovereignty. Most
critics have taken this as the only form in which direct democracy could express

itself. But there are others described below.
Modern empirical research (Butler and Ranney 1994 ; Gallagher and Uleri 1996 ;
Mendelsohn and Parkin 2001 ; Le Duc 2003 ; Kriesi 2005 ) has set out to investigate

these claims with evidence from actual policy votes (referendums and initiatives)
which are now held in a surprising number of countries. It is fair to say that their

conclusions tell against the more extreme criticisms of popular involvement in
decision-making. In particular, recent research provides quite positive responses to

many of the criticisms listed above:

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