GGAL Wave 1 -- Referendum CP
1NC
1NC Referendum CP
Text: The United States Federal Government should put to vote a direct binding
national referendum to <action of the plan>
Solves the case-Public supports curtailing surveillance-err on the side of liberty
PRC 15 [Lee Rainie and Mary Madden for the Pew Research Center on Internet, Science, and Tech; “Americans’ View On Government
Surveillance Programs”; 03/16/2015; accessed 07/01/2015; <http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/03/16/americans-views-on-governmentsurveillance-programs/>.]
Americans are divided in their concerns about government surveillance of digital communications In this survey, 17%
of Americans said they are “very concerned” about government surveillance of Americans’ data and electronic communication; 35% say they
are “somewhat concerned”; 33% say they are “not very concerned” and 13%
say they are “not at all” concerned about the
surveillance. Those who are more likely than others to say they are very concerned include those who say they
have heard a lot about the surveillance efforts (34% express strong concern) and men (21% are very concerned).
When asked about more specific points of concern over their own communications and online activities, respondents expressed somewhat
lower levels of concern about electronic surveillance in various parts of their digital lives: Americans Have More Muted Concerns about
Government Monitoring of their Own Digital Behavior39%
say they are “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned”
about government monitoring of their activity on search engines. 38% say they are “very concerned” or “somewhat
concerned” about government monitoring of their activity on their email messages. 37% express concern about
government monitoring of their activity on their cell phone. 31% are concerned about government monitoring of their activity
on social media sites, such as Facebook or Twitter. 29% say they are concerned about government monitoring of their activity on their mobile
apps. In addition, notable numbers of respondents said that some of these questions were not applicable to them. In general, men are more
likely than women to say that they are “very concerned” about government surveillance of Americans’ data and electronic communications
(21% vs. 12%). Men are also more likely than women to be “very concerned” about surveillance over their own activities on mobile apps and
search engines. When asked to elaborate on their concerns, many survey
respondents were critical of the programs,
frequently referring to privacy concerns and their personal rights. Q: Could you please explain briefly why you have this
level of concern about government surveillance of Americans’ personal data and electronic communications? “Every citizen should have the
right to their own privacy inside there [sic] own homes and who they talk with. I feel this gives the government too much control.” “The fourth
[amendment] originally enforced the idea that each man’s home is his castle, secure from unreasonable search and seizure by the
government.” “What happened to privacy?” At the same time, others suggested that the programs could be helpful for prevention of
criminal activity and terrorism, and they are not personally concerned because they have “nothing to hide”: “Law-abiding citizens have nothing
to hide and should not be concerned.” “I am not doing anything wrong so they can monitor me all they want.” “Small price to pay for
maintaining our safe environment from terrorist activities.” References to
“terror” or “terrorism” also appeared in many
of the open-ended responses, and others pointed to conflicts between personal privacy, individual
rights, and national security: “If in the event I do something unacceptable to the government or country, they have the right to
investigate me. Otherwise they are taking away my privacy as an American citizen.” “Monitoring is okay for potential suspects but not every
American.” A
majority say they are losing confidence that the public interest is being served by the
surveillance programs Those who are aware of the government surveillance programs say they are becoming
increasingly skeptical of U.S. surveillance programs. The 87% of the respondents who say they have heard of the programs
were asked, “As you have watched the developments in news stories about government monitoring programs over recent months, would you
say that you have become more confident or less confident that the programs are serving the public interest?” Some 61% of these respondents
said they were less confident and 37% said they were more confident. Those more likely than others to say they are less confident include
those very/somewhat concerned about government surveillance (80%) and those who have heard a lot about the surveillance programs (71%).
In addition, those who say they are less confident include those who say they are very/somewhat concerned about government monitoring of
their activities on social media, search engines, mobile apps, cell phones, and email. Republicans
and those leaning Republican
are more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to say they are losing confidence (70% vs. 55%).
The public is evenly split about the capacity of the judicial system to balance privacy rights with intelligence agency and law enforcement needs
Many Americans are split on the effectiveness of the judicial system in balancing privacy and national security. Some 48% agree and 49%
disagree when asked if they think “the courts and judges do a good job balancing the public’s right to
privacy with the needs of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to collect information for
investigations.” Those who are more likely to say they agree the courts are striking an appropriate
balance include: those who have heard only a little about the surveillance programs (56%), those who
are not very/not at all concerned about the programs (63%), and those whose confidence in the surveillance programs
has grown over time (83%). However, there are no notable partisan differences on this question.
Counterplan demonstrates direct democracy is feasible- key to solve the
concentration of political power and impending crises that cause extinction
Gare 3
Arran, Swinburne University social sciences professor, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia, Ph.D. from Murdoch University, "Beyond
Social Democracy? Beyond Social Democracy?" Democracy and Nature, 9(3), Nov 2003, via EBSCO database
In the new order, the state’s role, along with a range of new institutional structures ranging from the local to the international level, is
exclusively to create the stable framework for the efficient functioning of the market. Although this phase extends the market into the Third
World, power is concentrated as never before with the elites of the core zones. Civil society has dissolved almost completely,
people have been brutalized, and politics and democracy rendered superfluous. Only a small minority of the world population, mostly in a few
affluent regions in North America, Western Europe and East Asia are benefiting from these developments. And the
consequence of the
internationalization of the market economy and the concentration of economic power it engenders, is ‘an ecological crisis that
threatens to develop into an eco-catastrophe, the destruction of the countryside, the creation of monstrous mega-cities and
the uprooting of local communities and cultures’ (p. 116). Fotopoulos argues that with liberalized commodity and capital markets, the
internationalization of the market economy with an over-riding commitment to economic growth, it is impossible to regulate the market to
control its destructive imperatives. Any country that attempts to do so (for instance Sweden), will lose its international competitiveness (p.
86ff). Market efficiency in an internationalized economy and social control of the market are irreconcilable. This argument provides the
background for the defence of inclusive democracy. Going beyond efforts to democratize industrial production and focusing on
the community rather than merely the economy, the project of inclusive democracy encompasses the political,
economic, social and ecological realms; that is, any area of human activity where decisions can be taken
collectively and democratically. Democracy is defined as the ‘institutional framework that aims at the equal distribution of political,
economic and social power. . . in other words, as the system which aims at the effective elimination of the domination of human beings over
human being’ (p. 206f). Ecological democracy is defined as the institutional framework that aims to reintegrate humans and nature. The original
example of genuine democracy (although it was confined to a small proportion of the total population) is taken to be ancient Athens of Pericles.
The liberal ‘democracies’ of the modern world, social democratic models and Marxist socialism that reduce politics to the scientific
management of production, are dismissed as various forms of oligarchy. Fotopoulos traces the history of these social forms, claiming them to
be perversions of the democratic ideal. Fotopoulos offers an historical, social and economic analysis of ancient Greek democracy to show what
true democracy is and the conditions for its success. The basis of democracy must be the choice of people for individual and collective
autonomy. Political
decisions should be made by citizens collectively in community assemblies, not through
representatives. Positions to which authority is delegated should be filled by lot on a rotation basis. All residents in a particular
geographical area should be directly involved in decision-taking processes and should be educated to enable them to do so. Political rights
should be accompanied by social and economic rights and, to ensure this, productive resources should be owned by the demos (the people). In
one of the most important sections of the book, Fotopoulos provides a detailed model of a production and distribution system simulating and
gaining the benefits of a market economy while avoiding the destructive effects of real markets. This involves a combination of democratic
planning and a voucher system, securing the satisfaction of basic needs for everyone while enabling individuals to maintain their sovereignty as
consumers. Satisfaction of basic needs involving more than one community should be coordinated through a confederal plan formulated in
regional and confederal assemblies made up of delegates. Fotopoulos shows how such a system could be made workable economically and
politically. The point of offering such a model is not to prescribe how people should organize themselves but to demonstrate that direct
democracy is feasible. Fotopoulos argues we do not have to wait for the conditions for inclusive democracies
to evolve. They can be created at almost any time, although it is easier at some times rather than others. Fotopoulos argues
that to escape the destructive imperatives and brutalizing effects of the present order, ‘The immediate objective should. . . be the creation,
frombelow, of “popular bases of political and economic power”, that is, the establishment of local and public
economic democracy which, at some stage, will confederate
realms of direct and
in order to create the conditions for the establishment of a
new society’ (p. 284). This struggle must be undertaken simultaneously at the political, economic, social and cultural levels. The final part
of the book is devoted to the philosophical justification of inclusive democracy. Essentially, Fotopoulos develops Castoriadis’ arguments that
the core of democracy is autonomy—the freedom of people to be self-instituting, that is, to be able to put into question and
transform their existing institutions and their dominant social paradigm (beliefs, ideas and values).1 Any philosophy
that denies the possibility of such autonomy is criticised. In particular, Fotopoulos attacks those who see democracy as the outcome of
something other than the free choice of people, whether this be the truths of religion, the laws of nature, the cunning of reason or the
evolution of society. The
question then is whether people are prepared to struggle for democracy now, given
that their failure to do so not only means accepting their subjugation and brutalization, but also the destruction of the
ecological conditions of their existence.
Theory
Perm Do Both
---The permutation links to the internal net benefit --- Only committing to implement
the will of the people mobilizes voter participation.
DuVivier 6 [KK DuVivier; Professor of Law at University of Denver; “The United States as a Democratic Ideal?: International Lessons in
Referendum Democracy” p 845-848; University of Denver Sturm College of Law; 2006; accessed 07/01/2015;
<http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=37308707002210100408709612012501301801708802507206300307402312709202410500211
40990020450160300420410270260000200840971200931270550810550540070930931071141
21075111058058016098092084100075069070095012066082076123123019120031080077112085094067072013&EXT=pdf&TYPE=2>.]
In contrast to votes that bind in legal terms, some referendums are only advisory or “consultative.”170 Advisory
referendums are
not as common in the United States, and “some state constitutions disallow ballot questions that have
no legal effect.”171 Yet New Zealand172 and several European countries, including Denmark, Finland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and the
United Kingdom,173 have used referendums that do not formally bind. Critics of the New Zealand advisory referendum
process, however, call it “a fraud on the community” because the government asks the public “for its opinion
when the Government has said that it will not necessarily follow that opinion.”174 Consequently, New Zealand’s
advisory referendum statute, although popular at first,175 “[w]ithin a decade . . . appears to have fallen into desuetude.”176 This conclusion
presumes, however, that the primary objective of citizen initiated referendums is for them to create positive law. The reality, in fact, is that
“most initiatives fail,”177 and despite
low passage rates and despite high costs, the main reason interest groups in the
United States continue to pursue unsuccessful initiatives is that they can be an effective route “to exert pressure
on other political actors.”178 Thus, these advisory referendums allow citizens “to place pressure on legislative
bodies to take a certain course of action.”179 In the United States, citizens have used advisory referendums in the local
government arena. For example, in 1983, local voters passed Proposition 0 that asked the City of San Francisco to notify President Reagan that
they favored the repeal of bilingual ballot provisions of the Federal Voting Rights Act.180 In addition, during the late 1970s, advisory
referendums directed attention to national environmental and nuclear-freeze issues.181 More significantly, the experience in Europe has
shown that advisory referendums often effectively bind governments. “No parliament in Europe has explicitly disregarded the verdict delivered
by the people, and were this to happen on a major issue, the fallout would be severe.”182 Furthermore, an advisory referendum often proves
preferable to one that binds. First, it does not conflict with an existing system of government that requires legislative supremacy. For example,
in the United Kingdom, the “notion of parliamentary sovereignty”183 dictates that Parliament cannot be formally bound by an advisory
referendum.184 Consequently, an advisory referendum exerts pressure while simultaneously preserving the existing governance system.185
Second, an advisory process better reflects the reality that government actors must interpret and implement any measure.186 An advisory
referendum allows a legislature flexibility to predict the outcome of a provision in a manner that reconciles possible conflicts187 and
anticipates constitutional challenges in the courts.188
---Turn --- Leaks
(A.) The lie permutation will be leaked.
Washington Times 2012
Obama, the leaker in chief, The Washington Times, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/8/obama-the-leaker-in-chief/
Even very liberal legislators
are worried about the brewing crisis of administration staff leaks. Senate Intelligence
Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, told CNN on Thursday, “I’ve been on the Intelligence Committee for
11 years and I have never seen it worse.” Mr. Obama’s high dudgeon about the temerity of accusations of White House impropriety will
Committee Chairman
not be enough to save his team from scrutiny. There have been leaks about drone strikes, U.S. special operations and foreign classified
information such as Israel’s alleged deal with Azerbaijan to support a military strike against Iran. There
have been leaks to
newspapers, TV and Hollywood screenwriters. Some leaks have been more damaging than others. One story that broke last
month detailed a CIA informant penetrating high levels of al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula, making off with their most sophisticated new
bomb and providing information leading to a successful drone strike on a leading militant. The information fed to the public portrayed the
operation as a major success, but intelligence specialists were alarmed at the amount of detail that was leaked. Embarrassingly, it soon turned
out that this was not an American-led effort at all but a long-term British-Saudi operation that was compromised by the very leaks that
trumpeted its success and erroneously attributed credit to the United States. “This does seem to be a tawdry political thing,” former CIA bin
Laden hunter Michael Scheur said at the time.
(B.) Err negative --- Referendum process creates informed citizens with a strong
incentive to expose lying politicians.
Feld & Kirchgassner 2000
Lars P., UniÍersity of St. Gallen, SIAW-HSG, Institutsgebaude, Gebhard, Corresponding Author, Direct democracy, political culture, and the
outcome of economic policy: a report on the Swiss experience, European Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 16, 287–306
According to our analysis in the previous sections, direct legislation in Switzerland is basically characterised by two features. First, the
political discourse preceding a decision at the ballots results in better information of citizens compared
to the same citizens and possibly also legislators in representative democracies. Thus, politicians and well informed
specialists in the legislature have less flexibility to pursue their personal interests. Second, the
referendum discourse leads to reflection regarding policy positions: Do proposed policies benefit narrow self-interest
or the public at large? Therefore, citizens should feel more responsible for their community and be more prepared to
accept decisions that lead to income or wealth losses for themselves. Both mechanisms are expected to lead to differences
in economic policy decisions.
---The permutation links to politics --- Non binding referendums shift the decisionmaking burden back onto the government and precludes political shielding.
Butler & Ranney 1994
David, American Enterprise Institute and Austin, prof. emeritus @ UC Berkeley, Referendums Around the World, “Theory,” p. 260
6. Frequent recourse to referendums
can contribute to a special political culture in which politicians are inhibited,
can avoid making difficult and unpopular decisions by referring
divisive issues to the people; they make other decisions, while they are secure in knowing that those
decisions may be overruled by the people. As chapters 4 and 7 make clear, in Switzer¬land and the high-user American states,
those ever-present possibilities shape politicians' strategies in ways that are largely unknown in low-user
political systems. In chapter 3, Vernon Bogdanor contrasts the use of the referendum in France and in Italy. In France, the president
for good or ill, from acting as representatives. They
uniquely has authority to call a referendum unilaterally; there the device has added signifi¬cantly to presidential power over policy making. In
Italy, Switzerland, and some American states, the people have authority to call a referen¬dum unilaterally; thus in those polities the device has
become a major constraint on the power and actions of elected officials. 7. Even in the low-user systems, however, most politicians
regard the referendum device, in James Callaghan's words, as "a rubber life raft into which we may all have to
climb." When that happens, everyone has to turn to a new form of politics, in which party cues to the public are much less effective than
usual and coalitions of interested groups on both the Yes and No sides have to learn how to work together, often across established lines of
political cleavage, in formal or informal umbrella organizations.
(B.) Links to direct democracy --- Rejecting representative government is an ethical
obligation --- Every instance of direct democracy is key.
Robinson 2007
Nick, Yale Law School, J.D., Citizens Not Subjects: U.S. Foreign Relations Law and the Decentralization of Foreign Policy, Akron Law Review, 40
Akron L. Rev. 647
The argument in this article for local democratic participation is also, perhaps primarily, a humanist one. With
more possibility for
participation, we become thicker citizens. We have greater ability to engage in our communities and in turn
more control over and understanding of our own lives as humans. For Durkheim, government had its own
consciousness. Such a characterization highlighted that although government at its root might merely be a shared idea in a community of
conscious humans, it could also have its own agency. The state had its own logic that was removed, and even unknown, from those that
"thought" government into existence. He writes of a democratic state that "the
closer communication becomes between the
government consciousness and the rest of society, and the more this consciousness expands and the more things it
takes in, the more democratic the character of the society will be." n14 For Durkheim, it is the democratic state's
reflection upon its citizens through its citizens that gave democracy a moral superiority. n15 [*655] When
we debate where and how democratic governance will occur, we are battling over what choreography
of thought will define our state and we as citizens. Such stakes are not easily quantifiable. If our aim in structuring
governance, however, is not to reach definable utopias, but rather to balance as best we can the competing interests and tensions of being
human and being governed, then we must take into account governance's transcendent depths and not just its readily chartable currents.
