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Lots of countries require a popular referendum for constitution changes. Of course, lots don't even do that, either.
Iceland is largely a fairly typical parliamentary system, with elected mostly figurehead president and unicameral parliament. But the president does have a power of "veto", which actually means sending a law to referendum; this has happened 7 times, I think. It seems elegant: the president actually has powers and decisions to make other than in constitutional crises, but in a way that increases democracy, rather than simply overriding parliament.
Denmark requires referendums for treaties that change Danish sovereignty, like EU treaties, unless passed by 5/6 of Parliament. Most such treaties had been sent to the people anyway, even with such supermajority, until the Lisbon Treaty; I'd guess the elites were spooked by the failure (in other countries) of the previous EU constitution. 1/3 of the legislature can send a new law to the people, but this has been used all of once.
WP: "Since amendments to the constitution in 2001, the Parliament of Croatia is obligated by constitution to call a referendum if signatures of 10% of registered voters of the Republic of Croatia are collected. The time frame for collecting the signatures is defined by the law on referendums, and it is 15 days.[6]" 10% in 15 days sounds pretty strict; Switzerland with 2x the population needs roughly 1% in 100 days.
Switzerland requires referendums for treaties that join with a multinational organization or a security pact. It also allows 50,000 voters -- 1% of the electorate -- or 8 cantons to send a new law or treaty to (facultative) referendum. I don't have stats on how often this is used, but the Swiss vote 3-4 times a year on multiple referendums or initiatives. That's at the federal level; some localities also require referendums for large expenditures. I'd read elsewhere that large infra projects (that could displace lots of peple or affect many lives) need referendums, I don't know if that's specifically true or just a consequence of the spending referendums.
The Swiss are also the only country with initiatives. 100,000 voters can put a measure on the ballot. The parliament and government (a collegiate executive) get to give their opinions, and Parliament can submit a competing measure, in which case voters vote (a) if there should be a change and (b) if so, which measure should win. I think that actually biases the system toward change, e.g. 45% might vote no change, 35% might vote change to A, 20% might vote change to B, giving 55% voting for change and A winning. Maybe I misunderstand. In contrast California uses something like approval voting, where you could vote for A, B, or both, and A would need both a majority and more votes than B to pass.
Federal initiatives are only constitutional amendemnts, which need a double majority (pass nationwide, ans pass in a majority of cantons); some cantons have legislative initiatives.
Some thoughts on the expected quality of referendums and initiatives. Say they're easy to do, and say also that it's embarrassing or political damaging to have your law rejected by the people. This suggests a legislature would try harder to pass only popular law, which means most referendums would be for close laws or else be started by crazy sore losers who can't accept reality. Likewise with easy initiatives a legislatures might be more pro-active in taking up issues, less they get blindsided with some popular proposal. If done well, this means actual initiatives would be crazy stuff no one wants.
So you might look around and go "look, the legislature is well behaved, the only things coming via direct democracy are crazy stuff, we should just get rid of that as a waste of time." But this would be overlooking that the legislature is well behaved *because* of the direct democratic threat, and the initiatives crazy only insofar as the legislature stayed in line. Kind of like "let's get rid of this big defensive force we never use, no one's attacked us in years" when the existence of the force was why no one had attacked you.
I've been feeling radical and that replacing "president signs laws" with "people approve laws" might be perfectly appropriate. Yes it might mean voting many weeks for fast turnaround but if you can go to church once a week you can go vote once a week. But maybe easy facultative referendums a la the Swiss would be good enough. You'd need an expectation that they would actually be used; having a dusty segment of the constitution that never gets invoked is no good. I've also imagined what might be reasonable expanded categories for obligatory referendums: declarations of war, approving new treaties, additions to the criminal code, changes to the tax code... what's actually left for the pure legislature? Budget details and the civil code.
