Direct Democracy Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

This example Direct Democracy Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.

The term democracy is derived from two Greek words (de.ˆmos and kratein) meaning “power of the people.” The most common form of democracy is an indirect democracy or republic in which unassembled voters are confined to examining the qualifications of candidates and casting ballots to elect officers to represent the citizenry, and occasionally to decide referendums questions. Direct democracy is viewed in theory as the most democratic form, as voters in an assembly make all political decisions.

Direct democracy dates to the age of Pericles in fifth century BCE Athens in present-day Greece. A number of philosophers at the time, expressed fear that a citizen legislative assembly would develop into mob rule, and some, such as Plato, favored rule by philosophers. In contrast, Pericles viewed the citizen assembly as limiting the power of the government, thereby providing for individual freedoms.

Direct democracy was revived in the Landsgemeinde in Canton Appenzell in Switzerland in 1378. Subsequently, the canton split into two half-cantons. Today, this form of direct democracy is found only in the Swiss canton of Glarus, the half-canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden, and in New England open town meetings and school district meetings in the United States. The early Athens meetings occurred in a sovereign city-state in contrast to the meetings in Swiss cantons and contemporary New England towns and districts with open meetings.

An important form of direct democracy employed in many nations in modern times is the referendum, which allows unassembled voters to make certain political decisions and assumes many forms. In the Republic of Ireland, for example, the national parliament or the president, with the approval of the Council of State, may place questions on the referendum ballot. In other places, such as the State of New York, certain questions automatically appear on the ballot periodically in accordance with constitutional requirements. Voters in certain jurisdictions in Switzerland, in twenty-four U.S. states, and in numerous municipal governments in the United States may use initiative petitions to place on the referendum ballot policy propositions and proposals to repeal recently enacted laws. Eighteen state constitutions and numerous local government charters in the United States authorize voters to place proposals to remove elected officers from office on the referendum ballot.

The New England Town Meeting

The New England Town meeting, a form of decision making by assembled voters, serves as the hallmark of democracy in the United States and dates to the early 1630s, following the settlement of the present-day Boston area by the Massachusetts Bay Company, a joint stock commercial company chartered by the British Crown in 1629.

The Puritans, persons of wealth who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic features, emigrated to Massachusetts Bay to establish a new commonwealth. The colony was governed in accordance with the Crown charter providing for a governor, deputy governor, and eighteen assistants empowered to hold a General Court, admit freemen, elect officers, and enact laws governing the colony. Freemen were the original male settlers and later included men admitted as freemen by the General Court, provided they were members of the church (Congregational).They constituted a small percentage of the adult male population. The charter contains no provision for town meetings, and the General Court did not authorize the first ones.

A folkmoot, an extralegal and informal assemblage of freemen, made decisions on town matters including construction of a church, employment of a minister, admission of new residents, land divisions, and other essential matters. This early noninstitutionalized stage of town meeting government functioned without elected town officers, and meetings were held as needed.

Residents soon discovered the town meeting needed to be supplemented by officers. The emergence of selectmen, the plural executive, and other officers resulted in less-frequent town meetings, and in most towns only an annual meeting was held to elect officers, levy taxes and appropriate funds, and act on proposed bylaws.

Theories Of Origin

Late nineteenth-century historians engaged in disputes relative to whether the Massachusetts Bay town was indigenous in origin, a descendant of the ancient Anglo-Saxon-tun, or derived from English institutions adapted to conditions in the New World. Evidence is lacking to support the theory that the town developed spontaneously as a new political institution. There are certain similarities between a town meeting and the primordial field meeting of farmers in southern Germany to distribute land and regulate crops with village elders as the forerunners of the town constable and selectmen. Stronger evidence supports the third theory, as there are a number of similarities between town meeting government and churches in England, including vestry meetings of parishioners to make decisions relative to supporting the church and to elect churchwardens, who were in charge of church property. The Charlestown records of 1630 note the Court of Assistants appointed justices of the peace with “like power that justices of the peace hath in England.” Direct democracy in the form of the town meeting emerged shortly after the founding of the first towns.

