Direct democracy: Encyclopedia II - Direct democracy - History

Direct democracy - History

Direct democracy was first experimented with in the ancient Athenian democracy of ancient Greece (beginning circa 508 BC (Finley, 1973)), which was governed for two centuries by a general assembly of all male citizens, by randomly selected officials, and ten annually elected representatives charged to command the army of the city (strategos).

The restrictive conditions for citizenship in Athenian democracy (only male citizens could participate) and the small size (about 300,000) of the Athens city-state minimized the logistical difficulties inherent to this form of government.

Also relevant is the history of Roman democracy beginning circa 449 BC (Cary, 1967). The ancient Roman Republic's "citizen lawmaking"—citizen formulation and passage of law, as well as citizen veto of legislature-made law—began about 449 BC and lasted the approximately four hundred years to the death of Julius Caesar in 44 BC. Many historians mark the end of the Republic on the passage of a law named the Lex Titia, 27 November 43 BC (Cary, 1967). The presence of citizen lawmaking in Rome's governance was a contributing factor in the rise of Rome, and its Greco-Roman civilization. (Cary, 1967). Polybius (c.200-120) immortalized the Roman Republic's constitutional "citizen lawmaking" in Book VI of his The Histories.

Since Athenian democracy, however, this form of government has rarely been used (some governments have implemented it in part but few as fully as in ancient Athens). Modern mass-suffrage democracies generally rely on representatives elected by citizens (that is, representative democracy).

Modern-era citizen lawmaking began in the towns of Switzerland in the 13th century. In 1847, the Swiss added the "statute referendum" to their national constitution. They soon discovered that merely having the power to veto Parliament's laws was not enough. In 1891, they added the "constitutional amendment initiative". The Swiss political battles since 1891 have given the world a valuable experience base with the national-level constitutonal amendment initiative (Kobach, 1993).

Many political movements seek to restore some measure of direct democracy or a more deliberative democracy (based on consensus decision-making rather than simple majority rule). Such movements advocate more frequent public votes and referenda on issues, and less of the so-called "rule by politician". Collectively, these movements are referred to as advocating grassroots democracy or consensus democracy, to differentiate it from a simple direct democracy model. Another related movement is community politics which seeks to engage representatives with communities directly.

See also the history of direct democracy in the U.S.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki