Basic Principles of Direct Democracy

Transcript of episode 5: 

Hello and welcome to the Rules of the Game podcast, where it is my job to discuss democratic institutions.

In this episode I discuss several principles of direct democracy with my guest, Stefan Schlegel. About two years ago, Stefan Schlegel and myself wrote a blog post titled “8 Principles of Direct Democracy” published on the Center for Global Development blog. In that piece, we describe and discuss 8 principles that make the use of direct democracy less controversial, less risky, more cohesive, and, not least, more democratic. Today we want to resume that discussion. 

Direct democracy can be described as the people’s branch of government. It is indeed a very powerful democratic institution that has to be used with care and caution. But used in the right way, it can be an important check on representative democracy. It is rather a complement to other democratic institutions, than a substitute. Direct democracy is the people’s veto power in government. It is a way to break politicians and parties’ coalitions directed against the common interest of the voters, and a way to hedge against excessive politics by elected representatives.

Based on the examples of the Brexit referendum and the recent Swiss popular initiative to ban face veils, that is a ban on burkas, we debate some of the biggest problems and possible solutions when using direct democracy.

Stefan Schlegel is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the law faculty of the University of Bern, Switzerland. He holds a PhD in law, and specializes in studies of refugee and immigration law. He is an Ambizione Fellow of the Swiss National Science foundation. Previously, Stefan Schlegel was a senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the study of ethnic and religious diversity. Besides his academic career, he is a member of the board at Operation Libero, an influential liberal transpartisan political movement that is much engaged in campaigns around popular votes in Switzerland. Furthermore, Stefan is an active member and contributor to various political organisations in Switzerland. If you’d like to connect with Stefan you can find him on Twitter and LinkedIn, I’ll link to both accounts, to some of his written articles, and to his website in the show notes. 

I am your host, Stephan Kyburz, and this is the fifth episode in my podcast The Rules of the Game, where I discuss, analyze and compare democratic institutions from around the World. 

I am a political economist with a PhD in Economics from the University of Bern in Switzerland. And I previously held positions at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Center for Global Development.

Please subscribe to this podcast on any podcast platform and you’ll always get the latest episode. A great way to support my work is to leave a review. You can find me on Twitter at skyburz and you can find show notes with links to all material discussed on my website: rulesofthegame.blog 

Now, please enjoy this wide ranging conversation with Stefan Schlegel. 

Interview:

Stephan Kyburz: Welcome to the rules of the game Podcast. Very happy to have you on the show.

Stefan Schlegel: Thanks for having me.

Stephan Kyburz: Now as usually, I want to introduce the episode with a bit of your personal background with regard to democracy so that people have a bit of an idea of, you know, what’s your motivation and why are you so engaged in democratic questions? So what is your first memory of democracy? 

Stefan Schlegel: I think I do have memories, very early childhood memories of the overthrow of the Ceaușescu regime in Romania and of the fall of the Berlin Wall. A friend of mine in kindergarten brought a piece of the Berlin Wall that left an impression on me. And then I think a bit later in 1992 I realized that there was an epic democratic debate going on in Switzerland, which was, of course, the question whether Switzerland should join the European Economic Association. And I remember sort of having very early, childhood political debates in the locker room with classmates and stuff. And classmates would say, well, we should reject that proposal, otherwise, there would be even more people coming over here from Yugoslavia, and I thought that that was not a really valid argument, and without having any background in it, I sort of started being interested in questions like that. 

Stephan Kyburz: All right, cool. So as I know you, you probably won the argument. So and and then when did you become, like, politically active and in what position was that? 

Stefan Schlegel: I first was intrigued, I think, by immigration politics, migration ethics, the struggle for the rights of refugees, which always has a peculiar relationship to questions of democracy because it’s sort of the control group, right? You can study sort of what happens to the rights of people that have no voice within a democratic system. So that was in the early 2000s, and for a long time, I didn’t have a formal or a formalized political position. I never found the idea particularly attractive to join a political party. And so for a long time, I was sort of free floating, and it was really the ban on minarets in 2009, so again, again an issue in direct democracy, a popular initiative that won, rather surprisingly, that sort of created an urge among many people like me, that were free floating to organize, to bundle their their forces and to do something about it. Right? 

