Another name of direct democracy is “pure democracy.” Its main principle is citizenly assembly, characterized by sovereignty (Schacter 1995). This type of democracy combines democracy and a civics theory. This sovereign assembly can consist of any citizen who chooses to participate, and it has the ability to make law, passing executive motions, conduct trials, elect and dismiss officials. When the assembly elects officials, they are considered to be bound to people’s will, being their direct representatives. Direct democracy differs from representative democracy, where a certain range of periodically elected people are practicing sovereignty and are able to advance their own agendas. In a direct democracy, it is the citizens who vote for different laws instead of the elected representative (Pipho 1994). In the European Union, the concept of direct democracy is governed by three main principles. These principles include initiative, referendums, and recall. Referendums provide the people with the ability to decide whether a certain law should be revised or scrapped (De Vreese et al. 2004). According to the last principle, the people are able to use petitions and referendums in order to recall any elected official.
One of the finest examples of direct democracy in the European Union is Switzerland. EU integration scholars have been paying much interest to the Swiss political system (Trechsel 2005). Over many years it has effectively used the initiative and referendum principles at the federal and local levels. Over its lengthy democratic history, the Swiss conservative population had been approving only 10% of the proposed initiatives and put to referendum over 240 of them. In this country, single majorities are sufficient at the town, city, and state levels; however the national level requires double majorities, as these majorities intend to ensure the legitimacy of any citizen-made law (Kobach 1993). In Swiss democracy, no law can be passed if there is approval from the majority of people but disapproval from the majority of states (Kobach 1993). However, the majority of the voters is enough for referendums or propositions (Swiss constitution 2005).
Slovak Republic is a country that does not have a 120-year-old history of direct democracy and is on the verge of EU integration. Only in November of 1989, the citizens of the Slovak Republic started regaining their trust in public administration. The democratic revolution related to democratic system established in this country has created some space for societal systematic changes that provided a pluralist economic and political system, and adopted legislations on fundamental human freedoms and rights through reconstruction of national councils and the Federal Assembly. The democratic revolution caused the formation of Slovak civic society, as well as renewment of Parliamentarianism (Smith 2003). The main principles of Slovak direct democracy allow public assembly of the citizens at municipal levels, allow local, regional, and national level initiatives, implement obligatory referendums, allow facultative citizens’ initiative-based referendums.
The Slovak Republic has attempted several referendums on national level however they proved unsuccessful, mainly due to low participation, whereas the Swiss population is always well aware of the referendums, and shows high participation. Currently the people of Slovakia are deciding whether their country should join the EU however this referendum does not seem quite fair. For example, the question of the referendum is whether the people are in favor of EU, when it should be whether the people want to join EU and allow the EU laws to rule over Slovak national laws in any given case. Another problem of this referendum is insufficient time to adequately inform all the citizens on the proposition, as most people are skeptical, as they do not possess comprehensive information about obtaining EU membership. Right now the country requires good referendum campaign in order to increase general awareness of the EU benefits, so that the country could be well on its way to the Swiss democratic model.
Reference List
De Vreese, C. & Semetko, H. 2004. Political Campaigning in Referendums: Framing the Referendum Issue. New York: Routledge.
Kobach, K., 1993. The Referendum: Direct Democracy In Switzerland. Dartmouth Publishing Company.
Pipho, C. 1994. The Drumbeat of Direct Democracy. Phi Delta Kappan, 76(2).
Schacter, J. 1995. The Pursuit of “Popular Intent”: Interpretive Dilemmas in Direct Democracy. Yale Law Journal, 105(1).
Smith, S. ed., 2003. Local Communities and Post-Communist Transformation: Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. London: Routledge Courzon. Trechsel, A., 2005. Towards a Federal Europe? Special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy, 12(3).