Perm-Do CP
The permutation is severance --- several reasons
Curtail implies a legal restriction-the permutation does not on face curtail surveillance
Merriam Webster 15 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/curtail
: to make less by or as if by cutting off or away some part <curtail the power of the executive branch>
<curtail inflation>
Should means the plan must be immediate and certain
Summers 94 (Justice – Oklahoma Supreme Court, “Kelsey v. Dollarsaver Food Warehouse of Durant”,
1994 OK 123, 11-8,
http://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/DeliverDocument.asp?CiteID=20287#marker3fn13)
The legal question to be resolved by the court is whether the word "should"13 in the May 18 order connotes futurity or may be deemed a
ruling in praesenti.14 The answer to this query is not to be divined from rules of grammar;15 it must be governed by the age-old practice
culture of legal professionals and its immemorial language usage. To determine if the omission (from the critical May 18 entry) of the turgid
phrase, "and the same hereby is", (1) makes it an in futuro ruling - i.e., an expression of what the judge will or would do at a later stage - or (2)
constitutes an in in praesenti resolution of a disputed law issue, the trial judge's intent must be garnered from the four corners of the entire
record.16 13 "Should" not only is used as a "present indicative" synonymous with ought but also is the past tense of "shall" with various shades
of meaning not always easy to analyze. See 57 C.J. Shall § 9, Judgments § 121 (1932). O. JESPERSEN, GROWTH AND STRUCTURE OF THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE (1984); St. Louis & S.F.R. Co. v. Brown, 45 Okl. 143, 144 P. 1075, 1080-81 (1914). For a more detailed explanation, see the
Partridge quotation infra note 15. Certain
contexts mandate a construction of the term "should" as more than merely
indicating preference or desirability. Brown, supra at 1080-81 (jury instructions stating that jurors "should" reduce the amount of
damages in proportion to the amount of contributory negligence of the plaintiff was held to imply an obligation and to be more than advisory);
Carrigan v. California Horse Racing Board, 60 Wash. App. 79, 802 P.2d 813 (1990) (one of the Rules of Appellate Procedure requiring that a party
"should devote a section of the brief to the request for the fee or expenses" was interpreted to mean that a party is under an obligation to
include the requested segment); State v. Rack, 318 S.W.2d 211, 215 (Mo. 1958) ("should"
would mean the same as "shall" or
"must" when used in an instruction to the jury which tells the triers they "should disregard false testimony"). 14 In praesenti means literally
"at the present time." BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY 792 (6th Ed. 1990). In legal parlance the phrase denotes that which in law is
presently or immediately effective, as opposed to something that will or would become effective in the future
[in futurol]. See Van Wyck v. Knevals, 106 U.S. 360, 365, 1 S.Ct. 336, 337, 27 L.Ed. 201 (1882).
Severance is illegitimate-no counterplan would compete if the 2AC could pick and
choose which parts of the plan to advocate
Intrinsic Perm-Referendum on something else
Intrinsincess is illegitimate-it makes the plan conditional and a moving target-the
negative bases their strategy on the 1AC plan, not on what he 2AC decides to
advocate.
Rejecting representative government is an ethical obligation --- Every instance of
direct democracy is key.
Robinson 2007
Nick, Yale Law School, J.D., Citizens Not Subjects: U.S. Foreign Relations Law and the Decentralization of Foreign Policy, Akron Law Review, 40
Akron L. Rev. 647
The argument in this article for local democratic participation is also, perhaps primarily, a humanist one. With
more possibility for
participation, we become thicker citizens. We have greater ability to engage in our communities and in turn
more control over and understanding of our own lives as humans. For Durkheim, government had its own
consciousness. Such a characterization highlighted that although government at its root might merely be a shared idea in a community of
conscious humans, it could also have its own agency. The state had its own logic that was removed, and even unknown, from those that
"thought" government into existence. He writes of a democratic state that "the
closer communication becomes between the
government consciousness and the rest of society, and the more this consciousness expands and the more things it
takes in, the more democratic the character of the society will be." n14 For Durkheim, it is the democratic state's
reflection upon its citizens through its citizens that gave democracy a moral superiority. n15 [*655] When
we debate where and how democratic governance will occur, we are battling over what choreography
of thought will define our state and we as citizens. Such stakes are not easily quantifiable. If our aim in structuring
governance, however, is not to reach definable utopias, but rather to balance as best we can the competing interests and tensions of being
human and being governed, then we must take into account governance's transcendent depths and not just its readily chartable currents.
Illegitimate/No legal precedent
1. Lit base checks – local level referenda in the U.S. and national referenda abroad
provide theoretical clash
2. Best policy option – we’re not using it yet because our democracy is broken
And, not illegal – there’s predictive evidence on implementation of national referenda
just like there’s evidence on the implementation of the plan
Tutt 14 [Andrew Tutt, law clerk in Washington, D.C. and a Visiting Fellow at the Yale Information Society Project.; “McCutcheon Calls for a
National Referendum on Campaign Finance (Literally)”; Columbia Law Review; 10/2014; accessed 07/06/2015;
<http://columbialawreview.org/national-referendum_tutt/>.]
But the analysis is somewhat more difficult when one speaks of the possibility of a
binding national referendum, where a law’s
legal force is conditioned on its endorsement by a majority of voters during, for example, a national presidential
election.27 Nothing in the Constitution affirmatively precludes such an out¬come, and indeed, tens of
thousands of laws are conditioned on the actions of some other party before they take effect. Many
regulatory delegations, for example, provide that they will not bind regulated parties until such time as the administrator of the agency charged
with administering the regulatory program takes certain ministerial acts—such as promulgating a regulation implementing the statute.28 In
principle, a
national referendum is entitled to analysis under the same logic. If such a law were passed, Congress and the
President, in their collective judgment, will have elected to delegate to the People themselves the
decision of whether the law should or should not bind them.29 There are limits to this principle, however,
though where they are to be found is a complex question. For instance, both the legislative veto (by which Congress allowed itself to
veto a law at a later date) and the line-item veto (by which the President was authorized to pick and choose which parts of each law he
would veto) have been held unconstitutional because they violate the Constitution’s deep structural principles.30 In light of these
cases, it can safely be said that any law that meddles with how the Constitution fundamentally works is
vulnerable to collateral constitutional attack on structural and separation-of-powers grounds.
Solvency
Say Yes
Referendums draw the most politically engaged voters who are educated on the issue
at hand
Donovan and Karp 6 [Todd Donovan, professor of political science at Western Washington University; Jeffrey A. Karp, professor of
politics at the University of Exeter; “Popular Support for Direct Democracy” p 683-684; Party Politics Vol 12 No 5; SAGE Publications; 2006;
accessed 07/01/2015; <http://www.jkarp.com/pdf/pp_2006.pdf>.]
In a survey of the
effects of political reforms designed to lower barriers to participation (e.g. postal voting, absentee
have the effect of mobilizing higher
proportions of interested voters than less interested ones. He finds that when rules are changed to make it easier
to vote, people with higher levels of political interest are most likely to take advantage of the rule
change. The less interested, in contrast, lack sufficient levels of interest to be engaged, even when barriers
to participation are reduced. From this perspective, it seems plausible that when democratic institutions require
additional effort from citizens, those institutions will elicit less support from people with low levels of
interest in politics than from those with more interest. For many people, the desire to participate in initiative
and referendum decisions probably corresponds with some level of political interest. Perhaps we should not be
too surprised, then, to find some evidence here consistent with the cognitive mobilization thesis. Referendums and initiatives do
require that citizens make more political decisions than they would have to do otherwise, and possibly
require that they must also obtain additional cues and information to make such decisions. Although there is
ample evidence suggesting that readily available cues assist people in making such decisions (Bowler and Donovan, 1998;
Lupia, 1994), the act of participating in a referendum nevertheless presents the citizens with additional
cognitive costs of participation. Unlike previous studies of attitudes about direct democracy, some of our findings are consistent
with the idea that the politically interested and politically engaged, at least in some nations, are less sensitive to
such costs, and, thus, more supportive of direct democracy. These findings are also consistent with other research
voting, election-day registration), Berinsky (2005) notes that such reforms often
suggesting that referendums may encourage the politically interested and educated to turn out at elections (Donovan et al., 2005). Results from
this study also have implications for normative assessments of direct democracy. Our
results provide little support for the idea
that direct democracy may be used as a tool to mobilize those most peripheral to politics, nor do they
demonstrate that direct democracy finds particular support on the far right of the ideological spectrum. This might be possible, but we find
little support for those ideas here. This point is important. Although we do find some mixed
support for the political
disaffection thesis, the patterns we observe in our multivariate analysis suggest different conclusions than those reached by Dalton et al.
(2001). Although we do find that frequent use of referendums had more opposition among those with a university education (in some nations),
many of our multivariate findings fail to conform with the results they report from Germany and elsewhere in Europe.2
Approval rates for NSA surveillance are consistently dropping – Americans value
privacy more highly and don’t consider surveillance key to combating terrorism
Page 14 [Susan Page; Washington Bureau chief of USA Today reporting on a survey conducted by USA Today and the Pew Research
Center; “Poll: Most Americans now oppose the NSA program”; USA Today; 01/20/2014; Accessed 07/01/2015; <
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/01/20/poll-nsa-surveillance/4638551/>.]
WASHINGTON -- Most
Americans now disapprove of the NSA's sweeping collection of phone metadata, a new USA
aren't adequate limits in place to what the
government can collect. President Obama's announcement Friday of changes in the surveillance programs has
done little to allay those concerns: By 73%-21%, those who paid attention to the speech say his proposals
won't make much difference in protecting people's privacy. The poll of 1,504 adults, taken Wednesday through Sunday, shows
a public that is more receptive than before to the arguments made by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. His leak of
TODAY/Pew Research Center Poll finds, and they're inclined to think there
intelligence documents since last spring has fueled a global debate over the National Security Agency's surveillance of Americans and spying on
foreign leaders. Edward Snowden in a file photo provided by The Guardian Newspaper in London. (Photo: Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras,
AP) Those
surveyed now split, 45%-43%, on whether Snowden's disclosures have helped or harmed the public
interest. The snapshot of public opinion comes as the White House, the intelligence agencies and Congress weigh significant changes in the
way the programs are run. In his address, Obama insisted no illegalities had been exposed but proposed steps to
reassure Americans that proper safeguards were in place. By nearly 3-1, 70%-26%, Americans say they shouldn't have to
give up privacy and freedom in order to be safe from terrorism. That may reflect the increasing distance from the Sept.
11 attacks more than a decade ago that prompted some more of the more aggressive surveillance procedures. the American public
decisively favors national security when it feels the threat acutely and imminently but tilts in the other direction
when the threats seem more remote," says Peter Feaver, a National Security Council aide for presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
Among those who paid attention to Obama's speech, only 13% say his proposals to rein in the
surveillance programs would make it more difficult for the government to fight terrorism. Only half of those
surveyed said they had paid even a little attention to the speech, however. The president called for a third party rather than the government to
hold the massive stores of phone metadata, and he said intelligence analysts would need a court order to search it except in emergencies. He
proposed establishing a panel of independent lawyers who could argue in some cases before the super-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act court. And he said the United States would stop eavesdropping on friendly foreign leaders. Attitudes
toward the surveillance
program have turned more negative since last June and July, when the Snowden revelations were new. In polls in
June and July 2013, more Americans approved of the program than disapproved. Now, by 53%-40%, a majority disapproves. Even so,
by 56%-32%, those surveyed say the government should pursue a criminal case against Snowden. "Snowden's decision to run away first to
China and then to Russia -- in other words, to two of the powerful countries most associated in the public mind with being potential adversaries
and systematic violators of human rights -- has probably contributed to the public's ambivalence toward him," says Feaver, now a political
science professor at Duke University. "Even those members of the public who think his actions may have served some public interest somehow
recognize that his actions have almost certainly helped Russia and China in their competition with the United States." The margin of error for
the full sample was +/-3 percentage points.
Court Rollback
Precedents are already set – rollback only occurs when the results of the ballot are
unconstitutional or not deemed procedurally valid, and standards check
UNCHR 1 [U.N. Commission for Human Rights, Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights; “Guidelines for Constitutional
Referendums at National Level”; Adopted by the Venice Commission at its 47 th Plenary Meeting; 07/6-7/2001; accessed 07/07/2015;
<http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/compilation_democracy/guidelines1.htm>.]