Stephan Kyburz: And, as I know you then started like a political movement which pretty much specifically was, um, an answer to two important popular initiatives in Switzerland that were lost from your perspective. And this movement gained quite a lot of steam, so that became like an important player in the civil society in Switzerland, and that is quite remarkable. And we will get back to that maybe a bit later. Now, two years ago, I asked you whether you would be interested in co-writing, co-authoring a blog post about principles of direct democracy. And I remember you were very much motivated. You immediately said, yeah, that’s a good idea, because, as it is, we probably often talk about, or people talk about the results or the outcomes of direct democracy, but rarely about how they evolve or what are the underlying rules that guide these initiatives or referendums. And that’s exactly what we’re gonna do now. We want to talk about the institution of direct democracy and what are important aspects of it. What are important rules or principles, as we call them, that make a direct democracy a more reliable tool, and also how it complements other democratic institutions. So from your perspective, why do you think is direct democracy, it seems a powerful tool because a decision taken by a population in a country by the electorate is kind of like a final decision. It usually is taken as an important decision making mechanism. So why do you think what makes direct democracy so powerful? 

Stefan Schlegel: There are several reasons why I think, um, direct democracy is something worthwhile to defend and something worthwhile to sort of lobby for in places where it does not yet exist or where it has a merely marginal existence. The most important reason, and that’s not yet a very powerful institutional argument, is I think that direct democracy is a constant reminder, and a very healthy reminder, that civilization is built on thin ice. That human rights, the separation of power, the defense of human dignity is something that is not a given, not by a long shot, but something that has to be, re-conquered, re-defended generation by generation. So sort of the anti-thesis to direct democracy would sort of be the German “Grundgesetz”, the German Constitution that says, well, certain principles like federalism and certain rights are beyond deliberation. From now on, they shall never be reconsidered again. A clause of eternity, which can be a very dangerous self deception, like believing that those things never have to be fought for again because they are sort of one once and for all. And direct democracy is a constant and a powerful reminder that that is not the case. And that, especially human rights, are something that are not just given but something that has to be, you know, groomed, developed, improved, extended for generations to come. So a constitution, a social contract, if you want, becomes much more something that you did not inherited from your parents, but sort of lent from your children, and you have a task there defending it, and improving it, right? 

Stephan Kyburz: And also, I think, what few people know is that, actually, most countries around the world at some point had a direct democratic decision. So it is not the case that it’s, not used. It’s used in or has at some point been used in most countries. So it’s really important to actually talk about how it is used and what are the underlying rules. And I think, as we see in Switzerland, how it works almost like another branch of government in some sense, because it’s an important check on the legislative branch. So it’s kind of almost like a steering wheel or a correction mechanism of the legislature or the representative branch of government. How do you see that coexistence between the legislative branch and direct democracy? 