Procedures Of Open Town Meetings

Today, the selectpersons call the annual and special town meetings by issuing a warrant, a fixed agenda, warning citizens a town meeting will be held on a specified date and hour to act upon warrant articles. Voters by petition may add articles to the warrant, elect town officers, and act on articles. The moderator, who may be elected at the start of the meeting or for a term of one to three years, is in charge of proceedings, decides points of law, and declares all votes. The moderator’s duties are established by statute and bylaws. The latter may include a quorum requirement.

Articles normally are considered in the order listed in the warrant. A motion is made and seconded prior to debate. Amendments to articles may be proposed, seconded, and decided. The finance committee and the planning board play important roles in providing guidance to attendees.

Attendance depends in part on the presence of controversial warrant articles and in part on the size of the town, with a generally inverse relationship between the attendance percentage and the population size. There has been a secular decline in attendance by registered voters in all but the very small towns, and participation may be lower than 10 percent in towns with large populations. This decline has led a number of the larger towns, commencing in Boston in 1822, to adopt city charters or modify the town meeting.

Modifications

The open town meeting generally is entrenched in small towns, but since 1822 has been replaced by a city charter, a town charter providing for a mayor and a council, a representative town meeting (RTM) or limited town meeting, or a referendum town meeting when the population has reached a point that makes it impossible to conduct an efficient town meeting.

Brookline, Massachusetts, had experienced a large increase in population by the early part of the twentieth century that created problems in conducting meetings, yet the town desired to keep the meeting format. Alfred D. Chandler developed the RTM and persuaded the General Court to authorize its adoption by Brookline voters in 1915. The only change in the traditional meeting is the confining of the right to vote at town meetings to elected town meeting members; all other citizens may attend and speak. Forty-one other Massachusetts towns, nine Connecticut towns, one town in Maine, and one town in Vermont have adopted the RTM.

Sixty-eight Vermont and fifty-three New Hampshire towns have adopted the referendum town meeting, where voters go to the polls to act on the warrant. In theory, this meeting type should increase voter participation, but the change has increased voter participation only to a limited extent in most towns. Voter turnout averages approximately 29 percent.

The Referendum

The referendum activates the key of democratic theory—that sovereign authority resides in the unassembled electorate. The referendum dates to the Landsgemeinde in Switzerland in the fifteenth century, and it allows national, state, regional, and local voters to provide advice to officers or to make policy decisions at the polls. The referendum in the United States can be viewed as an extension of the town meeting and was first employed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1640. Today, the referendum is used in many nations to amend the national constitution and regional or state constitutions in federal nations, and to make certain other decisions, such as whether the Republic of Ireland should ratify a European Union treaty and whether the term limit on the office of president of Venezuela should be removed. Some parliamentary democracies decided all decisions should to be made by the government (cabinet). The United Kingdom historically followed this policy, but more recently it has allowed referendums in Scotland and Wales.

Referendum questions may be placed on the general election ballot or on a special election ballot (1) by the legislature, (2) automatically at periodic specified times, and (3) by the initiative that permits the electorate by petition to place a question on the ballot. The recall, a type of referendum, allows voters by petition to place on the ballot the question of the removal from office of an elected officer prior to the expiration of the term of office.

Referendums are classified as follows:

A constitutional referendum involves a new constitution or an amendment.
A statutory referendum involves a proposed law.
An acceptance referendum allows local government voters to decide whether to adopt a state law.
An automatic referendum question appears on the referendum ballot at specific times.
A mandatory referendum must be held to initiate an action such as the borrowing of funds.
A market basket referendum provides voters with a choice of one of several local government charters.
An opt-out referendum allows local voters to opt out of a state law.
A protest referendum authorizes voters by petition to suspend a recently enacted law until a referendum is held on the question of its repeal.