I. THE GENERAL CONTEXT Recent experience of constitutional
referendums in the new democracies has highlighted a
number of issues which the present guidelines seek to address. These guidelines set out minimum rules for constitutional
referendums and are designed to ensure that this instrument is used in all countries in accordance with the
principles of democracy and the rule of law. Constitutional referendums are taken as referring to popular
votes in which the question of partially or totally revising a State's Constitution (and not of its federated entities) is asked, irrespective of
whether this requires voters to give an opinion on a specific proposal for constitutional change or on a question of
principle. By definition a constitutional referendum is concerned with a partial or total revision of the Constitution. A constitutional referendum
may : · be required by the text of the Constitution which provides that certain texts are automatically submitted to referendum after their
adoption by Parliament (mandatory referendum); · take place following a popular initiative : - either a section of the electorate puts forward a
text which is then submitted to popular vote; - or a section of the electorate requests that a text adopted by Parliament be submitted to
popular vote; · be called by an authority such as : - Parliament itself or a specific number of members of Parliament; - the Head of State or the
government; - one or several territorial Entities. Constitutional referendums may be held both with respect to texts already approved or not yet
approved by Parliament. They may take the form of : a vote on specifically-worded draft amendments to the constitution or a specific proposal
to abrogate existing provisions of the Constitution; a vote on a question of principle (for example: "are you in favour of amending the
constitution to introduce a presidential system of government?"); or on a concrete proposal which does not have the form of specifically
worded amendments, know as a "generally worded proposal" (for example: "are you in favour of amending the Constitution in order to reduce
the number of seats in Parliament from 300 to 200?"). It
could be a question of : a legally binding referendum or a nonlegally binding referendum II. GUIDELINES A. Legal basis The following issues must be expressly regulated at constitutional level: types of referendum and the bodies competent to call a referendum; - the subject-matter of referendums; - the effects
of referendums; - general norms and principles (point II.B), including the franchise; - the main rules governing procedural
and substantive validity (points II.C and II.D); - judicial review (point II.P). All the guidelines outlined below should be covered by the
Constitution or legislation. B. General norms and principles 1. The constitutional principles of electoral law (universal, equal,
free, direct and secret suffrage) apply to referendums. 2. Equally, fundamental rights, especially freedom of expression, freedom
of assembly and freedom of association must be guaranteed and protected. 3. The use of referendums must comply
with the legal system as a whole and especially the rules governing revision of the Constitution. In particular, referendums cannot
be held if the Constitution does not provide for them, for example where constitutional reform is a matter for Parliament's exclusive
jurisdiction. 4. Judicial review should be available in the field covered by the present guidelines. C. The procedural validity of texts
submitted to a referendum Questions submitted to a referendum must respect: - unity of form: the same question must not combine a
specifically-worded draft amendment with a generally-worded proposal or a question of principle; - unity of content: except in the case of total
revision of the Constitution, there must be an intrinsic connection between the various parts of the text, in order to guarantee the free suffrage
of the voter, who must not be called to accept or refuse as a whole provisions without an intrinsic link ; the revision of several chapters of the
Constitution at the same time is equivalent to a total revision; - it is desirable that the same question does not simultaneously apply to the
Constitution and subordinate legislation (unity of hierarchical level); D. The substantive validity of texts submitted to a referendum Texts
submitted to a constitutional referendum must abide by the substantive limits (intrinsic and extrinsic) of constitutional reform. They must not
be contrary to international law or the Council of Europe's statutory principles (democracy, human rights and the rule of law). Texts that
contradict the requirements mentioned under II.C and II.D should not be put to the popular vote. E. Other
aspects of free suffrage In
right
to expect that referendums provided for by the legislative system will be organised, and in compliance with the
procedural rules; in particular, referendums must be held within the time-limit prescribed by law; 2. Fairness of the
vote a. the question submitted to the electorate must be clear (not obscure or ambiguous); it must not be misleading; it
must not suggest an answer; electors must be informed of the consequences of the referendum ; voters must
answer the questions asked by yes, no or a blank vote; b. The authorities must provide objective
information. This implies that the text submitted to referendum and an explanatory report should be made available to electors sufficiently
addition to the principles set out under B, C and D, free suffrage - particularly free determination of the elector's will - implies: 1. The
in advance, as follows: - they must be published in an official gazette at least one month before the vote; - they must be sent directly to citizens
and be received at least two weeks before the ballot; - the explanatory report must give a balanced presentation not only of the executive and
legislative authorities' viewpoint but also the opposing one. c. Contrary to the case of elections, it is not necessary to completely prohibit the
intervention of the authorities supporting or opposing a proposal submitted to referendum. However, the national, regional and local
authorities must not influence the outcome of the vote by excessive, one-sided campaigning. The use of public funds by the authorities for
campaigning purposes during the referendum campaign proper (ie in the month preceding the vote) must be prohibited. A strict upper limit
must be set on the use of public funds for campaigning purposes in the preceding period. 3. The right to accurate establishment of the result by
an independent body and formal publication in the official gazette. The vote must be declared invalid where irregularities could have modified
the (negative or positive) outcome of the vote. In addition, a partial cancellation of the vote is possible when irregularities only occurred in
specific geographical areas (regions, districts, even polling stations). F. Funding - The general rules on the funding of political parties and
electoral campaigns must be applied to both public and private funding. - In contrast to elections, the use of public funds by the authorities for
campaigning purposes need not be strictly prohibited in all cases; however, it must be restricted - see point II.E.2.c above. - Payment from
private sources for the collection of signatures for popular initiatives, if permitted, must be regulated, with regard to both the total amount
allocated and the amount paid to each person. G. Use of public places a. Advertising Supporters and opponents of the proposal submitted to a
referendum must have equal access to election hoardings. b. Collection of signatures If authorisation is required in order to gather signatures
for popular initiatives on public thoroughfares, such authorisation may be refused only in specific cases, on the basis of overriding public
interest and in accordance with the principle of equality. c. Right to demonstrate Street demonstrations to support or oppose a text submitted
to referendum may be subject to authorisation: such authorisation may be refused only on the basis of overriding public interest, in accordance
with the general rules applicable to public demonstrations. H. Media Public radio and television broadcasts on the electoral campaign must
allocate equal amounts of time to programmes which support or oppose the proposal being voted on. Balanced coverage must be guaranteed
to the proposal's supporters and opponents in other public mass media broadcasts, especially news broadcasts. Financial or other conditions
for radio and television advertising must be the same for the proposal's supporters and opponents. The prohibition of the publication of
opinion polls during the week before the election can be considered. J. Specific rules for popular initiatives - Everyone enjoying political rights is
entitled to sign an initiative or referendum. - The time-limit for collecting signatures (particularly the day in which the time-limit starts to run
and the last day of the time-limit) must be clearly specified, as well as the number of signatures to be collected. - Everyone (regardless of
whether he or she enjoys political rights) must be entitled to collect signatures. - All signatures must be checked. In order to facilitate checking,
lists of signatures should preferably contain the names of electors registered in the same municipality. - In order to avoid having to declare a
vote totally invalid, an authority must have the power, prior to the vote, to correct faulty drafting, such as: - the question's obscure, misleading
or suggestive nature; - violation of the rules on procedural or substantive validity; in this event, partial invalidity may be declared if the
remaining text is coherent; sub-division may be envisaged to correct a lack of substantive unity. - See also point II.F, third paragraph
(remuneration for collecting signatures) and point II.G.b (use of public places for collecting signatures). K. Referendums imposed by the
Constitution (mandatory referendums) The cases where referendums are imposed by the Constitution may be limited to total revision or
revision of fundamental provisions. In the latter case, the Constitution will identify these particular provisions in an article the revision of which
is subject to a mandatory referendum. L. Parallelism in procedures For a certain period of time, a text that has been rejected in a referendum
may not be adopted by another procedure for constitutional revision; During the same period of time, a constitutional provision that has been
accepted in a referendum may not be revised by another method of constitutional revision. The above does not apply: - in the case of a
consultative referendum (which does not bind the authorities); - in the case of a referendum on partial revision of the Constitution, where the
previous referendum concerned a total revision; - in the event of rejection of a text adopted by Parliament and put to the popular vote at the
request of a section of the electorate; a similar new text must not be submitted to vote unless a referendum is requested. M. The role of
Parliament When a draft constitutional revision is proposed by a section of the electorate or an authority other than Parliament, Parliament
must state its opinion on the text submitted to vote. It may be entitled to put forward a counter-proposal to the proposed text. A deadline must
be set for Parliament to give its opinion: if this deadline is not met, the text will be put to the popular vote without Parliament's opinion. N.
Effects of referendum Referendums on specifically worded draft amendments will usually have a binding character and their implementation
will not present particular problems. Referendums on questions of principle or other generally-worded proposals should be consultative only.
While some countries recognise that such referendums may bind parliament in principle, this leads to difficulties of implementation and entails
a high risk of political conflicts. O. Quorum It is admissible for acceptance by a minimum percentage of the electorate to be required in order for
a referendum to be valid. This type of quorum is preferable to requiring a minimum turnout. P. Judicial review Observance
of the
above rules will be subject to judicial review. This is exercised, in the final instance, by the constitutional court - if it exists - or
by the supreme court. In particular, judicial review will focus on: - the franchise; - the completion of popular initiatives; - the
procedural and substantive validity of the texts submitted to referendum, which should be subjected to preliminary
review; domestic law determines whether this control is obligatory or optional; - respect for free suffrage; - the
results of the ballot.
Experts Key
Experts overestimate their own knowledge, have tunnel vision, and engage in group
think – engaging the public is key to involve public values and create more popular
policies
Shane 12 [Peter M. Shane, Chair in Law at the Moritz College of Law of Ohio State University; “Cybersecurity Policy as if “Ordinary
Citizens” Mattered: The Case for Public Participation in Cyber Policy Making” pg 455-458; Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society;
09/02/2012; accessed 07/01/2015; < http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/students/groups/is/files/2012/02/9.Shane_.pdf>.]
The most intense
objections from agency policy makers are likely to appear in the form of doubts as to the
utility of deliberation with non-experts. In research I did in 2009 on early efforts by the current Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) leadership to expand public input in FCC decision making,72 a number of senior staff expressed genuine
uncertainty as to the role non-expert opinion was supposed to play in their decision making. In the words of
one staff member, “Aren’t we supposed to be the expert agency? What’s the general public going to tell me about the hard technical choices
we face that I do not already know?”73 Such
an objection, however, ignores two critical points. The first is that decision
making confined to experts is prone to its own kinds of deficiencies. Happily, evidence does suggest that “experts
are less likely to make certain sorts of predictable errors, such as overestimating the likely recurrence of vivid events, and
more likely to gain some adaptive ability to overcome erroneous judgments as a result of repeat encounters with specific factual scenarios.”74
Experts, however: are subject to three distinct biases of their own. First, they are likely to overestimate
their actual knowledge. In the experimental setting, they demonstrate levels of confidence in their judgments that exceed the actual
advantages conferred by their expertise, the propensity to be "often wrong, but never in doubt." Second, they are likely to adopt a world
view that turns largely on the area of their expertise and are unable to weigh its relative merits against
other matters outside the zone of their expertise . . . Third, and relatedly, they are subject to routinized ways of
approaching problems and to an unreflective "group think" style of inbred behavior.75 Melding expert analysis
with broad-based deliberation can help offset each of these biases. Indeed, public deliberation may be critical for countering
the tendency among experts to pose problems solely within the technical frameworks with which they feel most
comfortable. Whether to devote public resources to better firewalls, for example, or to various kinds of “workarounds” that would permit
critical infrastructure to function even in the face of cyber aggression is a determination as likely to involve political, social, and economic
tradeoffs as it is a technical assessment regarding the possible success of such strategies. So are decisions regarding our national doctrine on
cyber war, investments in systems designed to improve cyber attribution, the allocation of cyber authority among military and civilian
authorities, and the scope of presidential authority over the Internet. One does not have to impute ill motive to imagine how specialists
in
law, economics, military science, and information science might be tempted to characterize these issues as “ultimately”
about legality, efficiency, operations research, or sound management. All of these disciplines are implicated, but so are public values
regarding liberty, privacy, accountability, and competing priorities. These values should not be subordinated in
the creation of public policy. The second point is that good design for a policy process intended from the outset to accommodate
non-expert policy input is quite likely to improve the quality of the relevant technical analysis as well.
Cybersecurity policy is a question of values – expert opinion not necessary – and the
only way to access all three facets of democracy
Shane 12 [Peter M. Shane, Chair in Law at the Moritz College of Law of Ohio State University; “Cybersecurity Policy as if “Ordinary
Citizens” Mattered: The Case for Public Participation in Cyber Policy Making” pg 453-455; Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society;
09/02/2012; accessed 07/01/2015; < http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/students/groups/is/files/2012/02/9.Shane_.pdf>.]
The U.S. currently faces cyber policy issues that raise questions of value and general direction susceptible to
intelligent discussion by non-specialists. Public participation has long been linked to a series of benefits for
governance that are salient in the realm of cyber policy. Models of lay deliberation exist that are well
designed to achieve those benefits. Powerful questions remain, however, about the role of a deliberative public
in making government policy and whether public participationeven if attractive in principlecan be designed effectively to ward
off predictable sources of frustration and poor quality. The case for public participation in policy making has both normative and instrumental
aspects. The core normative proposition is that genuinely democratic governance must entail public participation. With
the exception of purely procedural theories, in which democracy means little more than institutionalized electoral competition under fair
conditions, contemporary
political theorists have coalesced around what the NRC has called “a remarkable consensus” on
three key elements of democracy: political equality, popular sovereignty, and human development.66 By
definition, political
equality entails the right of every citizen to participate in making public policy. Popular
citizens be governed only by laws to which they give consent in some
meaningful way. Human development captures the idea that democratic participation not only allows citizens to promote their
interests, but represents “an important means through which they come to understand their interests in the
first place and how those interests relate to and depend on those of other citizens.”67 Democracy, in this last
sense, is a system of “experiential learning.” There is thus a direct link between citizen involvement in policy making
and each feature of governance that is now regarded as foundational to democracy. It is understandable however, that policy
makersboth elected and appointedmay undervalue such normative commitments in structuring the concrete policy
processes in which they participate. The good that may come from fulfilling these democratic commitments is likely to
be felt only gradually and over a diffuse population. In the short-term, elected policy makers may well be
focused primarily on their immediate political fortunes, while appointees seek to demonstrate the kinds of concrete
sovereignty proposes that democratic
progress in the achievement of immediate bureaucratic goals that will warrant continuing resource support adequate to meet near-term
challenges on behalf of well-defined constituencies. It
is hard to imagine a time, however, in which the case for some
“loftier,” long-term thinking would be more urgent. Public confidence in governing institutions has never
been lower, and the public’s alienation from elected authorities never greater.68 The outpouring of right and
left-wing populist energy, embodied respectively in the Tea Party and Occupy movements, testifies eloquently to
Americans’ widespread cynicism about the capacities and motivations of governing elites.69 Meaningful efforts to
reconnect everyday citizens with their governing institutions are urgently required to reestablish public
trust. In their absence, a wave of general anti-government sentiment may make it impossible for any agency, no matter
how urgent its mission, to garner the public support necessary to do jobs that need doing. In the cyber realm, for example,
there is credible “worry that cuts being mulled over by Congress and the White House could sink the nation’s nascent cyber defenses.”70
Cyber policy makers, moreover, ought to recognize that public participation in their domain may also
furnish practical benefits that will enhance their mission, even in the relatively short term. Public participation can aid in
agenda setting by clarifying the problems that need to be addressed and the priorities that ought to attach to them. The public
may bring to decision makers’ attention potential impacts of different policies that might not otherwise be
considered, as well as information about the potential distribution of burdens and benefits. The perspective of outsiders might be
especially useful in assessing the credibility of information that policy makers have gathered, and in testing the logic that,
in the minds of policy makers, links potential policies to desired objectives. In the realm of environmental policy, the NRC, after an exhaustive
review of available case studies and survey and experimental research, concluded that, on average, public participation enhances the quality
and legitimacy of environmental decisions, as well as the capacity of both experts and the lay public to make better decisions in the future.71
There is no obvious reason why the outcome should be different in the cyber realm, where the mix of fact and value inputs is similarly complex
and positive impacts are likely to depend on the behaviors of multiple groups of actors, including private citizens.
High Voter Turnout
Direct referendums can enact positive law or repeal and veto existing laws and bills –
and they encourage the best voter turn-out
DuVivier 6 [KK DuVivier; Professor of Law at University of Denver; “The United States as a Democratic Ideal?: International Lessons in
Referendum Democracy” p 845-848; University of Denver Sturm College of Law; 2006; accessed 07/01/2015;
<http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=37308707002210100408709612012501301801708802507206300307402312709202410500211
40990020450160300420410270260000200840971200931270550810550540070930931071141
21075111058058016098092084100075069070095012066082076123123019120031080077112085094067072013&EXT=pdf&TYPE=2>.]
- Note: highlight portions about Italy’s direct initiative’s ability to modify and repeal laws if the plan takes negative action (ex: repeals the
PATRIOT Act but doesn’t implement a law to do that)
B. Effect of Referendums: Binding v. Advisory Referendum outcomes vary. Some bind or make their terms obligatory. Others simply advise and
allow legislators and executives to retain some discretion over implementation. Binding referendums compel governments to implement
them.162 What the referendum compels the government to do, however, depends on the process established. The
direct referendum
provides the most common binding process and becomes positive law once passed.163 Switzerland,
Australia, and approximately half of the states in the United States offer this direct referendum
process.164 The opportunity for citizens to flex their muscles in this way encourages use: Switzerland
and Australia account for the most frequent referendums on a national level.165 Likewise, Oregon, California,
Colorado, North Dakota, and Arizona historically represent states with the highest initiative use, and all offer direct initiative processes.166
Italy has used a unique version of the direct initiative. Article 75 of Italy’s Constitution contains the referendum abrogativo,
which allows citizens to nullify legislation enacted at the national level.167 This veto can apply to all or portions of legislation. Because the
process allows citizens to negate actions by the legislature and because the threat of a referendum veto has
often motivated the parliament to act, commentators have argued that it “has done much to serve the long-term
interests of the Italian people” and has transformed Italy from a “partyocracy to democracy.”168 The effectiveness of this process has made
Italy the European country with the second highest use of referendums, surpassed only by Switzerland.169
AT: Highjacked By Elites --- 2nc Say Yes
---Statistical data concludes against the propensity for elite cooption.
Matsusaka 2005
John G., Professor of Finance and Business Economics in the Marshall School of Business, Professor of Business and Law in the Law School, and
President of the Initiative & Referendum Institute, all at the University of Southern California, Direct Democracy Works, Journal of Economic
Perspectives, Volume 19, Number 2, Spring pg. 185–206
Despite the concerns of special interest subversion, the evidence generally shows that direct democracy
serves the many and not the few. Matsusaka (2004) examines fiscal data spanning the entire twentieth century
at both the state and local level to determine whether the initiative promotes tax and spending policies favored by the majority or, as the
special interest view maintains, leads to policies favored by a minority and opposed by the majority. The study first documents three significant
policy changes brought about by the initiative: 1) spending and tax cuts; 2) decentralization of spending from state to local governments; and 3)
a shift of revenue out of broad-based taxes and into user fees and charges for services. Numerous opinion surveys are then examined, which
generally show that a majority of people favored the three changes brought about by the initiative. Thus, as far as fiscal policy is concerned,
the initiative appears to have delivered policies desired by the majority.
AT: Highjacked By Media --- 2nc Say Yes
---Empirically disproven --- Voters can break with media opinion.
Rourke et al. 1992
John, University of Connecticut, Richard Hiskes, and Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh, Direct Democracy and International Politics, p. 174
What about the impact of modern electronic media? It would be foolish to argue that the media plays no role in how people vote in foreign
policy referendums. As Todd Gitlin has cogently pointed out, the more a given policy option is foreign to the day-to-day experience of a citizen,
the more he or she depends on mass media to clarify and define issues.1 Still, while
voters have been influenced by media
reports and endorsements, there have been dramatic cases of voters disregarding media messages.