Stefan Schlegel: Yeah, so here are two very important distinctions. One is, I think, direct democracy in a context where it is used very occasionally, sort of, to, you know, vote on a new constitution, for instance, for the “pouvoir constituant”, rather than for the “pouvoir constitué”, sort of the body of power that would create and legitimize a constitution rather than, you know, as a sort of a step-in legislature that can draw the power of the legislative branch towards itself and and say “no, that is so important, we, as a people, want to decide about it”. Once you make that step from a very occasional use, very exceptional use of direct democracy, to a regular use, like in Switzerland, where you like basically have four Sundays a year, where you have several proposals that are voted on, both on the constitutional and and the statutory level, and then more stuff on a regional and municipal level. Once you make that step, I think, direct democracy sort of morphs its function. And it becomes an even more powerful tool in moderating and guiding the legislative branch, even in cases where no one even raises the threat of taking, you know, recourse to a referendum merely because the threat of a referendum is out there. So if we talk about direct democracy, we tend to highlight, you know, specific issues that were highly emotional, that might have had problematic results, that are, you know, criticised internationally, but that is sort of just the dark underbelly of direct democracy. What makes it such a powerful and such a useful and such a moderating tool is the constant threat towards the legislative branch, that what they deliberate might be struck down if they aren’t struggling for moderation and for compromise, as it is deliberated in Parliament. So it has a, at least in its function as a break, we might discuss the function as a steering wheels, so where amendments can be formulated by the people themselves, that might have a different function, and that might actually lead the legislative branch astray and sort of giving in to that temptation to, you know, highlight topics that are populist or that are overblown, sort of just to respond to the concerns of the people. So the two you know, basically different types of direct democracy as they are used in Switzerland might have different impacts on how the legislative branch behaves. But at least as long as it works as a break, it has a strongly moderating influence. And that, in and of itself is something very valuable, I think.

Stephan Kyburz: Yes, as we discuss in that blog post that we published on the Center for Global Development blog, we make or we discuss the referendum on one side and the initiative right on the other side and how we describe them, as for the initiative as a steering wheel, right? Because the people among the population can take up a completely new political issue that hasn’t been on stage in parliament. And they can kind of create that discussion around a popular initiative and clearly change course in a specific political issue. While the referendum is more a break, because it works in the sense that the parliament makes, creates a legislation and approves it, and then the people have the possibility to say no, stop, that’s not in our interest. That’s in the interest of maybe the parliament as a specific group, or like as the representative body, but the opinion might still be different among the population, right? So that’s clearly the difference between the steering wheel and kind of the break, as we discuss it.

Stefan Schlegel: Can I throw in an example how this steering wheel might have different effects? Take this ban on burqas. It’s not even a week old, as we discuss, that entered our constitution. It has been attempted to create a burqa ban beforehand through the parliamentary way, and that never succeeded. There was not a majority for a ban of burqas in parliament. But once the initiative was sort of ripe to be brought to the ballot, parliament sort of entered into the debate and said, yeah, we might have an issue here, it’s not that we want a burqa ban, but apparently there is a problem there. While the problem was very much, you know, created out of thin air. So let’s do something about it, and they sort of created a counterproposal, which is a, you know, an instrument that in an important way flanks the rights to initiatives. So the possibility to create counter proposals that might in specific cases be, you know, put to a referendum at the same day. So you have sort of two options from which to choose. And they sort of led into the temptation to create a counter proposal. And there we might have a different and more problematic effect of direct democracy. As we see it in this moderating force that I tried to describe on the level of the referendum in its nature as a break. 

Stephan Kyburz: Yeah, that’s true. That’s specific for Switzerland. I think that kind of, possibility of a counter proposal in that sense. And we will come back to the discussion of the burka or the niqab ban, that just was approved by the Swiss population, actually, and we’ll discuss it in connection with the tyranny of the majority over a minority, which is actually one of the very critical issues around direct democracy. But now, we want to go back to the initial motivation of why we started putting these principles of direct democracy together, and that was actually the Brexit referendum. And from our perspective, we saw that the Brexit referendum had several issues that we judge as being kind of an inadequate application of direct democracy. And the first one would be that it was a top down referendum. So David Cameron at some point was under political pressure, and he kind of thought of using that referendum also as a political tool for him to confirm him as a prime minister. And so he proposed that referendum as a top down measure. And essentially, it was the conservative party that really, you know, put it to the people and that also was responsible for the timing, right? So it was not an initiative coming from the people through collecting signatures. No, it was the prime Minister who had this idea and put it to people. And what’s the problem with that? 

Stefan Schlegel: So I think, really, that this feature is sort of just the most certain sign that something with direct democracy is deeply flawed. If it is sort of the head of the state or the head of the government that can decide when the people shall have a vote and when not. First of all, it is from a point of view of political philosophy, it is clearly ill conceived or not thought through, because who in such a system would be the sovereign? So if you think of a sovereign power from which all legitimate political power flows, then it should be capable to say when it has a say and when it has not. So as long as the people rely on the goodwill and the good mood and the judgment that it might be a good timing now by a head of government, or a parliament for that matter, or a European commission, you name it, to sort of grant them as a sovereign the vote. Clearly then they’re not sovereign. And one of the fundamental flaws I think of Brexit was that there is a very strong doctrine in the U.K. that sovereignty lies with the parliament. And yet you introduce the people, as you know, a different source of power without clarifying or who ultimately is the sovereign. How do they, how is the relationship between the two and who can ultimately say who has a say and when? So at the very moment when it is not the people themselves are a subset of people who can actually enforce a referendum to happen, direct democracy is deeply flawed. Stemming from that problem is a problem that whenever, you know, a head of government grants, you know, by his grace, a vote to the people, then he or she has always second thoughts. Like you described it with Cameron, so they want to, you know, free their back from back benders in their own party or from a nasty opposition party. So they always pursue an agenda that is alien to the issue at hand. So there’s always a mix up of issues and therefore all always a corruption of the free will of voters. So that would be a second fundamental problem. A third fundamental problem is that, a saying of the sovereign or of any decision making body should at any time be reversible by an act of the same quality or of the same level. That does not hold true if you rely on the, sort of on the veto power of a parliament or a head of government. You cannot reconsider a decision you have once taken, which again, is a sign that clearly you’re somehow not entirely sovereign. Otherwise, you could say, well, I’m not so sovereign that I cannot come back to what I decided earlier on. I might come back at any time that I wish so. 

Stephan Kyburz: So clearly the referendum was a tool of the government or parliament, right? And it kind of, it was not initiated from the people, so it was top-down, not bottom-up. And in our principles, we say that actually, a direct democratic institution is an institution, a tool for the people to guide the political process, and that should be bottom-up. And also, as you said, whether a decision taken by the people is reversible or whether the people can update their decision, that was also clearly lacking in that whole process, because we saw once the referendum was approved, a whole new set of questions came up about the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union, and suddenly a lot more questions were on the table and the people kind of felt, well, we have taken that first decision, maybe we should also have a say on further decisions on the way. And obviously the government didn’t, you know, allow a second referendum to happen, even though we saw in London or across the United Kingdom, there was a large part of the population who wanted a second vote not necessarily to reverse the decision, but to update the decision, because suddenly people realized, oh, that relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union is very complicated, and it involves a whole lot of contracts. So the people should also have a say on the future relationship. 

Stefan Schlegel: So, yeah, if you build in that fundamental construction flaw into direct democracy, you end up with the ironic result that you promised a tool to, you know, enable the people to directly voice their will. And then you end up with the result that is, you know, demonstrably not in the will of the majority, and yet the majority can do nothing about it. And there’s a further problem, which has to do with responsibilities. One of the great strengths of direct democracy is you cannot point to those in power for the troubles you’re in, or to a much smaller degree than you can in much more representative democracies, because to a degree, you’re responsible for the mess yourselves, as a people. But if you rely on the grace of a government to speak about something and the timing as determined by that government, and whether you have a second say as well, then you can still shift responsibility to the government and the government can shift responsibility back to the people and say no, Brexit means Brexit. That’s that sort of the mandate you gave us. And there will be no clear, you know, allocation of responsibility and that is a flaw in the design of institutions.

Stephan Kyburz: And also the whole process revealed that in the U. K., actually, the parliament is sovereign and not the people, because the people were, you know, asked only at a specific point in time, what is their opinion on being a member of the European Union? But they couldn’t update that opinion. And so also another aspect that we discuss in that blog post is the single subject rule, so that the Brexit referendum was not only a decision over whether the United Kingdom should be a member should continue to be a member of the European Union. But it was also a decision on whether people approve of David Cameron as a prime minister, right? So the people couldn’t really express their will in an unadulterated way as we describe, because it was both a referendum on the membership but also on the government. Yeah, and that will always be the case, as I said, never will a head of government initiate a referendum if he or she does not think that that improves, you know, their political elbow room. So it will always be in situations where it is also a plebiscite on the future of a government that can be observed in the referendums that De Gaulle organized in France, and many other examples throughout history. So there’s always a mix up of issues, and that alone makes this top down version of direct democracy deeply flawed. 