Proponents of referendums are convinced the voters will make superior decisions on issues (compared to a legislature beholden to special interests), facilitate governmental reform, make elected officers more responsive to the wishes of the people, promote voter interest in public affairs by reducing alienation, and educate citizens. Opponents argue that referendums weaken representative democracy and may lead to tyranny of the majority. According to the opponents, problems are as follows:

Many voters are uninformed and overburdened by the number of questions and officers to be elected.
The process may produce a long ballot and voter fatigue.
A small minority often decides the issue.
Special interest groups can repeal laws.
Innovative leaders are discouraged from seeking election, because their decisions can be overturned readily by referendums where the initiative and protest referendum are available.

The weight of the evidence favors the referendum. There is a general agreement that proposed constitutional and local government charter changes should be subject to the sovereign will of the people, but there are exceptions as noted above. Although the initiative, the protest referendum, and the recall have been controversial, it is apparent that, lacking such devices, many reforms would not have been adopted; many unpopular laws would have remained on the statute books; and a significant number of elected officers guilty of malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance would have remained in office.

The process of enacting important laws should reflect the views of citizens, interest groups, elected representatives, and bureaucrats. The referendum actualizes the views of the citizens, fulfilling a need for a policy-making theory inclusive of elements of the theories of representative democracy and direct democracy.

Direct Democracy

Plato’s fears have not materialized, but citizen apathy results in the town meeting becoming a de facto representative democracy with attendees casting ballots representing nonvoters. Town meeting participants, with the exception of very small towns, are a minority of the voters. Nevertheless the meeting, based upon equality and openness, welcomes all citizens, scrutinizes town administrators, and has a high rate of participation when controversial articles appear in the warrant. The meeting has its shortcomings, but voter participation compares favorably with participation in city council elections, and the quality of its decisions is as high as the quality of city council decisions.

A similar criticism is leveled at the referendum, as a minority of the voters may cast ballots, and participation is dependent upon the degree of controversy involving the question.

Bibliography:

Adams, Charles Francis, et al. The Genesis of the Massachusetts Towns, and the Development of Town Meeting Government. Cambridge, Mass.: John Wilson and Son, 1892.
Adams, Herbert B. The Germanic Origin of New England Towns. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1892.
Boulton, Geoffrey. A Handbook for Town Moderators, 2nd ed. Boston: Massachusetts Federation of Taxpayers Associations, 1954.
Bryan, Frank M. Real Democracy: The New England Town Meeting and How It Works. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Gould, John. New England Town Meeting: Safeguard of Democracy. Brattleboro, Vt.: Stephen Daye Press, 1940.
Guidebook to Direct Democracy in Switzerland and Beyond. Amsterdam: Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe, 2005.
Haller,William, Jr. The Puritan Town Planting in New England Colonial Development 1630–1660. New York: Columbia University Press, 1951.
Hansen, Mogens H. The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991.
Kagan, Donald. Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy. New York: Free Press, 1991.
Mansbridge, Jane J. Beyond Adversary Democracy. New York: Basic Books, 1980.
Munro,William B. The Initiative, Referendum, and Recall. New York: D. Appleton, 1912.
Powell, Sumner C. Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town. Middletown, Conn.:Wesleyan University Press, 1963.
Shurtleff, Nathan B., ed. Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. Boston:William White, 1853.
Sinclair, R. K. Democracy and Participation in Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Usher, Roland G. The Pilgrims and their History. New York: Macmillan, 1918.
Worcester, Alfred. The Origin of the New England Town Meeting. Waltham Mass.:Waltham Historical Society, 1925.
Zimmerman, Joseph F. The Massachusetts Town Meeting: A Tenacious Institution. Albany, N.Y.: Graduate School of Public Affairs, SUNY, 1967.
The New England Town Meeting: Democracy in Action. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1999.