Huh, 2011 saw 150+ recall elections in the US. Mostly municipal leve. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recall_election#2011_recalls
Taiwan and Uruguay also have referendum procedures, but I don't have details. Italy does too, but as with so much else they mess it up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_Italy
Iceland is largely a fairly typical parliamentary system, with elected mostly figurehead president and unicameral parliament. But the president does have a power of "veto", which actually means sending a law to referendum; this has happened 7 times, I think. It seems elegant: the president actually has powers and decisions to make other than in constitutional crises, but in a way that increases democracy, rather than simply overriding parliament.
Denmark requires referendums for treaties that change Danish sovereignty, like EU treaties, unless passed by 5/6 of Parliament. Most such treaties had been sent to the people anyway, even with such supermajority, until the Lisbon Treaty; I'd guess the elites were spooked by the failure (in other countries) of the previous EU constitution. 1/3 of the legislature can send a new law to the people, but this has been used all of once.
WP: "Since amendments to the constitution in 2001, the Parliament of Croatia is obligated by constitution to call a referendum if signatures of 10% of registered voters of the Republic of Croatia are collected. The time frame for collecting the signatures is defined by the law on referendums, and it is 15 days.[6]" 10% in 15 days sounds pretty strict; Switzerland with 2x the population needs roughly 1% in 100 days.
Switzerland requires referendums for treaties that join with a multinational organization or a security pact. It also allows 50,000 voters -- 1% of the electorate -- or 8 cantons to send a new law or treaty to (facultative) referendum. I don't have stats on how often this is used, but the Swiss vote 3-4 times a year on multiple referendums or initiatives. That's at the federal level; some localities also require referendums for large expenditures. I'd read elsewhere that large infra projects (that could displace lots of peple or affect many lives) need referendums, I don't know if that's specifically true or just a consequence of the spending referendums.
The Swiss are also the only country with initiatives. 100,000 voters can put a measure on the ballot. The parliament and government (a collegiate executive) get to give their opinions, and Parliament can submit a competing measure, in which case voters vote (a) if there should be a change and (b) if so, which measure should win. I think that actually biases the system toward change, e.g. 45% might vote no change, 35% might vote change to A, 20% might vote change to B, giving 55% voting for change and A winning. Maybe I misunderstand. In contrast California uses something like approval voting, where you could vote for A, B, or both, and A would need both a majority and more votes than B to pass.
Federal initiatives are only constitutional amendemnts, which need a double majority (pass nationwide, ans pass in a majority of cantons); some cantons have legislative initiatives.
Some thoughts on the expected quality of referendums and initiatives. Say they're easy to do, and say also that it's embarrassing or political damaging to have your law rejected by the people. This suggests a legislature would try harder to pass only popular law, which means most referendums would be for close laws or else be started by crazy sore losers who can't accept reality. Likewise with easy initiatives a legislatures might be more pro-active in taking up issues, less they get blindsided with some popular proposal. If done well, this means actual initiatives would be crazy stuff no one wants.
So you might look around and go "look, the legislature is well behaved, the only things coming via direct democracy are crazy stuff, we should just get rid of that as a waste of time." But this would be overlooking that the legislature is well behaved *because* of the direct democratic threat, and the initiatives crazy only insofar as the legislature stayed in line. Kind of like "let's get rid of this big defensive force we never use, no one's attacked us in years" when the existence of the force was why no one had attacked you.
I've been feeling radical and that replacing "president signs laws" with "people approve laws" might be perfectly appropriate. Yes it might mean voting many weeks for fast turnaround but if you can go to church once a week you can go vote once a week. But maybe easy facultative referendums a la the Swiss would be good enough. You'd need an expectation that they would actually be used; having a dusty segment of the constitution that never gets invoked is no good. I've also imagined what might be reasonable expanded categories for obligatory referendums: declarations of war, approving new treaties, additions to the criminal code, changes to the tax code... what's actually left for the pure legislature? Budget details and the civil code.