Stephan Kyburz: And also, it is used, really by many, kind of authoritarian rulers as a confirmation of their rule, right? So, it is often used to confirm changes in constitutions that usually concentrate the power in the hands of the authoritarian ruler. And that also violates the single subject rule in the sense that if an authoritarian ruler has a referendum approved, he also, it gives him legitimacy in that sense, right? Which shouldn’t be obviously on the ballot at the same time. So in a more authoritarian sense, obviously the referendum most often on changes in the constitution that concentrate power in the hands of the executive government, is often used as a tool for legitimacy. 

Stefan Schlegel: Yeah, and as a tool to, you know, work the way of government around checks and balances, and to have, you know, a trump card against an apex court that would, you know, say: that is unconstitutional, or that’s not how we understand the constitution, or against an opposition in parliament. So, yes, once it is organized top-down, then it can be a way to, you know, concentrate power. And again, that is sort of a perverse effect against what one would think is the intention of direct democracy to improve the control of power by people. I should add an important addendum to this bottom-up requirement. It is not meant to say that any issue that comes to a referendum needs to be initiated bottom-up. It might fairly be that governments or parliaments sponsor bills or amendments as long as they don’t have, you know, discretion on whether it is brought before the people or not. Because there is a fixed rule, like there is in Switzerland, if you do amend the constitution, you have to have a referendum no matter what, and there’s no elbow room to decide about that. That is not a violation of the bottom-up principle. It is a violation as soon as you have discretion by the government or by parliament, whether they want to put something to a referendum or not. 

Stephan Kyburz: Right and maybe also discussing that single subject rule again, from the voters perspective, why is it so important that a proposal put to the people, or an initiative or referendum has that single subject that makes the will of the person who has to make the decision, an unadulterated decision? Why is that so important? 

Stefan Schlegel: So the goal of direct democracy surely is to have the least deformed voice of the people being put into law. So the goal must be to enable everybody to as clearly and as directly to voice their true will. And that is not possible if two or several issues are mixed up in one sort of box that you can tick. So that you say, well, I might want to say yes to some of these aspects, but then no to others. That is the first reason why you have to disentangle them. Otherwise, sort of the specific goal of direct democracy might fail. In a special case like in Switzerland, where gathering a certain number of signatures is a requirement to have a referendum, there’s a second problem, namely, that, you know, you create inequality between different proposals if you allow one proposal to have several issues in it, and therefore several different groups of potential supporters, which makes it easier to gather the necessary signatures. So there’s also the aspect of the equality among political competitors for initiatives. 

Stephan Kyburz: Right, and now I want to come back to the recent popular initiative that the Swiss voting population had to decide on. And that was the burqa or the niqab ban, that essentially was a proposition to prohibit people from covering their face or to have a face veil in public spaces. And so that is a typical, I would say, a typical example of a majority, which is, you know, the people who in Switzerland, who obviously, or well, many are Christians or atheists, and this very, very small population in Switzerland that actually wears a niqab or a burqa, which are a few women, Muslim women, mainly or yeah, we assume that, and that is kind of a tyranny of the majority against a very, very tiny minority. And how can we prevent that in a direct democratic institution? Or what is the problem with it also? 

