Perilous
Plebiscites: Brexit Vote Underscores Limits of Direct Democracy
Brexit
sheds light on the problems created when the idea of direct democracy
is abused. In our complex 21st century world, we have no choice but
to delegate authority for most decision-making to our elected
representatives.
A SPIEGEL Editorial
by Michael Sauga
Boris Johnson has
always had a playful relationship with power. During his time at
university, it is said that the conservative politician pretended to
be a member of the Labour Party in order to have better chances in
the student union. As a journalist, he had a penchant for criticizing
EU laws that didn't even exist. And when the world was recently left
scratching its head over how Britain could have voted to leave the
EU, the leader of the Brexit camp unceremoniously dismissed the
historical vote by 17 million Brits as a non-event. For now, the
former London mayor concluded, "nothing will change over the
short term."
The success of
political gambler Johnson represents a defeat not only for supporters
of the European Union in Britain, but also for those who believe in
direct democracy. Even here in Germany, citizens initiatives along
with a broad spectrum of political parties -- from the conservative
Christian Social Union to the Green Party -- have supported the idea
of holding the greatest possible number of referendums as an antidote
to the crisis in Western parliamentarianism. The hope is that calling
voters to the polls will not only bring about the purest possible
expression of the electorate's preference, but also that it will
provide clarity on issues of importance and create the foundation for
a new societal consensus on the strength of a majority vote. The idea
is that more votes translate into more democracy.
Rarely, though, have
the limitations of plebiscites been shown so clearly as in the
British vote. Not because most experts believe the result to be
misguided. Voters have the undeniable right to value the supposed
advantages of increased sovereignty over the obvious economic and
political disadvantages.
But the British
referendum was a disaster because it failed to achieve just about
every single overarching goal. Rather than provide clarification, the
vote has instead caused confusion: Indeed, not even the exit from
Brexit can be ruled out. Furthermore, far from pacifying the country,
the referendum has created new rifts: between old and young, London
and the provinces, the English and the Scottish. In the end, further
referenda may follow, with the result that the once powerful United
Kingdom could be transformed into a loose alliance of marginalized
mini-states.
A Cynical Power
Struggle
Ultimately, the vote
was not about the stronger arguments for or against Europe. At its
core was a cynical power struggle between two Tory politicians, both
of whom ultimately lost. First, Prime Minister David Cameron
announced his resignation immediately following the referendum. Then,
his rival Johnson announced he would not seek to become his
successor. Before that, Johnson had led an anti-Europe campaign so
dirty that even a supporter of referenda like historian Timothy
Garton Ash said that "the scale of mendacity and manipulation in
this referendum has been breathtaking."
Still, as disastrous
as the result has been, the British vote does not prove that there is
no place in modern democracy for plebiscites. Referenda can make
sense if they are for local initiatives or on issues in which a
sufficient number of voters have become engaged prior to the vote.
But those who believe that referenda can somehow repair or even
replace representative democracy are making a big mistake. Sometimes
referenda make everything worse.
In Britain, the
Brexit vote has laid the groundwork for a conflict between direct and
indirect democracy because parliament, the majority of which is
pro-EU, could refuse to implement the will of the people. The idea of
referendums is also often abused elsewhere in Europe as well. Take
Hungary, for example, where Prime Minister Viktor Orbán soon wants
to allow his people to vote in a referendum aimed at rejecting an EU
Commission plan to resettle refugees across EU member states.
The lessons from the
British referendum disaster are clear: It's not more direct democracy
that the EU needs. Rather, it is finally time to implement the
long-discussed reforms of European institutions in Brussels. The next
British government must strictly implement the referendum result if
it doesn't want to transform the principle of democracy into a joke.
At the same time, defenders of direct democracy should also
understand that the instrument they champion is a limited one. In our
complex 21st century world, there is no getting around the need to
transfer political responsibility for core issues to elected
representatives.
It is then vital
that those elected representatives are subject to effective checks
and balances. As Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the
United States, once said: "When the people fear the government,
there is tyranny. When governments fear the people, there is
liberty."
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