Recall both the inability of the Gonzalez government, despite its control over television, to determine
the outcome of the Andalusian vote and Gorbachev's failure to produce an overwhelming victory during
the Soviet-unity vote. These cases demonstrate that the voters' political opin¬ions are not simply
created by the media. There is always some unpredict¬ability and independence in voters' thinking, and even if only a minority of
voters do not blindly follow media, party, and elite endorsements, this minority can be large enough to determine the outcome of a
referendum, especially in a close vote.
AT: Delay --- 2nc Solvency
---Fiat solves --- The cp mandates the process begin immediately. You should be
skeptical of their solvency deficit claims absent qualified evidence providing a specific
timeframe.
---Setup takes 90 days.
Singer 2011
Bill, member of the Herskovits PLLC law firm, Time for a National Referendum on Economic Policy, Broke & Broker, August 8th,
http://www.brokeandbroker.com/1013/national-economic-referendum-bill-singer/
Let us then submit those proposals to a popular vote with the requirement that the two plans receiving the most
votes after a primary-type ballot would then be ultimately submitted to the American public for a vote within, say, 90
days. During that interim, Congress would be welcome to draft a super-majority counter-plan that would be listed on the same final ballot. It
would be an interesting challenge to the House and Senate to see if they can forge a single piece of legislation that the public will support.
---Implementation only takes two.
Shermer 1969
Shermer, Ph.D. Gov’t Studies American University, American Referendum Association, “The Sense of the People”
Probably the best answer to this seemingly valid argument is contained in the following statement of the late U.S. Sentaor Jonathan Bourne, Jr.,
in the “Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,” Sept., 1912, issue: “In my opinion, the individual
voters of the
the quiet of their own homes in the evening could better consider and decide upon an average
of one bill in two days than members of the legislature, amid the hurry and strife and personal feeling incidence to a
legislative session, could consider and decide upon an average of twelve bills a day. It is erroneous to assume that the voter is required to
state (Oregon) in
pass upon a large number of measures in the few minutes he occupies the booth on election day. Such is not the case. He has several weeks to
determine how he will vote, and merely takes a few minutes in which to mark his ballot.” To support his contention,
Senator Bourne added, that in one year (about 1911) each member of the Oregon Legislature had to consider five hundred bills in forty days
With today’s shorter work
week, and tomorrow’s thirty-hour-week resulting inevitably from automation, it is not a question of
whether people have the time—the question is whether they have the inclination. The referendum system is designed to create the
(approx. twelve per day), plus political questions, resolutions, and problems of parliamentary procedure.
desire and the incentive to study the issues.
---None of their advantages are time sensitive, they are all based on slow shifts in
institutional structures which don’t know the difference between 2 months and 6---err
neg unless they can produce a card that says their impact will happen too quick for the
ref and that the plan would be quick.
---Delay claims links more to the affirmative’s representative process.
Craig 2012
Tim, D.C. height debate set for Capitol Hill, The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-wire/post/dc-height-debate-setfor-capitol-hill/2012/07/16/gJQAcJwRpW_blog.html
In April, The Washington Post reported that Gray and U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government
Reform Committee, wanted to explore whether federal restrictions on building heights should be relaxed. Though any change could
take years of congressional and local debate, U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), chairman of the subcommittee that has oversight
over the District, has scheduled a hearing on the matter for Thursday at 1:30 p.m.
Precedents
Switzerland proves – developing referendums was a key part of solidifying lasting
direct democratic ideals, and the best way to inspire personal confidence
Kobach 93 [Kris W. Kobach, professor at University of Missouri School of Law; “THE HISTORY OF DIRECT DEMOCRACY IN SWITZERLAND”;
Dartmouth Publishing; 1993; accessed 07/06/2015; <http://www.athene.antenna.nl/MEDIATHEEK/KOBACH-1.html>.]
2. The
referendum evolved from ideal forms of direct democracy. By 'ideal forms', I mean citizen assemblies
that carried out the business of governing through a direct vote of the governed. The plebiscite imposed by Napoleon in
1798 and carried out in 1802 was the first nationwide referendum held in Switzerland; but it was not an indigenous institution as such.
Introduced by outsiders and heavily weighted in favor of regime approval (by counting abstentions as yes votes), it was an artificial
development. The Swiss federal referendum adopted in 1848 descended from cantonal referendums, which in turn descended from the
tradition of rural Landsgemeinden and urban Great Councils. Switzerland enjoyed a strong tradition of direct democracy long before the
introduction of the referendum. Although nineteenth-century political
opportunists sometimes hijacked the referendum
for their own advancement, they probably could not have done so without a political culture sympathetic
to the use of direct democracy. The impact of frequent, uncontrolled referendums in a system without this tradition might therefore
be very different. Chapter Eight presents a detailed examination of the referendum's influence in other polities. 3. The referendum and
the initiative have long been used by minor parties and political outsiders as a minority veto against the
governing majority, or as a way of opening the doors of power. The Radicals of the 1830s were the first to use direct democracy in this
way, legitimizing their attacks on the waning political establishment. The Radicals gradually rose to become the dominant party of the
nineteenth century and have remained in the government to the present day. The perceived utility of the referendum to Radicals declined
accordingly. Then, starting in 1839, conservative forces and Catholic groups began to use the referendum as effective brake on Radical power.
This process reached its apogee in the 1870s when Catholic-led referendums nearly brought the Radical government to its knees. In the late
1880s, The Catholic Conservatives gained for themselves a perpetual seat on the Federal Council through the effective use of referendums.
After 1900, it was the Social Democrats' turn. They fought the legislation of the ruling bourgeois parties with the facultative referendum, and
they were the first out-group to successfully change the structure of the political system via the constitutional initiative. In bringing about
proportional representation, they made their eventual position on the Federal Council a virtual certainty. It is difficult to overstate the
importance of direct democracy in fostering Swiss consociationalism. The pressure generated by referendum campaigns led directly to the
inclusion of the four major parties in a grand coalition government. After the completion of Switzerland's Konkordanz-Demokratie with the
magic formula in 1959, there were no major political parties left outside the government. The devices of direct democracy then fell to the
ascendant interest groups and the minor parties. The
referendum and the initiative continue to be used to undermine the
position of those in power. Even a consensual system like Switzerland's cannot achieve absolute agreement
among all concerned parties on every political issue. Interest groups who feel that their needs are not being met by the
existing political consensus have recourse to the referendum or the initiative. Outsider parties like the Greens, the Auto Party, and the antiforeigner Democrats utilize the devices of direct democracy much as the Catholics and Social Democrats did in the past. Post-1959 facultative
referendums might therefore be interpreted as indicators of failed attempts to build consensus. Most laws that are challenged by referendum
have failed to win the assent of a significant portion of the electorate. Even if only 25 percent of the voters in a referendum with 40 percent
participation reject the law, more than 450,000 citizens (out of a total electorate of 4 1/2 million) will have officially registered their
disapproval. The
frequency of referendal challenges in Switzerland implies that even a highly consensual polity
cannot always accommodate the narrow interest groups and other political minorities not present at
the bargaining table. Thus, direct democracy plays a critical role in compensating for the failure of
consociational political arrangements in this regard. 4. The referendum has at times been used as a means
of venting general unease with the government. Although the calling of referendums represents specific and sometimes
intense dissatisfaction with particular policies or circumstances, negative votes in referendums also give voice to general discontent with the
government. Widespread frustration with economic and social conditions, political leadership, or even the entire political system can lead many
citizens to strike out blindly at the government position, regardless of its merits. This contributes to a phenomenon known in Switzerland as the
Neinsager (naysayer) vote. Even seemingly harmless proposals which entail no obvious disadvantages, cost little or nothing, and are opposed by
none of the major interest groups routinely run into a negative vote of 10-25 percent. This figure is usually higher in rural regions. Arguably, the
vote of 1 April 1990 demonstrated the Neinsager phenomenon in its most extreme form. The referendum followed two major political
scandals. In November 1989 Elisabeth Kopp, the Minister of Justice and Police, resigned after it was discovered that she had provided
confidential government information to her husband, which he then used in his business dealings. Following the parliamentary commission
investigation that ensued, an even greater scandal was unveiled. In January 1990, it was
revealed that the political branch of
the Federal Police (the Bundesanwaltschaft) had compiled secret, Cold War-style files on 900,000 Swiss citizens,
organizations, and resident aliens. Unhindered by parliamentary scrutiny, the political branch (dubbed by its critics the 'Schnüffelpolizei,'
or 'snooping police') had undertaken extensive wiretapping and intrusive investigations into the private affairs
of citizens. The resulting public fury over what became known as the Fichenskandal was immense. The April 1990 referendum saw
the rejection of all six measures on the ballot. Along with four anti-highway initiatives that were widely expected to fail, two
fairly uncontroversial federal laws (concerning wine import standards and a change in the definition of which civil court cases could be taken to
federal courts) were rejected. It seems that many disillusioned
citizens assumed a Neinsager attitude and cast six negative
votes in a row. Arguably, the tense political environment in the wake of the scandals also strengthened the
naysayer faction. However, the baseline Neinsager vote of 10-25 percent should not be taken as a sign of unusual levels of discontent in the
Swiss political system. On the contrary, a 1972 study by Dusan Sidjanski found that the
Swiss were more 'satisfied with the way
their government was being run' than citizens in any other European democracy or in the United states. In the survey,
68 percent reported being satisfied in Switzerland, compared to 65 percent in the United States, 44 percent in West Germany, 44 percent in the
United Kingdom, 41 percent in France, and 27 percent in Italy. However, this survey did not distinguish between satisfaction with the present
government and satisfaction with the political system. A 1979 study measured support for the overall political system and found that more than
70 percent of Swiss citizens rated it as highly or very highly responsive to their needs. The fact that the percentage of habitual Neinsager voters
is significant even in a system registering such high regime approval suggests that there is likely to a be a sizeable core of disaffected citizens in
every democracy. Uncontrolled referendums outside of Switzerland encounter the naysayer, sometimes in even greater numbers. Australian
referendum outcomes clearly exhibit this tendency. On the other hand, infrequent plebiscites legitimizing new regimes or new territorial
arrangements are unlikely to run into this phenomenon. Such referendums often register affirmative votes of well over 90 percent. 5. The
referendum and initiative have given the Swiss voter a say on policy questions in what has become a highly
solidified political system. Consociational democracy may allow more groups to be represented in the
national executive, but it can have the side effect of making elections virtually impotent with regard to
influencing policy. Shifts in support for the parties have no effect on the composition of the government. Therefore, voter choices in
elections are unlikely to result in policy changes. A clear policy mandate only becomes possible when a party with a very
narrow agenda suddenly experiences a surge in support, as happened with the National Opposition in 1971. However, on the
whole, the Swiss parties' electoral support has been remarkably static. The 2:2:2:1 distribution of seats on the Federal Council has an aura of
permanence about it. Consequently, the average Swiss voter is not likely to believe that switching his vote from the candidate of one party to
that of another party will result in concrete changes in national policy. As Henry Kerr suggests, it may be a case of plus ça change, plus c'est la
même chose. The same 1972 survey cited above asked Swiss voters how much the outcome of the 1971 election was likely to change federal
policy. Only 1 percent said 'a lot', 32 percent said 'somewhat', 43 percent said 'not at all', and 24 percent said 'don't know'. If the 'don't know'
response can be taken as reflecting a low level of confidence in the policy impact of elections, then three out of five Swiss voters felt that even
the relatively turbulent 1971 elections made little difference. Swiss parliamentary elections in the last three decades have been primarily about
choices between political personalities. The
referendum and initiative have assumed the function of conveying citizens'
policy preferences - a function that might have gone unserved if such institutions had not existed. It is through direct
democracy that Swiss voters decide how high taxes will be, express preferences about domestic and
foreign policy, and determine the role of their military. It may be that consociational democracies need
referendums if their citizens are to have a meaningful influence upon the direction of policy. In this fashion,
referendums complement consociational systems rather that contradict them.
Cybersecurity
The best way to create cybersecurity policy must raise awareness, ensure public
education, and show definitive commitment – a binding referendum meets all three
criteria for the best decisionmaking capacity
Shane 12 [Peter M. Shane, Chair in Law at the Moritz College of Law of Ohio State University; “Cybersecurity Policy as if “Ordinary
Citizens” Mattered: The Case for Public Participation in Cyber Policy Making” pg 443-445; Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society;
09/02/2012; accessed 07/01/2015; < http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/students/groups/is/files/2012/02/9.Shane_.pdf>.]
The aims most often advanced
in connection with public participation are threefold: public education and
mobilization, better quality decisions, and enhanced decision-making legitimacy.38 In the cyber realm, the
aims of public education and mobilization seem highly salient. The issues are complicated. The tradeoffs are subtle.
Greater public knowledge is a likely prerequisite to the kinds of behavioral change among ordinary users
that would enhance network security. Greater public knowledge is also quite likely a prerequisite to
mobilizing political support for the levels of public investment required to advance cybersecurity. It would
thus seem imperative to design public participation opportunities in the cyber policy realm to maximize public awareness and knowledge
acquisition. What “better” decision making consists of in the cyber (or any other) realm is ambiguous.39 In terms of efficiency, it might seem
obvious that the
best cybersecurity decisions would be those that achieve the most appropriate levels of
network and critical infrastructure security at the least cost. It may simply prove impossible, however, to ever make such
an assessment persuasively. Additionally, the goal of efficiency needs to be weighed in conjunction with considerations of distributive equity. A
least-net-cost solution would likely seem less attractive if the costs are unduly borne by any one segment of the affected public. It
seems
reasonable then, as a second-best approach, to judge the quality of decisions at least in part by inputs that are
observable and thus manageable. For example, were decisions based on a shared understanding of the
problem under examination? Was the most current and reliable information brought to bear? Did decision makers have the
benefit of well-informed arguments for contending positions? Were efforts made to curb the kinds of
decisional bias that can skew group interaction? Were efforts made to ensure that recommendations would not
disproportionately burden persons or interests who went unrepresented in the decisional process? Given these criteria, we should want a
model for public participation that makes the development of a coherent, shared understanding of the
issue most likely, and which brings to the forefront the best information and the strongest arguments from a truly inclusive group. As for
enhancing legitimacy, three factors would seem to loom largest. The first is whether the deliberation was
representative of the affected public which, in the cyber domain, is really everyone. The second is whether there
was transparency and balance in the development and presentation of the scientific or other technical
information that set the foundation for deliberation. The third is whether there is a credible commitment among policy
makers to take the consequences of public participation into serious account. This need not be a commitment to
do what a majority of participants prefer, but it should be at least a commitment to explain ultimate decisions publicly, including reasons for
not acting in concert with the public deliberation should the relevant decisions actually go that way.40 Translating the general values associated
with public participation into appropriate objectives for a public participation initiative on cybersecurity thus produces the following
specifications. The
project should: Aim at maximizing informed public awareness;  Engage a significant
representative sample of Americans in policy deliberation;  Facilitate discussions aimed at generating a common, coherent
understanding of the problems under consideration;  Involve the most reliable current information;  Publicize the sources of information
being discussed and the processes by which that information was produced;  Expose participants to strong arguments for all contending
positions;  Deploy best practices in terms of reducing the influence of group processes that reduce the quality of deliberative outcomes; and 
Entail a commitment by relevant policy makers to take the recommendations of the public participants
into serious account, including a commitment to offer public reasons for not following any recommendations that the majority of public
deliberators favor.
Net Benefits
Snowball---2NC
CP generates broader interest in direct democracy---snowballs
Garrett 1 (Elizabeth, University of Chicago Law professor, "International Human Rights Law in Practice:
Issues in Implementing Referendums in Israel: A Comparative Study in Direct Democracy," lexis)
Ideally, a structure for a popular vote would be implemented before a government announced a
decision to submit a particular issue to a referendum. Once a specific issue becomes the subject of
direct democracy, the stakes become higher because one side will often be benefited by one set of
implementation decisions and the other side disadvantaged. Moreover, rules that are shaped to
accommodate interests in a particular ballot question may prove ill suited for referendums that are held
in the future but are unanticipated at the time the framework is established. For [*160] example, the
United Kingdom ("UK"), after a series of ad hoc referendums conducted under differing rules that
appeared (and probably were) largely a result of political factors rather than of principle, appointed a
commission (the "Nairne Commission") to establish a set of electoral regulations that could be used to
govern all future referendums. 1 The United Kingdom discovered, as have many countries and as Israel
may, that a nationwide referendum is seldom a one-shot experience; once used, popular elections
usually remain as part of a hybrid democratic system with elements of representative democracy and
elements of direct democracy.