Huh, 2011 saw 150+ recall elections in the US. Mostly municipal leve. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recall_election#2011_recalls
Taiwan and Uruguay also have referendum procedures, but I don't have details. Italy does too, but as with so much else they mess it up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_Italy
no subject
Date: 2013-10-14 15:15 (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2013-10-14 18:50 (UTC)From:I consider the proportional parliamentary form of government to be the best because most of the countries I admire like New Zealand, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands use it. It could be that I am confusing cause and effect and that absent a general dedication of the people to the idea of good government that a proportional parliament alone will not result in a better country. After all Belgium, as I recall, uses the system and they have been a bit of a muddle lately.
Still I like many of the features of a parliamentary democracy. Like governments falling and there being new elections when the basic functions of government like passing a budget fail.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-14 21:39 (UTC)From:A mean reply would be that you want better government but not to have to work for it.
More substantially, I've liked the idea of PR myself, especially open party list, though I also like the ideae of a randomly selected house (sortition.) But I've also been getting an impression of welfare states under siege throughout the rich world, including some of the countries you name. So I started a threat on RPG.net recently asking non-Americans what they think their countries think of their governments (asking for general unpopularity, not "I don't like them") and I got a lot of positive hits, claimed dissatisfaction with privatization and austerity policies, in Sweden, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. Not to mention Spain and Greece, though Spain's PR is badly parameterized, memory says. Sweden's PM is apparently an Ayn Rand fan.
Belgium's actually doing better in macro than the Netherlands, maybe because they didn't have a government that could pull them down the road of austerity policies... but yes, they went like 500+ days without forming a government.
I need a longer post to do this properly, but I'm thinking pure representative democracy is intrinsically falled, PR or not. Elective oligarchy, really. You elect a few people every few years to make all the decisions, and you can't even fire them at will; governments may fall, but there's no recall procedures. So you've got the principal-agent problem: do officials do what the voters want them to do? And there's a more fundamental bandwidth problem: even if officials did, how precisely can voters tell them what to do? If you choose 1 out of 8 options, that's 3 bits, an ability to pin down answers to 3 independent yes/no questions. That's not a lot. The US has two parties but it also has primaries, so we're often not as bad as it looks. Combine the two problems, and I'd guess electorates get to express an average of half a bit per year.
By contrast, one referendum per month gives you 12 bits a year, and the Swiss are probably clocking that. Plus the possible effect of the threat of referendums keeping the legislature in majoritarian line in general.
If a country naturally divided up into factions then it would seem like PR lets those factions get representation nicely. But it's not clear countries do. Or that factions like "poor people" really get adequately represented, against the selection effect of elections. A random legislature would be more statistically representative; I'm not sure if such a house would obviate the need for referendums.
The Swiss do have relatively low turnout, so I can see worrying about quality. OTOH the country seems well-run, though alas no Swiss on RPG.net to chime in with their opinions. And for a conservative country of bankers, they've been doing things like reining in CEO pay and putting basic income on the ballot. They also have a surprisingly low (Good) Gini index *before* taxes and transfers, though the Nordics overtake them afterwards. Real democracy seems good for economic populism... which is exactly what the US Federalists were afraid of and wanted to prevent.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-15 14:16 (UTC)From:More seriously I live in a state where recall elections a wielded as a weapon by people like the gun lobby. Where every stupid special interest tries to write a special advantage for themselves into the state constitution with each new election cycle. Did not like the answer from the legislature? Bother the people with your proposal for a casino. Or making everyone bond out of jail (thanks bail bondsmen). Or that life starts at conception. Or to "accidentally" write the full legalization measure to fail to authorize the tax (thanks marijuana industry).
And the contradictions are great too. One measure forbids the raising of taxes without a vote of the people. Another orders a yearly increase in the education budget. Our state government is crushed between TABOR and Amendment 23. Eliminate taxes on veterans... And order the building or more roads.
On the whole I think we get crappy government from the referendum process and when I hear national referendums I think, "An even bigger waste of my time and money, great."
I get very little time to myself. I cook three square meals a day, work 40 hours a week, sleep eight hours a night, commute six hours a week, and do it all on/for an income that is half the median. I also will not have health insurance for another two months. At least Obamacare is finally forcing the sort of employer I work for to provide healthcare. Though I fear I may lose my job in cost cutting.