Let the People Rule Direct Democracy in the Twenty-First Century [Paperback]

The biggest contemporary challenge to democratic legitimacy gravitates around the crisis of democratic representation.The biggest contemporary challenge to democratic legitimacy gravitates around the crisis of democratic representation. To tackle this problem, a growing number of established and new democracies included direct democratic instruments in their constitutions, enabling citizens to have direct influence on democratic decision-making. However, there are many different empirical manifestations of direct democracy, and their diverse consequences for representative democracy remain an understudied topic. Let the People Rule? aims to fill this gap, analysing the multifaceted consequences of direct democracy on constitutional reforms and issues of independence, democratic accountability mechanisms, and political outcomes. Chapters apply different methodological approaches to study the consequences of direct democracy on democratic legitimacy. These range from single in-depth case studies, like the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, to cross-national comparative studies, such as the direct democratic experience within the European Union.ContentsList of Figures and Tables viiAbbreviations ixContributors xiAcknowledgements xvPreface xviiLeonardo MorlinoChapter One  Direct Democracy in the Twenty-First Century 1Saskia P. Ruth, Yanina Welp and Laurence WhiteheadChapter Two  Between the Fiction of Representation and the Faction ofDirect Democracy 7Laurence WhiteheadChapter Three  Constitution Making in Democratic Constitutional Orders:The Challenge of Citizen Participation 21Gabriel L. NegrettoChapter Four  A Problem or a Solution? The Referendum as a Mechanismfor Citizens Participation in Constitution Making 41Jonathan WheatleyChapter Five  Plebiscites and Sovereignty: A Historical and ComparativeStudy of Self-Determination and Secession Referendums 61Matt QvortrupChapter Six  The Scottish Independence Referendum: A Model of GoodPractice in Directl“p