And, Referendums create a sense of community and individual importance which
spurs broader cooperation
McFarlane 1 (Audrey, University of Baltimore law professor, “When Inclusion Leads to Exclusion: The
Uncharted Terrain of Community Participation in Economic Development," lexis)
Of course, not all democratic political theories advocate direct participation. Most democratic political theory presumes that participation
should take place at the ballot box in a republican form of government. n178 By contrast, a smaller collection of democratic theories posit that
the basic, yet crucial, process of participation is citizens themselves being involved in priority--setting, as well as decision--making, dialogue and
deliberation. n179 "Participatory politics deals with public disputes and conflicts of interest by subjecting them to a never--ending process of
deliberation, decision, and action." n180 At the heart of this strong democratic theory is "democratic talk," which is more than mere speech: "It
refers both to human discourse and interaction using both language and linguistic symbols." n181 According to Benjamin Barber, strong
democratic talk serves nine functions: it allows "the articulation of interests; bargaining and exchange; persuasion; agenda--setting; exploring
mutuality; affiliation and affection; maintaining autonomy; witness and self--expression; reformulation and re--conceptualization; [*911]
community--building as the creation of public interests, common goods, and active citizens." n182 1. The Power of Discourse: Self-Development, Self--Transformation, and Interdependence The major function and effect of participation for proponents of democratic theory is
an educative one. n183 Direct participation provides certain educational benefits and fosters certain psychological attitudes that are valuable to
the person and to the society. Participation therefore serves as a learning process that educates citizens with the skills needed to sustain
democracy. n184 This can be an education in how to negotiate a political process and create a sense of political effectiveness. n185 Under this
approach, national or statewide representative institutions are an insufficient form of democracy. Such national or statewide institutions
involve "electoral competition between elites [that] deprives non--elites of access to conditions of their own development." n186 The
educational effects of direct participation and strong democratic talk extend beyond political effectiveness. Democratic participatory theory is
premised on profound arguments of self--development, indeed, self--transformation. Participation
is thought to foster
important individual attitudes and psychological qualities that develop in spheres small enough to allow
direct participation, such as the workplace, the neighborhood, the school board, and local government. n187 It promises to
provide [*912] experiences that make people "more public--spirited, more tolerant, more knowledgeable,
more attentive to the interests of others, and more probing of their own interests." n188 During a participatory process, the
individual is thought to learn that one "has to take into account wider matters than [one's] own
immediate private interests . . . to gain cooperation from others, and . . . learn[] that the public and private
interest are linked. n189 Participationists conceive of people at their best and then seek a politically institutionalized form of direct
democracy "to help them become better than they are." n190 The transformational benefits of participation extend
beyond the individual to the greater community and are quite profound. Participation brings about an
awareness of interdependence. n191 Moreover, participatory deliberation and action educates people to see
their common interests, and therefore, community grows out of participation. n192 Accordingly, democratic political
theory promises to further individual autonomy through the process of dialogue, bargaining, challenge, compromise, and consensus building.
n193 Autonomy
develops through interactions with other people and through learning about their unique capacities, problems,
allows people to "distinguish the wants, desires, and commitments that lend coherence
to their identity from the wants, desires, and commitments that they have, perhaps uncritically,
accepted from their culture and may experience as a source of unhappiness." n194
and interests, which
Impact Calc---2NC---Demo
Direct democracy outweighs their marginal solvency deficit--1. Magnitude---Concentrated political power assures ecological destruction which
risks extinction, try or die for civic engagement to spur more public involvement, only
the gesture of the CP shows the referendum process to be feasible, that’s Gare
2. Root cause- concentration of power makes all their impacts inevitable---they can’t
solve because they just shift what elites have power
Fotopoulos 97 (Takis, former Polytechnic of North London economics senior lecturer, Inclusive
Democracy movement founder, Towards an Inclusive Democracy pg. x-xi)
But, if a 'radical' democracy, under today's conditions of concentrated political and economic power, is Utopian in the negative sense of the
word, an inclusive democracy is definitely more than just a Utopia, in the sense of an ideal society. A liberatory project is not a Utopia if it is
based on today's reality and at the same time expresses the discontent of significant social sectors and their explicit or implicit contesting of
existing society. As the book attempts to show, the
roots of the present multidimensional crisis (ecological,
economic, political, social, cultural) lie in the non-democratic organization of society at all levels, in the sense
that it is the concentration of power in the hands of various elites that marks the foundation of every
aspect of the crisis. Thus, it is the concentration of economic power, as a result of commodity relations and the growor-die dynamic of the market economy, which has led to the present economic crisis. This crisis is expressed, mainly, by the
continuous expansion of inequality, the relentlessly growing gap, not only between the North and the South, but also between the economic
elites and the rest of society within the North and the South. It is also the concentration of economic power in the hands of economic elites
which fuels the social and cultural crisis, as expressed by the parallel spread of the dialectic of violence, both personal and collective, drug
abuse, general social irresponsibility, as well as cultural homogeneity. Furthermore, it
is the concentration of political power in
the hands of professional politicians and various 'experts' that has transformed politics into statecraft and
resulted in a crisis of traditional politics, as expressed by the growing reluctance of citizens to participate in it as members of
political parties, as voters, and so on. Finally, the fact that the main form of power within the framework of the growth economy is economic,
and that
the concentration of economic power involves the ruling elites in a constant struggle to
dominate people and Nature, could go a long way towards explaining the present ecological crisis. In other
words, to understand the ecological crisis we should not refer simply to the prevailing system of values and the
resulting technologies, nor just to production relations, but to the relations of domination that characterize a
hierarchical society which is based on the system of market economy, and the implied idea of dominating the natural world. It is no
accident that the destruction of the environment during the lifetime of the growth economy, in both its
market economy and state socialist versions, goes far beyond the cumulative damage that previous societies have
inflicted on the environment. Therefore, the project for an inclusive democracy does not only express the highest
human ideal of freedom in the sense "of individual and collective autonomy, but it is also perhaps the only way out of the present
multidimensional crisis.
3. Turns war- settled conceptions of democracy license violence
Barkawi and Laffey 99 (Tarak, University of Wales international relations lecturer, and Mark,
University of London international relations lecturer, SAGE)
Liberal democratic institutions enable the expression — mediated through bureaucratic party structures
— of popular interests. In this sense, liberal democracy does make a difference. But liberal conceptions
of democracy also have a class content (see Jessop, 1978). This is overlooked in the democratic peace
debates, which take for granted that liberal democracies are 'market democracies' and that liberal
political institutions are embedded in, and reflect, capitalist social relations. Dahl and many others argue
that a capitalist socio-economic order limits the democratic potential of liberal democracy and
constrains the prospects for development beyond polyarchy (1998: 178-9). Liberal democracy
contributes directly to the maintenance of a capitalist socio-economic order — it is 'equilibrium
democracy' (Macpherson, 1977: Ch. 4). One consequence of an increasingly narrow and settled
conception of democracy is that it serves to stigmatize alternative expressions of democratically
grounded claims. A hegemonic liberalism 'defines out' other historically valid democratic claims and may
licence violence against them.10
4. Conflict---Representative systems assure squabbling which prevents any long term
solutions for their advantages
Polak 2005
Jiri, Editor of Worldwide Direct Democracy Newsletter, Founder of the First International Congress on Direct Democracy in Prague, Direct
Democracy – A Historical Necessity, Worldwide Direct Democracy Vol. 7 No. 3, http://www.planet-thanet.fsnet.co.uk/groups/wdd/05_09.htm
The period of Rule by Representation and Ideology began in the late 18th Century, with the Great French Revolution and the establishment of
the USA. Both these revolutions were presented and justified as inaugurating an era of Rule by Citizens. However, in practice, owing to low level
of social development and communication technology, such a rule had to be established and maintained indirectly, by electing citizen
representatives. And, since society was deeply divided into classes or interest groups, inevitably, to be elected, the candidates had to identify
themselves with a certain class or group and pretend to represent the interests of that particular group. Thus, the
representation
system was (and still is) based on conflicts: conflicts among employers and employees, among peasants and city dwellers, among
religions, races, nations and regions. Inevitably, the representatives have not been interested in any real solutions to
these conflicts. On the contrary, they have been interested in the perpetuation of these conflicts as a
base of their power and privileges. A new, political aristocracy has emerged, not quite hereditary (but family
relations and other personal contacts have continued to play an important, or even crucial role.) Instead of the ideology of feudalism, the new
aristocracy has developed an ideology of group representation as (the only possible and true) democracy. This ideology is still maintained by
virtually all party politicians and other members of the establishment, including the media. This
system is not democracy because
in a genuine democracy, policy has to be responsive to the interests of the citizenry as a whole, not to this
or that group, and certainly not to the interests of a political class. A genuine democracy must be directly controlled by ordinary citizens, not by
organizations who, inevitably, develop oligarchic interests of their own. We live enslaved under a gigantic bluff. This
is why millions of
innocent people are doomed to die in unnecessary wars, why we face gradual deterioration of our
environment, why many desperate and powerless individuals are driven to terrorism. These individuals do not
oppose "Western values", "democracy", and "liberty". They oppose the imperialism, the arrogance, and the exploitation of the poor
perpetrated by Western oligarchies in the name of the citizens living in their privileged countries. In a genuine democracy, there would be no
terrorism because its causes would vanish. A genuine democracy would be based on social harmony, tolerance, mutual respect, stable peace,
alleviation of poverty, and the preservation of natural environment. This vision is the ultimate rationale of the DD movement. This vision is
what we are fighting for.
Ethics---Impact---2NC
---The affirmative is unethical --- The logic of representative politics ends in
authoritarianism.
Rourke et al. 1992
John, University of Connecticut, Richard Hiskes, and Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh, Direct Democracy and International Politics, p.
Positive liberty is both a fuller and potentially more dangerous view of liberty, according to Berlin. The focus of positive liberty is the source,
rather than the extent, of coercion and “derives from the wish on the part of the individual to be his own master.” This aspect of liberty takes as
its goal the self-actualization of the individual as an autonomous being to realize his or her full potential. Here it
is not enough to avoid
external coercion to be truly free one must take charge of one’s life and be truly able to choose goals and values by
oneself. The individual, in short, must be rationally self-directed and a full participant in everything that affects
individual direction and choice. The difference between negative and positive freedom is a subtle one, but Berlin realizes that its impact is
potentially huge. Since positive liberty, unlike negative liberty, does not assume that the individual is the best judge
of his or her own interests, positive liberty opens the door both for democracy with its emphasis on self-government and
participation and for authoritarian systems that promise discovery of the true self. Positive liberty also stretches the political realm to
include every aspect of life where power is exercised—at work, home, school, church, everywhere. If power is exercised, the politics is present.
If politics is present, it must be democratic politics, and I must participate in it to ensure that I am part of the decision.
---Ethics come first--- Participatory politics is a priori ethical question more important
than consequentialist policy outcomes.
Rourke et al. 1992
John, University of Connecticut, Richard Hiskes, and Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh, Direct Democracy and International Politics, p.
Theorists of strong democracy are not of one mind concerning the impact of referendums on foreign policy. Some argue that policy
impacts per se is not as important as the value of the participatory process. The creation of an interested
involved and reflexive citizenry should be the stimmum bonum; the unquestionably “highest good,” of politics.
Whether the results of referendums disrupts preexisting traditions or policymaking is a secondary issue at
best. A policy without active involved citizens is intrinsically deplorable, this view maintains, regardless of
whether or not there is continuity of the content of policy.
Democracy
Turns the case-Using democratic involvement and civic engagement as a public
problem solver resurrects the economy, accommodates growth, solves poverty,
creates more sustainable communities, increases public agency, engages
disenfranchised youth, and provides the framework for solving every impact more
effectively
Briggs 8 [Xavier de Souza Briggs, former engineer, MIT Urban Planning professor, Vice President for Economic Opportunity and Assets at
The Ford Foundation; “Democracy as Problem Solving, Civic Capacity in Communities Across the Globe” pg 7-9; The MIT Press; ©2008; accessed
07/07/2015; <http://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/9780262524858_sch_0001.pdf>.]
At their best, democracies confront
important public problems. What is at stake in Pittsburgh, and communities in
is how to shift the economy, accommodate urban growth or decline as part of a
more sustainable future, and invest in human development through institutions and leadership
decisions that span government, business, and civil society. Wider demands for participation in decisionmaking, and much more robust expectations of transparency and accountability, help define the new civics of leading
change—but with few clear roadmaps from place to place and situation to situation. Does more democracy mean less
“development” (progress), for example? The glass-walled room is a place for informal consultation, for exchange and problem solving out
much of the rest of the world,
of the official public eye, and so it has a place in the larger civic fabric of a changing industrial region. As an inversion of yesterday’s hiddenfrom-view “back room” for elite decision makers, the
new room is a place where, as negotiation analysts would point out, a
costly public impasse can be reexamined without the need to protect reputations or go on the record. It
hits me, as Councilman Peduto takes me to the heart of a changing Pittsburgh through his own story, that we can envision the glass-walled
room—the figurative one, not the one in this coffee shop, that is—but not always get there, that when we get there, we often bring our own
rules to the table, not a shared sense of how to act together to make our civic life more productive. A world away, I am in Mumbai (Bombay), a
major engine of the surging Indian economy and a city-region where almost half the population lives in slums. Here, a global bank recognizes
that a unique network of nongovernmental organizations accountable to the urban poor offers the very best option for limiting the costly
delays and conflicts that threaten housing projects. Meanwhile, smarter government subsidies trigger the market, regulation helps curb abuses
that sap economic efficiency and also erode trust, and broader spatial planning ensures that efforts to give Mumbai a “world-class” airport and
other needed infrastructure will not steamroll the poor who have yet to share in India’s new prosperity. It all began about twenty years ago,
when government and civil society organizations slowly threw out an older set of rules about who could be counted on for what. “We grew
tired of protesting and then depending on government to deliver,” the president of India’s National Slum Dwellers Federation tells me as our
taxi speeds past the city’s countless construction projects, “so we decided to start creating our own solutions.” Yet the slum dwellers did not
surrender their political strength—India’s slums have long been called “vote banks” in highly competitive political campaigns—in order to form
a think tank, planning outfit, or hasty partnership with government. A rich sequence of learning and bargaining, cooperation and conflict,
among civil society groups, local and state government agencies, and private developers and lenders has over two decades, brought new
progress on slum redevelopment. This is no small thing since “slum-led” growth is how much of the world urbanizes, because Asia and other
developing regions are urbanizing quickly, and because Mumbai has such huge and economically important slums. Much of the future of India’s
cities hinges on the kinds of arrangements that are redeveloping Mumbai’s slums. In Salt Lake City, an innovative organizing initiative for
regional visioning and consensus building—one very carefully launched outside of state and local legislatures, with participation by
businesspeople, environmentalists, and others—develops a broad-based constituency for sustainable “quality growth” and then helps the
public sector develop new capacity to institutionalize and implement the vision. Constituency and capacity—the will and the way—are much
needed elsewhere, too. In Pittsburgh and the Greater ABC region (in the heart of industrial Brazil), public, private, and nongovernmental
institutions work to install new foundations for competitiveness in a global economy, including regional leadership that overcomes a stubborn
localism about important investment decisions. In Brazil, the
Workers’ Party helped lead a peaceful revolution to install
more participatory local governance in the ABC and other regions, as the country emerged, in the late 1980s, from decades
of military dictatorship. Brazil’s experience illustrates how the transition to democracy and vigorous party
competition can shape urgent economic restructuring, while greater Pittsburgh lacks both factors but has a long
history of public-private cooperation enabled by philanthropic organizations and others that act as “civic
intermediaries.” And in San Francisco and Cape Town, advocates leverage direct democracy (in the former case) and new
constitutional rights (in the latter) to build a new commitment to the well-being of disadvantaged young
people and their families. The change agents know that investing in people, the younger the better, is the most basic
imperative in a changing world, and yet they struggle to define government’s role in that effort alongside new and varied roles for
nongovernmental or civil society organizations: as organizers of pressure politics for expanded forms of accountability, as conveners of policy
discussions, as service providers and coproducers of change, and more. In both cases,
strong support for government
intervention contends with the limits on what government alone can accomplish to solve important
problems. In each of these cases to come, the players made significant achievements against the odds—in the face
of division and complexity and the risk of “process paralysis” that has confounded other communities—
to resolve important problems and to do so in democratic ways. How did they do it? The answer turns out to
lie in how we think about democracy and what it means to make it work as a recipe for solving public
problems
The referendum process is the best avenue to direct democracy – best suits the needs
of the public and breaks down political dictatorships regardless of outcome
Frey 94 [Bruno S. Frey, guest professor of Political Economy at Zeppelin University, former professor at the University of Zurich and
Business School of the University of Warwick; “Direct Democracy: Politco-Economic Lessons from Swiss Experience” pg 338-340; The American
Economic Review Vol 84 No 2; JSTOR; 05/1994; accessed 07/01/2015; <http://down.cenet.org.cn/upfile/55/200518181441127.pdf>.]