Stefan Schlegel: Well, there are several things to be said here. The first observation is that obviously you do not need direct democracy in order to have that sort of the tyranny of the majority. Switzerland is the last in a rather long series of European countries that have very comparable full face veiling bans. And none of the previous examples was, you know, originated in direct democracy. So clearly there are many ways in which populism and, you know, the wish to exclude and suppress minorities can find its ways into the law. So we must not unfairly compare direct democracy to other democratic systems. A frequent flaw in criticizing direct democracies is that upon scrutiny, it turns out that people criticizing direct democracy are actually criticizing democracy, more generally, because it can lead to such problematic results. Another important thing I would like to point out. We’ve previously discussed the ban on minarets, which you know, was important for my own politicization, and was sort of a wake up call in Switzerland for a lot of civil society organizations. That vote was in 2009. So 11 years ago, and it was a much less attractive proposal than a burqa ban, because it’s islamophobia was even more rampant, even more obvious. There would be no one outside of the right wing populist spectrum to support it. Unlike with the burqa ban that has supporters in a feminist camp and in, you know, among left wing, rightist and so on. So, you know, in comparison, the ban on minarets should have had a much harder stance at the ballot compared to the burqa ban. And yet it was the other way around, it was much more popular at the time than the burqa ban, which was won by a rather narrow margin, 51.2%. And so that shows that without changing something about the institutional design of direct democracy, it is possible by a better organization of the civil society to do something against those very problematic tendencies of a tyranny of the majority. And that might be an important, you know, reference to what I said at the very beginning that direct democracy sort of, relentlessly, you know, makes civil society reorganize and improve its campaigning capacity and keeps it alert and awake to the threat of populist rules. And I’m rather optimistic that that is what might have happened from the ban on minarets to the ban on burqas, and it’s a pity that we didn’t make it across the line. However, of course, the problem remains. There is undeniably a risk of the tyranny of the majority, and it remains, that is also shown by the experience from last Sunday, notoriously difficult to insist in a system of direct democracy that majority is a necessary, not a sufficient condition for legitimate state power. So, checks and balances, the limitation of state power, human rights as a counter weight to a maturity vote are extremely important in a system of direct democracy. And that, you know, in addition to a majority vote, you also need a principle of proportionality that is respected and a compelling public interest that you have to spell out so that you can interfere with individual sphere of freedom remains something that is very difficult to insist on in a system of direct democracy. But it is possible, And I am optimistic that, you know, in contexts outside of Switzerland, where direct democracy is created with less path dependencies than you’re confronted with here in Switzerland, that you could build in securities for the protection of individual rights against the tyranny of the majority that would actually work better than in Switzerland. I think here in Switzerland the progress that we’ve made in the short time that I’m, myself an active witness of direct democracy, are quite remarkable. We can discuss about how that worked.

Stephan Kyburz: So we can clearly say that you know, minorities are always at risk to some degree, no matter whether we are in a representative or in a direct democracy or a combination of both as in Switzerland. And, that discussion just becomes, or that problem also, becomes very visible in a direct democracy, like Switzerland, right? So we see that the people have to, you know, defend basic rights, have to protect minorities, that there needs to be a strong deliberation among the population to really educate the people about all these issues, which is a lot of work. And unfortunately, this time it didn’t quite get over the line, as from our perspective intended. So it has shown one more time that this discussion needs to be held constantly, and the direct democracy in Switzerland is just a window into this conflict between basic law, the tyranny of the majority and the protection of minorities. And you have, or in one of your pieces that you wrote, you have a specific suggestion of how minorities could be protected, right? In the sense that before, or when a popular initiative is put to the people that conflicts with basic laws need to be transparent and declared. Can you say something about this? 

