The New Challenge of Direct DemocracyISBN: 978-0-7456-1765-7
Paperback
216 pages
December 1996, Polity
This is a Print-on-Demand title. It will be printed specifically to fill your order. Please allow an additional 10-15 days delivery time. The book is not returnable.
|
Direct democracy involves citizens in discussion and decisions
about what the government is to do, rather than leaving this to
officials or parliaments. It thus challenges the restrictions
placed by representative democracies such as Britain and the United
States on political consultation and popular participation. Why
should responsible adults not take public decisions as well as
making their own individual choices? One affects them just as much
as the other.
Can ordinary citizens make good public policy though? Many lack
education and expertise and may not even be interested in politics.
Even without these individual defects, mass debate may by its very
nature lead to arbitrary or downright bad decisions. This book
confronts these arguments in light of new communication
developments which for the first time make direct democracy
technically feasible in a mass society. The result is a highly
original and innovative account of the possibility of the direct
involvement of citizens in the governance of their own affairs.