Most scholars and lay people are biased against direct democracy and its use of popular initiatives and referenda. Americans normally think of
New England town meetings (at best a curiosity), of school bond votes (a very narrow issue), and of California (where the voters are hopelessly
over- burdened). While 26 states allow popular referenda, the
United States is indeed one of the only democracies that
does not permit referenda at the national level. The negative view of direct democracy, however, is also prevalent in other
major democracies. The French tend to associate referenda with plebiscites for the president (Charles de Gaulle was particularly skillful in this
respect); the Germans emphasize the bad experiences made during the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich (Adolf Hitler had, among other
issues, ratified the annexation of Austria by a later plebiscite). The Italians, on the other hand, think differently today: referenda
have
played a major role in putting an end to partitocrazia (the dictatorship of established parties); and there are the Swiss in
whose country popular initiatives and referenda are a central part of democratic life, thus by far dominating all
other countries with respect to the frequency of use.1 Economic theory does not have a favorable view of direct democracy.
Public economics disregards the issue when assuming a benevolent dictator maximizing social welfare. Public choice associates
“direct democracy” with various voting rules (Dennis Mueller, 1989 part II), but the institutions of direct
democracy as such are neglected. I will argue and substantiate by empirical evidence that popular referenda are a
feasible and effective institution to fulfill individual preferences and are able to break the cartel of
politicians directed against voters and taxpayers. I. Institutions of Direct Democracy Popular initiatives and referenda
supplement, but are no substitute for institutions of representative democracy such as parliament and government. Referenda must be
embedded in a federal system, as each issue should be decided on the lowest possible level, consistent with fiscal equivalence. Decentralization is also essential for the citizens to acquire the information and knowledge to make a wellreasoned decision. There is a second crucial institutional feature: referenda do not simply consist of a choice between given
alternatives, but should be looked at as a process extending over time. Three stages can be differentiated. A. PreReferendum Stage Referenda stimulate discussion among citizens, and between politicians and voters. The
public-good situation of discussion which benefits all citizens is transformed into a private good as the participants are expected by
the other citizens to have opinions, thus reaping private benefits (see Albert Hirschman, 1989). Pre-referendum
talk produces a number of important effects. Preferences are articulated, enabling mutually beneficial bargaining
and exchange (on efficiency of direct democracy, see Eli Noam [1980]), and the agenda of alternatives is determined by the citizens, thus
constituting the relevant decision space. Discussion provides information on the “theory component,” or
the causal relationships involved (Victor Vanberg and James Buchanan, 1989); it moreover constrains free-ridership and rent-seeking. Discourse
is claimed to lead to communicative rationality and to a shared view of what is normatively accept- able, thus being an application of an ideal
discourse as propagated especially by the German philosopher Jiirgen Habermas.2 While referenda
do not fully meet the
criteria of unprejudiced talk and nonstrategic and nonpersuasive behavior among equals, every citizen who
cares may participate (in this sense it is nonhierarchical). Unlike the rather academic and institutionally un- bound notion of the ideal
discourse (John Dryzek, 1987), the pre-referendum discussion is practically relevant, focused, and limited in time. It is
in sharp contrast to “instant referendum,” “electronic voting,” or “teledemocracy,” which simply register voters’ preferences. Empirical
evidence supports the contention that discussion strongly affects out- comes even though “cheap talk” (James
Johnson, 1993) should be ineffective following the traditional rationality point of view. The proportion of cooperators in one-shot prisoners’
dilemmas increases dramatically from 26 percent to 73 percent when participants are allowed to talk to each other prior to making their still
independent choices. Behavior more in accordance with “generalizable” than with narrow self-interest has also been observed in coordination
and ultimatum games in which the allocator keeps a smaller share of the prize for him- or her- self when a prior discussion has occurred (e.g.,
Richard Thaler, 1992; Frey, 1992). The
positive effect of discussion on cooperation has also been established for
real-life common-property resource setting (Elinor Ostrom et al., 1992). B. Formal Decision Stage The pre-referendum
stage screens the alternatives to be voted upon, reduces the number of relevant alternatives (often to two), and makes
the preferences more homogeneous, thereby lowering the chance that the preference-aggregation paradox will occur.
Discussion thus supports a “structure-induced equilibrium.” Constitutional considerations demand that the decision rule
has to be more restrictive the more important the issue to be decided upon is (Mueller, 1993). This requirement is met in Switzerland. Changes
in the federal constitution must be approved by the majority of both the voters and the cantons; initiatives to change the federal constitutions
are put to the vote with the support of 100,000 citizens (about 2 percent of the electorate), while optional referenda concerning changes in
federal laws need only be supported by 50,000 citizens. C. Post-Referendum Stage Participants
in the referendum process seek
to predict the vote outcome and adjust the propositions in order to attract voters in their favor. In Switzerland, many
propositions do not reach the formal decision stage but are withdrawn by the initiators when they realize that the government offers an
alternative, which is likely to draw more votes (a so-called "counter-proposition”). When
surprises nevertheless do occur, the
government and parliament react to unexpectedly large minorities by at least partly meeting their concerns.
Such adjustments also tend to occur when there are marked differences between the majority by voters
and by regions (cantons). In that case, a new initiative tends to be undertaken. Revised referendum outcomes due to
changed circumstances and discussion are not a weakness of direct democracy, but rather an indication of
a lively political process by which the participants gain new in- sights. A political vote is not final, but rather an interim result of an
ongoing process of deliberation (Habermas, 1992 p. 220).
Capitalism – 1NC v K Aff
Representative democracy allows powerful political machines to overwhelm the
public – referendum initiatives engage the public and dismantle government
overreach
Frey 94 [Bruno S. Frey, guest professor of Political Economy at Zeppelin University, former professor at the University of Zurich and
Business School of the University of Warwick; “Direct Democracy: Politco-Economic Lessons from Swiss Experience” pg 340-341; The American
Economic Review Vol 84 No 2; JSTOR; 05/1994; accessed 07/01/2015; <http://down.cenet.org.cn/upfile/55/200518181441127.pdf>.]
II. Breaking the Politicians’ Coalition Economists and rational-choice political scientists subscribe to Joseph Schumpeter’s (1942) and Anthony
Downs’s (1957) definition
of democracy as the competitive struggle by parties for votes. This characterization is
adequate only for modern (two-party) democracies at election time. Between elections the politicians
have considerable lee- way, in particular because the voters strongly discount past experience and in many countries have little or no
possibility to punish politicians who exploit their discretionary room (see Frey, 1978). The Schumpeter-Downs model of democracy needs to be
complemented by a model in which (between
elections) a coalition of all (established) politicians and parties
stands against the voters and taxpayers. Such a model of the “political class” deviates from models of exploitative government
(Geoffrey Brennan and Buchanan, 1980) be- cause the political class also includes politicians outside government. As soon as a politician (party)
enters parliament, he or she is they are drawn into the coalition. The members of parliament are a well-defined group jointly reaping rents.
They have (with exceptions) spent their lives together in all kinds of meetings and sessions, committees and commissions. Outsiders entering
parliament find it difficult if not impossible to survive outside the coalition. A whole set of rules and institutions bolsters this coalition. The
seniority principle, or party discipline, robs members of parliament outside the coalition of the chance to enter influential commit- tees, to
speak in full session, and to receive public money and material support to carry out their political job effectively and to secure their reelection.
Picturing politicians as forming a coalition against taxpayers and voters seems to be an apt illustration of
representative democracy between elections. It has indeed been argued for the United States that “party
competition must be easily the most protected industry” (Adam Przeworski and Fernando Limongi, 1993 p. 59).
Government and courts, including courts of accounts, constrain the coalition of politicians only fractionally, since
they not only lack the constitutional rights to do so, but also have little incentive to oppose seriously the legislators on
whom they depend in many ways. The institution of popular referenda is a much more effective constraint on the
politicians’ coalition. Initiatives coming from the voters cannot be controlled by parliament; the agenda set- ting
power is with the electorate. While parliaments take great efforts neither to publicly discuss nor to vote on politicians’ salaries, pensions, and
other privileges, initiatives may bring the issue to the fore. In Switzerland, many initiatives at all levels of government effectively opposed
politicians’ rent-seeking (but voters were sometimes prepared to raise politicians’ incomes when they saw it justified). More
relevant than
monetary rent-seeking is the discretionary power from which the politicians benefit indirectly at voters’
expense. Again, referenda provide an effective institution to break the politicians’ coalition in this
respect, as is illustrated by an historical episode in Switzerland (see Charles Blankart, 1993). During the 19th century, the Swiss House of
Representatives (Nationalrat) was elected according to majority rule, which strongly favored the then reigning Radical-Democratic Party.
Proportional representation was strongly rejected by the members of the classe politique for alternative, which is likely to draw more obvious
reasons of self-interest. Nevertheless, in 1918, a referendum induced by a popular initiative was accepted by a majority of the population and
cantons. In the subsequent election, new politicians and parties came into the House, and the Radical-Democratic Party lost more than 40 percent of their seats. Instances of voters
breaking the politicians’ cartel are no rarity: among the 250 referenda held
in Switzerland between 1848 and 1990, the majority’s will deviated from the stated will of the parliament in 39
percent of the cases. Important examples in which the classe politique was solidly in favor of a move but the electorate was strongly
against are the decisions of whether to join the United Nations (1986) and the European Economic Area (1992). Econometric analyses support
the contention that direct democracies have the stated effect on policy outcomes. Based on data of Swiss communes it has been shown that
the more developed the institutions of direct voter participation, the better the voters’ preferences for publicly supplied goods are fulfilled and
the more strongly public expenditure is determined by demand (i.e., by citizens’ willingness to pay) rather than by supply factors, in particular
by the politicians’ and bureaucrats’ own interests. Moreover, public supply is less costly, and the share of public expenditures in GNP is smaller,
the more direct democratic institutions are used (ceteris paribus) (Werner Pommerehne, 1990). It is at least suggestive that Switzerland with
her direct democracy has a lower public-expenditure share than do other OECD-countries with representative democracies. III. Concluding
Remarks Cumulating research on the properties of popular referenda has revealed two major aspects on which the economics of institutions
has to focus. One is the importance of discussion in the pre-referendum stage. It implies that the
number of propositions and the
frequency of ballots must be low enough that the voters have an incentive and the opportunity to
collect and digest the respective information in order to participate actively in the decision. The issues have
to be put before the voters at the lowest federal level consistent with fiscal equivalence. Also, rational voters only seriously
engage in discussions if they have a choice (i.e., referenda should not degenerate to plebiscites). The second crucial element is
that direct
democratic institutions enable voters to break politicians’ and parties’ coalitions directed
against them. Direct participation serves to keep the ultimate agenda-setting power with the voters.
Initiatives and referenda are effective means by which the voters can regain control over politicians; the widely held Madisonian fear of
“irresponsible voters” and “excesses of the majority” has no empirical basis in a well-chosen constitutional
framework.
Capitalism – 2NC Buying Votes
Money has little proven influence in referenda voting patterns, and turn – the most
popular option garners the most monetary support, increasing access to popular
majority viewpoints to all participants
Stratmann 5 [Thomas Stratmann, Department of Economics, George Mason University; “The Effectiveness of Money in Ballot Measure
Campaigns” pg 103-104; Symposium on the Impact of Direct Democracy; 09/02/2005; accessed 07/03/2015;
<http://www.gmu.edu/centers/publicchoice/faculty%20pages/stratmann/vitae%20files/effectmoney.pdf>.]
On one side of the debate on money in ballot measure campaigns are those who are concerned
that interest groups have
too much influence in the process.7 This side of the debate is concerned about the influence of money on outcomes. Spending by
wealthy or well-funded interests may give those interests an advantage with respect to the passage or defeat of
ballot measures over those who do not have the financial means to present their views though an advertising campaign. Some claim that
if those who spend are more likely to win, than those without the financial means to compete are limited
in their political participation. David Broder for example, suggests that the initiative process “has become the
favored tool of millionaires and interest groups that use their wealth to achieve their own policy goals.”8 Broder
continues to argue that “initiative campaigns have become a money game, where average citizens are subjected to advertising blitzes of
distortions and half-truths and are left to figure out for themselves which interest groups pose the greatest threats to their selfinterest.”9 As
mentioned in the Introduction, the academic
literature has found little evidence that interest groups can purchase
their preferred policies through the initiative process. The literature has found that money has only a small influence on
whether initiatives pass. Campaigning to maintain the status quo is more successful than campaigning to change it and successful
campaigning in part depends on the type of interest groups involved. Moreover, even if there was evidence that the side
which spends more money is also more likely to win, this does not necessarily imply an inequality in access
to political participation. The reason that the winning side spends more simply reflects that this side represents the
views of many voters and thus was able to attract many funds.
Expertism
Referendums especially key on the issue of cybersecurity – key to public investment,
participation in programs, and meaningful citizenry
Shane 12 [Peter M. Shane, Chair in Law at the Moritz College of Law of Ohio State University; “Cybersecurity Policy as if “Ordinary
Citizens” Mattered: The Case for Public Participation in Cyber Policy Making” pg 433-435; Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society;
09/02/2012; accessed 07/01/2015; < http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/students/groups/is/files/2012/02/9.Shane_.pdf>.]
The total abdication of cybersecurity policy to “experts,” however, has been, and continues to be, a profound
mistake. Given the ubiquity of computer networks and our reliance as a society on their integrity and
robustness, the quality of cybersecurity is an issue that affects everyone’s interests. Excluding the general public
from any meaningful voice in cyber policymaking removes citizens from democratic governance in an area
where our welfare is deeply implicated. Further, as the papers in this volume amply testify, the “technologies” and the
“processes” entailed in cybersecurity are costly, likely requir[e]ing significant public investment.2
Cybersecurity builds on “practices” that include routines and procedures in the hands of ordinary individual computer users.3 Mobilizing
citizen backing for the requisite public investment in cybersecurity, and even more for the common commitment to
adopt responsible computing habits, will be substantially more difficult if people have virtually no understanding
of what they are being asked to do or to support. Finally, the concern over decision-making competence is
easy to overstate. The design of cybersecurity involves technical choices requiring specialized competence, just as does the
implementation of environmental policy, biomedical research policy, or, for that matter, counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. But the
design of cybersecurity also implicates a series of choices among competing values and priorities that are
the ordinary stuff of politics. The lay public’s inability to address strictly technical or expert questions does
not mean it is incompetent to weigh competing policy answers to the general question, “What should the government
do?”4 Indeed, I would argue that an administration explicitly committed to unprecedented levels of both
transparency and collaboration5 should regard cybersecurity as offering an ideal opportunity to engage the
public more meaningfully in policy deliberation than has so far been the American norm. Models abound, both in other
nations’ use of citizen consultations to involve the public in technology-related policy making and in U.S. experience with citizen
consultation in environmental decision making.6 Not only do such models offer the prospect of improving our cyber policy
posture through public engagement, but meaningful citizen engagement in this area of complex decision making could
provide a pivotal model for how to deepen the meaning of citizenship in the digital age.
The cult of the expert cedes political agency in the face of economic collapse and
climate change – valuing the knowledge of individuals and creating an inclusive
political engagement for all
Boyte 9 [Harry C. Boyte, founder and codirector of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship and Senior Fellow at U Minnesota’s
Humphrey Institute; “Civic Agency and the Cult of the Expert” pg 1-3; A Study for the Kettering Institute; ©2009; accessed 07/07/2015;
<http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED510128.pdf>.]
IN THE FACE OF MULTIPLYING GLOBAL CRISES, from economic collapse to global warming, many signs of a politics
that develops civic agency—self-organizing, collective citizen efforts to solve problems and create public things in open settings
without tight prior scripts—are also appearing. A civic agency approach is built through what we call public work, based on a
sense of the citizen as a cocreator of a democratic way of life and a view that emphasizes politics’ productive as
well as participatory and distributive aspects. Such an approach is an alternative to conventional ideological
politics, on the one hand, and community service and volunteerism, on the other. An alternative with rich emergent practices and concepts,
it intimates the fulfillment of the vision of humanizing an impersonal world. We are also caught in a corrosive knowledge war
that presents a fierce obstacle to such civic politics. On the one side are detached and technocratic champions of the
singular authority of scientific and disciplinary knowledge—what might be called the “cult of the expert.” Those of us in
research universities are all too familiar with the posture of “the best and the brightest,” bringing solutions to those
viewed as ignorant, passive, needy, and pitiable. As we have come to better understand the inner workings of higher
education, we have found that the expert cult is often a cover for deep insecurities—research faculty members
are generally better understood as isolated and trapped scholars than as arrogant know-it-all experts. But the
consequences of detachment are nonetheless dramatic. As Josiah Ober observes in Democracy and Knowledge, classical
Athens had many practices and methods of aggregating expert and amateur knowledge. In contrast, “Contemporary practice often
treats free citizens as passive subjects by discounting the value of what they know. . . . Willful ignorance
is practiced by the parties of the right and left alike.” An Athenian brought by time machine to the present would see the
cloistered expert approach to problem solving and policymaking as “both worse for democracy and less likely to benefit the community.”2 The
cult of the expert has many effects. Professionals have narrowed identities from “civic” to “disciplinary”—no longer are
most teachers or clergy or businessmen and women schooled to think of themselves as building the civic life of a place through their work.