Stefan Schlegel: So it’s a two pronged problem. One is how do you deal with proposals in direct democracy that are in conflict with fundamental rights, and the other one is, and often they are overlapping, how do you deal with proposals that are in conflict with international law? And given that international human rights protection is an important field in international law, there’s frequent overlap between the two. And that has become a constant problem in Swiss direct democracy since 2004. And given that it is the constitution that is amended, the conflict becomes even more delicate, because fundamental rights are guaranteed in the constitution as well. And it’s problematic to have, you know, a hierarchy of norms within the constitution. And it is problematic to argue that international treaties rank higher than even younger constitutional law. So there is, you know, the weight of legitimacy of the sovereign that has spoken, becomes very difficult to argue around, if you want. And my proposal would be rather, I think, an easy fix for both these problems, and that is that either written or by, you know, constant practice of parliament and the government, one would install a you know, a presupposition of the human rights friendliness of the people. So if it is unclear how the conflict between a new proposal and international treaties or human rights, as guaranteed in the constitution, are to be solved, then it is presumed that people wanted to, you know, that they did not want to infringe on these rights. But that they want to have, you know, the new amendment, being executed within the frame that human rights and international law actually set. And as long as they don’t say specifically, and specifically would mean in the amendment itself, otherwise, one would presume that something would be put into effect within the frame that human rights set. And so that means that a committee that wants to amend the constitution in violation of human rights would have to say so explicitly. And trust is that that will make a political project rather unattractive, and that that would be, you know, an easy and elegant fix to the problem. Because Switzerland is discussing this issue for a long time, and it turns out to be extremely tricky to sort of have a list of rules that if they are violated or might be violated by a new amendment to the constitution, then the amendment would be sort of invalid and not been brought to the referendum. So no project of such a list has gone anywhere, or would have any chance in a political process because, of course, it would have to be voted on as well. And it’s very unlikely that people would agree to sort of clip their own wings. 

Stephan Kyburz: Yeah, that makes sense. So wrapping up the discussion, I would like to know from you, if you had the power as a let’s say a benevolent dictator in Switzerland, what rule would you change? 

Stefan Schlegel: I would abolish the benevolent dictator, because there is clearly no such thing as a benevolent dictator. Power corrupts, it corrupts those in power and those who have to serve, which is why direct democracy is such a thing worth fighting for. I would, I think, change in Switzerland the rule, so that it is more explicit. There is a tendency towards thinking that way I described earlier this idea of a presupposition for the human rights friendliness of the people. If I sort of could rule for a day, I would look for ways of institutionalizing that presupposition. I think that would be a healthy, you know, growing up for direct democracy in Switzerland. 

Stephan Kyburz: Cool. And can you recommend any book or any piece that you think is, you know, very important to know regarding direct democracy. Or it could also be various pieces that we can link to in the show notes.

Stefan Schlegel: Several books I’d like to point to. We haven’t spoken about populism specifically, and about the notion of Verfassungspatriotismus, constitutional patriotism, the idea or the motivation to get into politics or into, you know, civic strive to defend and improve constitutional institutions. It’s a very, you know, German concept of patriotism and one that we, the movement I helped to create, rely on as well. On both notions, there are lovely books written by Jan Werner Müller. One of them is available in English, called “What is Populism?”. The other one is entitled “Verfassungspatriotismus” and explains the concept. I can highly recommend both, both are very important for my own work. Two other books that have been important to me in the past year is “The Passage to Europe” by Luuk van Middelaar, who explores the creation of the European Union and the role that democracy played in that evolution, especially referendums about quasi constitutions of Europe. That’s a highly intriguing book. More specifically, on the history of direct democracy in Switzerland, there is a book that came out last year written by Josef Lang, in German “Demokratie in der Schweiz”, it’s called and, you know, it emphasizes this uneasy tension between participation and the tendency to exclude others from participation. So it’s written from a very, you know, partisan point of view, but a highly intriguing read on the creation of Swiss direct democracy. 

Stephan Kyburz: Cool. Thanks a lot for sharing those recommendations. Okay, now let’s end here. We could go on for four hours probably, discussing direct democracy. And we also might do a follow up, maybe some applications of direct democracy across countries. We specifically wanted to talk about the more conceptual parts of direct democracy in this episode, but yes, thanks a lot, Stefan. 

Stefan Schlegel: Thank you, Stephan.

Stephan Kyburz: And yeah, I would be very happy to have you on the podcast again. 

Stefan Schlegel. It will be my pleasure. Thanks. 

Stephan Kyburz: Thank you.