chapter 30
...................................................................................................................................................DIRECT DEMOCRACY
...................................................................................................................................................ian budge
1 Democracy and Direct Democracy
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
Most scholars agree broadly with the deWnition of democracy (Saward 1998 , 51 )asa
‘‘necessary correspondence between acts of governance and the equally weighted felt
interests of citizens with respect to these acts.’’ A key element isnecessarycorres-
pondence. It is included to answer a stock criticism: Would not a benevolent despot
do as well for citizens’ felt interests as a democracy?—or, in terms of our discussion
below: Would not autonomous and benevolent representatives serve citizens’ inter-
ests as well as or better than direct majoritarian democracy? The answer, in either
form of the question, holds that a simple correspondence of interests and policy is
not enough. What distinguishes democracy is an institutional mechanism for
ensuringthe correspondence. This mechanism is the democratic election. The
centrality of elections to democracy stems from the fact that they provide a
recurring opportunity for citizens to express and empower their interests. 1
1 The literature on direct democracy is highly fragmented, straddling normative and empirical
aspects, comparative analyses and single country case studies, technical studies of the eVects of
new technology on direct debate, and discussion and mathematical analyses of voting procedures.
The most comprehensive synthesis remains Budge 1996. The equivalent for the actual practices
of direct democracy is Le Duc 2003 —the most up-to-date general review of thisWeld. Indispensable
earlier compilations were Butler and Ranney 1994 , now however a little dated by the explosion of
new research, and Gallagher and Uleri 1996. The most recent and relevant is Mendelsohn and Parkin
2001.