Dominant models of knowledge making undercut the moral and civic authority of forms of knowledge
that are not academic—wisdom passed down by cultural elders, spiritual insight, local and craft knowledge,
the common sense of a community about raising children. As they do so, they also undermine the confidence, standing,
and authority of everyday citizens without degrees and formally credentialed expertise. As former Occidental College president Ted Mitchell
has observed, one
percent of Americans or less produce the knowledge that “counts.” Institutions of many kinds—
from schools to nonprofits, businesses to congregations, government agencies to universities—have lost community roots.
In consequence, institutions have come to be conceived as abstract, bureaucratic, and largely impervious to
culture change, defined by rules, regulations, structures, and procedures, not as human creations that can in turn be recreated. David Mathews, president of the Kettering Foundation, has made a strong case for the community side of knowledge, which he calls
organic politics, “informal gatherings, ad hoc associations, and the seemingly innocuous banter that goes on when people
mull over the meaning of their everyday experiences.”3 Organic politics is open-ended, relational, and grounded in local
knowledge and shared agreements accumulated through experiences over time. It generates power to and power with, not only power
over. Community politics is narrative in quality. Like every person within a community, it is unique and one-of-a-kind. But
everyday citizens are not innocents in the knowledge war. An anti-intellectual “know-nothing” culture of
victimhood and grievance has spread, especially dysfunctional for those in poverty or social isolation. Knownothing politics disparages academic knowledge, science, and professional practices in the name of community and
personal experience. This has been long developing. It was at the heart of “the Reagan Revolution” and it pervaded the G. W. Bush
presidency. More recently, vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin was a case in point. The appeal of her message reflects an overlooked divide
in America— in recent elections, differences in education levels were a far more salient factor in how people voted than income levels.4 We
have to get beyond expert cults and aggrieved communities if we want to develop civic agency, the
capacities of people and communities to solve problems and to generate cultures that sustain such
agency. Community is the living context for evaluating expert knowledge. But without engagement with other ways of
knowing, appeal to community knowledge produces a know-nothing reaction to the larger world. Sustained
interaction between different kinds of knowledge also requires reconceiving institutions as living
communities and dynamic cultures, with norms, values, practices, and patterns that can be changed.
Politics
Avoids the link to politics – even government sponsored referendums doesn’t place
the impetus for decisionmaking on legislators
DuVivier 6 [KK DuVivier; Professor of Law at University of Denver; “The United States as a Democratic Ideal?: International Lessons in
Referendum Democracy” p 842-844; University of Denver Sturm College of Law; 2006; accessed 07/01/2015;
<http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=37308707002210100408709612012501301801708802507206300307402312709202410500211
40990020450160300420410270260000200840971200931270550810550540070930931071141
21075111058058016098092084100075069070095012066082076123123019120031080077112085094067072013&EXT=pdf&TYPE=2>.]
A. Origin of Referendums: Government or Citizen Sponsored Although referendum procedures can vary along a continuum,
commentators characterize them “mainly in the degree to which they remove control over the making
of laws from elected representatives and transfer it to ordinary voters.”139 The poles at either end of this continuum
provide the two basic categories: government initiated or citizen initiated.140 Government-sponsored
referendums are those drafted by a particular branch of the government. The choices range from “the head of state or
of government, the government as a whole, a majority or a minority of MPs, a particular number of regional, cantonal or local assemblies.”141
In most cases, the legislature is the responsible branch. A referendum measure generally must receive the support of a majority of legislators to
place it on the ballot.142 In some countries, however, a minority party143 or executive144 has had the power to call for a referendum to
bypass an unsupportive legislature. Government-sponsored matters vary considerably in
content. Some seek citizen
validation of government actions.145 Others ask citizens to make controversial decisions when the government
cannot reach a consensus,146 allowing legislators to avoid decisions that could generate negative political
repercussions.147 Because political motivations often prompt governments to seek citizen votes, some
commentators have concluded that most governmentsponsored referendums offer a less valuable form of direct democracy than citizeninitiated measures.148 Yet, governments increasingly
have felt compelled to give their citizens a voice even
when that voice may not favor the current leadership’s position. For example, although most citizen votes to ratify the
various treaties associated with European integration proceeded as government leaders planned,149 French and Dutch citizens derailed the EU
Constitution when they rejected their leaders’ positions and voted against ratification in recent referendums.150
Direct binding referendums – mandate of the counterplan – become law once passed
and don’t go through other branches of the government
DuVivier 6 [KK DuVivier; Professor of Law at University of Denver; “The United States as a Democratic Ideal?: International Lessons in
Referendum Democracy” p 845-848; University of Denver Sturm College of Law; 2006; accessed 07/01/2015;
<http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=37308707002210100408709612012501301801708802507206300307402312709202410500211
40990020450160300420410270260000200840971200931270550810550540070930931071141
21075111058058016098092084100075069070095012066082076123123019120031080077112085094067072013&EXT=pdf&TYPE=2>.]
B. Effect of Referendums: Binding v. Advisory Referendum outcomes vary. Some bind or make their terms obligatory. Others simply advise and
allow legislators and executives to retain some discretion over implementation. Binding
referendums compel governments to
implement them.162 What the referendum compels the government to do, however, depends on the process
established. The direct referendum provides the most common binding process and becomes positive
law once passed.163 Switzerland, Australia, and approximately half of the states in the United States offer this direct
referendum process.164 The opportunity for citizens to flex their muscles in this way encourages use: Switzerland and Australia account
for the most frequent referendums on a national level.165 Likewise, Oregon, California, Colorado, North Dakota, and Arizona historically
represent states with the highest initiative use, and all offer direct initiative processes.166 Italy has used a unique version of the direct
initiative. Article 75 of Italy’s Constitution contains the referendum abrogativo, which allows citizens to nullify legislation enacted at the
national level.167 This veto can apply to all or portions of legislation. Because the process allows citizens to negate actions by the legislature
and because the threat of a referendum veto has often motivated the parliament to act, commentators have argued that it “has done much to
serve the long-term interests of the Italian people” and has transformed Italy from a “partyocracy to democracy.”168 The effectiveness of this
process has made Italy the European country with the second highest use of referendums, surpassed only by Switzerland.169
Republicans are showing support for national referenda amendment – Congressional
majority means easy passage
Jones 13 [Jeffrey M. Jones, Gallup poll Managing Editor, assistant director and research fellow for the Hoover Institution; “Americans in
Favor of National Referenda on Key Issues”; Gallup; 07/10/2013; accessed 07/07/2015; <http://www.gallup.com/poll/163433/americans-favornational-referenda-key-issues.aspx>.]
The July 6-7 poll comes at a time when Americans are highly frustrated with the federal government. The reforms
are three Dr. George Gallup promoted in a 1978 "Reader's Digest" article entitled "Six Political Reforms Most Americans Want." In addition to
the three reforms tested this month, the other reform ideas Dr. Gallup advanced were congressional term limits, abolishing the Electoral
College to elect the president based on the popular vote, and campaign finance reform. Back then, a majority of Americans favored all six
reforms. At various times this year, Gallup has retested public support for the reforms using slightly different question wording and format and
found that half or more of Americans still favor each of them. In January, Gallup found 75% in favor of term limits and 63% for abolishing the
Electoral College. Last month, Gallup found 79% supporting overall limits on campaign spending and 50% backing a publicly financed campaign
system. The latest update shows
national issue referenda, with 68% support, trailing term limits and campaign spending
referendum procedures are currently in place in
many U.S. states, allowing voters to directly decide on key issues rather than having elected
representatives in the legislature decide all issues. Since Dr. Gallup's time, primaries have grown and political conventions
have decreased in importance in terms of choosing presidential nominees. As primaries have grown in influence, numerous reforms to the
process have been considered or been put into place. For example, both parties now allow Nevada and South Carolina to
limits in terms of popularity of the proposals. Like term limits, issue
hold early primaries to increase the racial, ethnic, and regional diversity of early primary state electorates. Also, in 2012, the Republican Party
introduced rules to discourage states from holding early primaries to bring more order to the scheduling of primaries. The idea of a national
primary has not been widely discussed in recent years, perhaps out of deference to the political tradition of starting the presidential nominating
process in Iowa and New Hampshire. But, 58% of Americans are supportive of a nationwide primary to replace the current structure of
sequential state primaries run over a several-month period. Republicans Somewhat More Likely to Favor Reforms Although
there are not large political differences in support for the three reforms tested most recently, Republicans do show at least slightly more
support for each than Democrats. The largest party difference comes in the percentage favoring a national primary, which 69% of Republicans
and 57% Democrats support. Independents are less likely to favor a national primary and national issue referenda and slightly more likely to
favor a shorter presidential campaign than Republicans.
Poverty
Democratic inclusion is the only way to solve poverty and limited political engagement
Weeks 14 [Daniel Weeks, former president of Americans for Campaign Reform and a fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at
Harvard University; “How to Solve America's Democracy and Poverty Crisis”; The Atlantic Politics Division; 01/10/2014; accessed 07/06/2015;
<http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/how-to-solve-americas-democracy-and-poverty-crisis/282983/>.]
However you slice and dice the numbers, people
in poverty are at a serious, structural disadvantage when it comes
to making their voices heard and having their interests represented in Washington. They are far from equal citizens in the public
square. A democracy problem requires a democracy solution. Just as the gains made during the first decade of the War on
Poverty cannot be separated from another pair of bills Johnson signed into law—the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965—so
too must the
work of combatting systemic poverty today confront the lack of political equality for all.
Fortunately, democratic-process reforms abound. If states are the laboratories of democracy, then we need look no further than
American states that effectively enable their citizens to participate in public life for examples to introduce to the nation as a whole. Not
surprisingly, politically
inclusive states also experience considerably lower levels of poverty and higher voter
turnout than other states. Some reforms are simply a matter of equal justice under law. Denying
approximately 10 million taxpaying U.S. citizens the right to vote or voting representation in Congress, because of a prior conviction or the
district or territory in which they live, is morally and constitutionally suspect. To right the first of these wrongs, all states should ensure that
voting and other constitutional rights are restored to people with felony convictions once they have completed their sentence and reenter
society. In no instance should a former felon be permanently disenfranchised under the Constitution. State legislation or a constitutional
challenge or amendment could accomplish this task. Likewise, Congress should pass a law granting voting representation to Washington, D.C.,
Puerto Rico, and the territories in the House and Senate. A constitutional challenge or amendment based on Equal Protection could also
accomplish the task.
Warming
Scientists alone cannot solve warming – it takes direct democracy and participation
for sustained institutional change
Stewart 13 [Randal G. Stewart, policy scientist with a background in public policy, public affairs and strategic planning specializing in
policy formulation, institutional design, and issue management; “Climate Change in a New Democratic Age: Why we need more, not less,
democratic participation” pg 15; Perspectives; 12/2013; accessed 07/06/2015;
<http://whitlam.org/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/544911/TWI4184_Perspectives_9_2a_LR.pdf>.]
Scientists, economists and environmentalists advocating a reduction in emissions in Australia have failed to understand
people in the digital age. Today, the people are active participants in democracy, unthinkable in the Age of
Representative Democracy just passed. John Keane (2009) calls it ‘monitory democracy’ by which he means “the rules of
representation, democratic accountability and public participation are applied to a much wider range of
settings than ever before” (Keane 2009: 690). Climate Change applies these rules to the role of experts such as
scientists, economists and environmentalists and subjects their deliberations to unprecedented public scrutiny and
even challenges what it means to be an ‘expert’. This paper shows that scientists, economists and environmentalists
have responded poorly to this new age of democracy. They have approached climate change politics and policy
on a business as usual basis. They have treated the people not as self-regarding, curious, information rich, analysts like themselves
but as interest groups. They have tried to manage the people through the politics of bluster and expertise, not
by politics as network governance. They have not taken seriously people’s ability to find things out for themselves and to
analyse what is going on for and by them. The approach of business as usual applied to climate change has simply raised doubts that have
not been addressed. This lack of a commitment to broad participation has had the consequence of making a
sustained institutional change impossible. This paper has demonstrated that, at every stage of the sequencing to a new
institution, the epistemic coalition made catastrophic errors. The confused narrative at critical juncture #1, mostly caused by the scientists
conflating climate and weather, weakened commitment to the collective norm of emissions reduction. The path not taken by economists at
critical juncture #2 weakened the ability to disrupt the status quo and created a legacy of bifurcation that is with us today. The misuse of the
democratic technology of participation at critical juncture #3 by environmentalists doomed the legislated carbon price to repeal. The failure by
all these coalition members at critical juncture #4, to properly calculate increasing and diminishing returns for people, both before and after
repeal, means the inertia will continue. Democracy
will save the planet but only if influential, well intended change
agents take time to understand exactly how democracy works. The attitude of experts to democracy expressed
by one scientist (Sydney Morning Herald, 17 June, 2013:9) when arguing that we should leave coal in the ground that It isn’t our job to
reconcile the politics of this with the science; we are simply presenting the facts as we best know them
cannot continue.
Aff Answers
Theory
Perm Do Both – Advisory
Perm do both – have Congress pass the plan after putting forth an advisory
referendum to the public regardless of the outcome of the referendum.
Advisory referendums pressure the government to act – still a form of direct
democracy. Counterplan links to theory too – Congress would debate the results of all
referendums, binding or not. And, ensures solvency – they’ll never win 100% chance
the referendum passes
The permutation solves --- Advisory referendums allow direct democracy while
avoiding constitutional rollback.
Duvivier 2006
KK, assoc. prof. @ Univ. of Denver College of Law, THE UNITED STATES AS A DEMOCRATIC IDEAL? INTERNATIONAL LESSONS IN REFERENDUM
DEMOCRACY, Legal Research Paper Series, Working Paper No. 07-13, http://ssrn.com/abstract= 960319
Although binding
referendums may violate the legislative procedure established in the Constitution, the
Petition Clause appears to implicitly authorize use of advisory referendums. The First Amendment explicitly
provides citizens with the right to petition the government.314 Early cases acknowledged that the right to petition included
a right to submit legislative proposals. These same cases, however, made clear that the right to submit did not
come with a collateral obligation on the part of Congress to act. Nonetheless, in the early days of the Republic, Congress
in fact had in place rules that made consideration mandatory. These internal rules that required Congress to consider citizen petitions lasted
only until 1836. In that year, Congress amended its rules to prohibit receipt of any petitions addressing the abolition of slavery, effectively
putting a gag on the topic.315 Although the constitutionality of the gag rule was never challenged in the courts,316 the
Supreme Court
has indicated that the right to petition does not embody a corresponding right to a response. In Smith v.
Arkansas State Highway Employees Local 1315,317 the Court noted: The First Amendment right to associate and to advocate “provides no
guarantee that a speech will persuade or that advocacy will be effective.” The public employee surely can associate . . . . But the First
Amendment does not impose any affirmative obligation on the government to listen, to respond or, in this context, to recognize the association
and bargain with it.318 Other cases have made similar pronouncements.319 Even though the right of petition may not include a right of
response, it still embodies more than the free speech right to address elected representatives.320 Although its placement at the end of the
First Amendment might make it appear to be an afterthought, in fact “[p]etitioning was the most important form of political speech the
colonists had known, not just because of its expressive character, but also because of the ways in which it structured politics and the processes
of government.”321 Consistent with the Petition Clause, a system that permitted citizens to adopt advisory referendum “petitions” and submit
them to Congress would pose no threat to representative government.322 A citizen referendum could serve to meet this petition function as a
separate opportunity for citizens to submit to Congress a document with signatures requesting legislative action.323 Moreover, this
advisory right would provide citizens an opportunity to influence Congress and to participate more
directly in their democracy.
