View article

Among Arguments Advanced In Favour Of Direct Democracy, legitimacy pleas loom large. If the rules governing people can only be legitimate when those rules arise from and represent the will of all, then it is commonly argued that people should have the right to vote not just for representatives but on substantive issues of public policy as well. To claim otherwise is regarded as anti-democratic: for example, Bogdanor writes that ‘in the final analysis, the arguments against referendums are arguments against democracy’, while Saward asks, ‘What better way to maximize responsiveness of rulers to the ruled than by fostering a system in which the ruled themselves make the decisions?’