Intrinsic Perm
Perm: <Plan> and initiate a national level referendum on <issue of PC based politics
disad>. Solves the net benefit, garners democracy. Obama can push on <aff> and have
the public pass <politics disad>.
<Card about the subject of the politics disad being popular with the public>
Illegitimate/No legal precedent
No legal precedent – current legislation doesn’t allow for national referenda in the
United States
Fiat doesn’t extend to illegal action – must assume some form of normal means for
politics
Steinberg and Freely 5 [Austin J. Freely, Suffolk University, attorney who focuses on criminal and civil rights law; David L.
Steinberg, University of Miami director of debate, former president of CEDA, AFA and NCA officer, lecturer in communication studies and
rhetoric; advisor to Miami Urban Debate League; “Argumentation and Debate: Critical Thinking for Reasoned Decisonmaking” pg 271; 13th
Edition, Wadsworth; 2005; accessed 07/05/2015;
<https://books.google.com/books?id=CC6urxsG4H4C&lpg=PR10&dq=argumentation%20and%20debate%20critical%20thinking%20for%20reas
oned%20decisionmaking&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false>.]
4.Counterplans and Fiat. It
is generally (but not universally) accepted that negatives have some ability to assume fiat for
implementation of their counterplans. One approach to negative fiat is to assume that it is reciprocal: If the affirmative
can fiat federal government action, so can the negative. Another is to assume that the negative's fiat ground is based in
alternative agents: If the affirmative uses the federal government, the negative can use the states or the United Nations. Remember that fiat
is not a magic wand, that fiat must assume some normal means of implementation, and that one cannot fiat
workability.
It’s a voter – no way the affirmative can prepare to debate a counterplan with no
literature base. Predictability is the only way we can ensure debates with sufficient
clash for in depth education
Solvency
Say No
Polls aren’t trustworthy metrics – sample size, obscured source, leading questions,
biased additional information, limited choices, misleading representations of results,
changing opinion, and tendency to avoid commitment
Messerli 12 [Joe Messerli, degree in Finance from University of Wisconsin, auditor for National Audit; “Why Polls Shouldn’t Be Used To
Make Decisions”; 01/07/2012; accessed 07/03/2015; <http://www.balancedpolitics.org/editorial-the_case_against_polls.htm>.] *Evidence has
been gender modified
Is this a good thing? To a certain extent, yes, it is. After all, a politician is specifically elected to represent a collection of people. Who would
want an official in government who never listens to the people? Polls are a way to make the voice of the individual citizen heard. Unfortunately,
things aren't all that simple. Polls
are inherently bad vehicles for making a decision. Although they should always be taken
have limited
usefulness. Poll Results Aren't Always Reliable Polls can be inaccurate for a number of reasons: Samples can be too
small in size or unrepresentative of the population It's normally too expensive or time-consuming to survey everyone in population; thus, we
must rely on samples to gauge the opinions of everyone. A reliable, scientific poll questions a large enough sample of
into consideration, polls are a very poor way to determine the correct course of action. Let's examine the reasons polls
people to ensure statistical accuracy and includes a representative selection of respondents. Thus, a poll designed to represent American public
opinion wouldn't be very reliable if it only included 10 people or included only white males. It's
rare that news reports will mention
details of the information sample or how the survey was conducted. Viewers and readers usually just
take the poll results as fact. For example, what if I reported a poll that said 96 percent of Americans are pro-choice? This obviously
doesn't reflect American public opinion, but if the source was a survey of the feminist magazine Bitch readers, the results would be
understandable. A
clever or sloppy journalist can obscure the source and portray public opinion in an inaccurate
way. Think about all the polls that are done today and how easy results can become unrepresentative. Web polls exclude people
without web access and those who don't visit that particular site. Polls also exclude those that don't have the time or
interest to respond. Think about TV polls. Fox generally has more conservative viewers; CNN generally has more liberal viewers. Thus,
their polls results may be skewed to the conservative or liberal side regardless of the issue. The chances for error or
bias are endless. Polls can ask leading questions Questions can be worded in a way that leads a respondent to an
answer that may or may not reflect his their true feelings. For example, I could ask the question "Do you want to stop the
war in Iraq so the lives of innocent civilians can be spared?" Virtually every American wants to prevent innocent loss of life, so many
respondents may answer yes to this question, even if they think the war is morally just. But reporters summarizing the results may say "...95
percent of respondents answered yes when asked if they wanted to stop the war". The
questioner can also surround the
question with information that biases the answer. For example, "Seventy percent of homeless shelter residents are single
mothers and their children. Should the next fiscal budget include an increase in funds to local shelters?" Respondents may believe the money is
better spent on other areas, but the extra
information points people in the direction of one answer. Polls can omit
answers, leading to either-or answers that don't reflect reality Answers to poll questions are
often more complicated that yes-no or among a small list of choices. For example, a poll may ask "Do you support a war with Iran?" The only
choices may be yes or no. But many people may say "Yes, but only if they are making nuclear weapons" or "Yes, but only if it is
some of the possible
sanctioned by the U.N." Another example is a consumer confidence question that asks, "Do you consider yourself rich or poor?" Many people
will want to answer something in between, but that isn't a choice. People
recording survey results may be dishonest or
sloppy in recording results Whether the poll is done in person, by phone, by mail, or by web, a human being usually has to eventually
tally & report the results. That causes problems for two reasons. One, a human is prone to mistakes. If you're tallying thousands of
responses, you're bound to make mistakes. Even if a computer handles the tally, computers are still programmed by humans.
Second, the person may be dishonest and wants to achieve a certain result. For example, assume I'm a passionate advocate for
banning the death penalty and am taking a phone survey. A strong poll result showing the public in favor of a death-penalty ban may convince
some politicians to take action. When taking a poll, it's easy for me to put some extra chalk marks in the anti-death penalty column even when
people are answering pro-death penalty in the phone calls. Eventually, I may just achieve the poll result that I want. Poll
results can be
presented in a misleading way Most news stories don't present the raw data behind a poll and let you draw
your own conclusion. Instead, the results will be presented in summary format as part of an analysis article. For example, a poll
question may ask "Do you support military action to unseat the Islamic fundamentalist regime of Iran (Yes | No | Unsure)?" The raw data result
may be: 29 percent support, 28 percent oppose, 43 percent unsure. The correct conclusion to draw from this poll is that the public generally
hasn't made up its mind or needs more information. However, a biased reporter may selectively draw from the results and give the wrong
impression. For example, "The idea of military action against Iran is increasingly unpopular. A recent poll concluded that only 29 percent
support action, handcuffing the hawks of the Bush administration." Even if polls are scientifically accurate and are done by unbiased, profession
polling organizations, there are still other problems that make polls unreliable. Results Change Daily Depending on the Latest News, Speeches,
Moods, Etc. Public opinion follows a cyclical flow depending on the latest current events and mood of the public. If you took a poll on
9/12/2001 asking what the President's primary concern should be, over 90 percent of the public would answer the War on Terror. If you asked
the same question now, the War on Terror would likely finish behind the health care, energy prices, and the economy. This is just one example
of how public opinion changes constantly. The presidential approval rating almost always will spike up in the aftermath of war or
after a State of the Union address. After a particularly bad weekend in the Iraq invasion in which several servicemen were captured, a
helicopter crash occurred, and a few dirty Iraqi tactics resulted in American deaths, polls showed that almost 60 percent of the public thought
the initial phase of the war would last over three months (it actually took 3 weeks). It's pretty clear that you
can't depend on public
opinion polls to make decisions when opinions are so wide and fleeting. The Toughest Decisions are the Easiest to
Put Off Most human beings are notorious procrastinators. Facing challenges or change is never easy. When decisions are too
difficult to decide, the easiest thing to do is ignore it, hoping it will go away, or leave it for someone else. All things being
equal, people will usually take the safer decision or the one that results in the least immediate sacrifice.
Most public opinion polls around the world showed a firm anti-Iraq war opinion even among people who thought Saddam would have to be
dealt with sooner or later. The choice came down to whether we deal with the hardship & risk now or do we deal with it later. Naturally, most
people chose later. Politicians are especially prone to putting off tough decisions since it usually doesn't hurt their campaign to do nothing, but
it may destroy their political careers if they make a choice and it turns out to be wrong. Think of all the other tough decisions facing us. Do we
remove affirmative action policies? A politician may feel the removal is the best thing to do for the country, but any such removal would likely
alienate black voters; thus, he they puts off the decision. Any tough action is going to be vocally opposed by a portion of the public. The
courageous politician is one who will act. Leaders Influence Public Opinion Political leaders shouldn't depend entirely on polls since they
themselves have a significant impact on it. During the Iraq war debate, Tony Blair faced polls showing almost 85 percent opposed the war
without UN approval. However, he steadfastly stuck to his guns, never wavering in his support. By the time the war had started, 50-60 percent
of the public backed him. Before President Bush gave his UN speech advocating the return of weapons inspectors, only 40 percent of the public
backed a war in Iraq. By the start of the war, over 70 percent of Americans supported it. On the flip side, war opposition continued to increase
in countries such as France and Germany. Not coincidentally, their leaders were vocally opposed to the war. National leaders receive loads of
attention. When they persuasively get their message out, public opinion polls can change dramatically. Clearly, they shouldn't depend on polls
given before a case has been made. The Public May Not Have All the Information that the Government Does It seems self-evident that a person
should collect all relevant information before making a decision. That said, how many people who vote in public opinion polls have all the
relevant information? How many have researched the issue and weighed all arguments for and against? How many have the historical,
scientific, political, and economic background knowledge? How many know of the behind-the-scenes political dealings and classified
intelligence? The answer to these questions is probably very few. Consider the Iraq war debate. Over 40 percent of the American public
couldn't identify Iraq on a world map before the debate started. Most didn't know (and still don't know) the history of Saddam, the Iran-Iraq
War, the first Persian Gulf War, the gassing of the Kurds, the former weapons inspectors, etc. The government also had plenty of sensitive
intelligence information including weapons of mass destruction, terrorist connections, and Saddam's atrocities. Although a sizeable minority of
people devoted the time to diligently study the issue and come to an intelligent decision, most Americans were basing their decisions on such
things as whether or not they were Republican or Democrat. As the opening quote illustrates, making decisions based on polls is based on the
collective ignorance of the population. Opinions of
the Public Aren't Always the Correct Ones Perhaps the greatest
reason decisions shouldn't be based on public opinion polls is that the general public is often outright
wrong. The vast majority of Germans supported the Nazis prior to World War II. Were their opinions correct? The vast majority of colonial
Americans thought blacks weren't much different from animals. Prior to the 1970s, the majority of psychologists thought homosexuality was a
psychological disorder; it even was classified in their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychological Disorders. I'm willing to bet that less
than 10 percent of Americans would have answered 'yes' to the question "Is Islamic terrorism a significant threat to national security?" on
9/10/2001. Clearly, there
are too many factors left to chance when a politician depends on public opinion
polls. The 9/11 carnage and the dancing celebration of liberated Iraqis have shown us that we need leaders who will put their political careers
on the line to do what's right. The very definition of a leader is one who will do what he or she they knows is right, no matter what the election
impact. A leader's relevant decision makers should be his their heart and mind, not his their political consultants and Gallup polls readouts.
No solvency – The public says no – Special interest groups use fear tactics to
manipulate voters.
Rourke et al. 1992
John, University of Connecticut, Richard Hiskes, and Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh, Direct Democracy and International Politics, pg. 58-59
A terrifying variant of this general argument made by Magleby is provided by Bachrach, who says his personal political theorizing is strongly
democratic. He believes that Americans
today are inadequately experienced in making decisions about
complicated policies and argues that referendums are most likely to occur when selfish minorities that have
money, organization, and rhetorical skills enlist the support of large majorities through "hate"
campaigns that play upon the majorities' unreasoned fears. Bachrach contends that recent domestic
referendums on busing, pornography, and abortion illustrate just how manipulative referendums can
be.5 One can easily extend Bachrach's argument to the realm of foreign policy, saying that today's
international-issue referendums are tools of well-organized and well-financed groups trying to
manipulate everyday voters on issues where their emotions run high and their knowledge is low. Such
issues might include foreign aid, support for the United Nations, escalation of defense expenditures, and undertaking "winnable" wars.
1AR Say No
---Independently, elite manipulation of the referendum process destroys direct
democracy.
Martin 1996
Brian, Democracy without Elections, Social Anarchism, Number 21, 1995-96, pp. 18-51.
In practice, referendums have been only supplements to a policy process based on elected representatives. But it is possible to conceive of a
vast expansion of the use of referendums, especially by use of computer technology [14]. Some exponents propose a future in which each
household television system is hooked up with equipment for direct electronic voting. The case for and against a referendum proposal would
be broadcast, followed by a mass vote. What could be more democratic? Unfortunately there are some serious flaws in such proposals. These
go deeper than the problems of media manipulation, involvement by big-spending vested interests, and the worries by experts and elites that
the public will be irresponsible in direct voting. A
major problem is the setting of the agenda for the referendum.
Who decides the questions? Who decides what material is broadcast for and against a particular question? Who decides the
wider context of voting? The fundamental issue concerning setting of the agenda is not simply bias. It is
a question of participation. Participation in decision-making means not just voting on predesigned
questions, but participation in the formulation of which questions are put to a vote. This is something which is
not easy to organise when a million people are involved, even with the latest electronics. It is a basic limitation of referendums.
The key to this limitation of referendums is the presentation of a single choice to a large number of voters. Even when some citizens
are involved in developing the question, as in the cases of referendums based on the process of citizen
initiative, most people have no chance to be involved in more than a yes-no capacity. The opportunity to recast
the question in the light of discussion is not available.
1AR A2: Polls
---General preferences don’t translate into approval.
Magleby 1994
David, prof. at Brigham Young Univ, “Direct Legislation in the American States,” Referendums Around the World, p. 256
Much of the battle of direct legislation is definition: which side can more effectively define the issue for
voters in ways they will understand and remember. This often means that the campaign on an initiative focuses on only one
part of the actual proposal. It is therefore problematic to conclude that the vote on a particular initiative or
referendum reflects an understanding of the issue more broadly defined. The American system, reflecting
the antirepresentative views of the Progressives, allows voters to vote on the text of laws rather than on general
policy questions. As a result, voters may prefer a policy but reject an initiative that embodies that policy.
---Polls don’t predict ballot-box results --- Campaigns and consequences change minds.
Butler & Ranney 1994
David, American Enterprise Institute and Austin, prof. emeritus @ UC Berkeley, Referendums Around the World, “Theory,” p. 262
These outcomes militate against the contention that opinion polls offer an economical substitute for referendums. Opinion polls do offer a
continuous measure of public opinion on major issues. But many
people vote differently when faced with a choice of
government in a general election from the way they vote in a by-election, when only a single seat is at stake and the
voters can send a message to elected leaders without going so far as to remove them from office. Similarly, voters may say one
thing to a pollster when they know what they say will not have any real-life consequences, but they may
well say another at the end of a serious referendum campaign, when they know that the outcome will
control what government does or refrains from doing.
Delay
Direct democracy causes overwhelming delays
Maduz 2010
Linda, University of Zurich, Center for International and Comparative Studies, Direct Democracy, Living Reviews in Democracy,
http://democracy.livingreviews.org/index.php/lrd/article/viewFile/lrd-2010-1/21
Studies concluding that direct democracy has an overall beneficial effect on a country’s economy are challenged by scholars, such as Borner and
Rentsch (1997) whose research focuses on direct democracy’s effects on economic growth. According to their
theoretical argumentation and empirical findings, direct
democratic instruments compromise the conditions that
allow an economy to grow successfully. The existence of a direct democratic system would have a
negative impact on a country’s capacity to innovate and to adapt to changing circumstances; it would give interest
groups the power to slow down reform processes and may even enable them to render a coherent and
consistent strategy impossible. In this perspective, direct democracy is presented as a danger for stable, foreseeable framework
conditions. The primacy of popular sovereignty would lead to arbitrariness in state actions, and hinder the
political system in the setting of clear priorities. The uncertainty related to such a political system would
also negatively impact on a country’s external relations – another factor considered to be vital for the
prosperity of a country’s economy. As a particularly striking example in this context Borner and Rentsch cite Switzerland’s rejection
of entering the European Economic Area in 1992, which, according to them, can be traced back to the country’s institutional setting, i.e.
Switzerland’s direct democratic system.
Rollback
Binding referendums are unconstitutional and will be rolled-back.
Duvivier 2006
KK, assoc. prof. @ Univ. of Denver College of Law, THE UNITED STATES AS A DEMOCRATIC IDEAL? INTERNATIONAL LESSONS IN REFERENDUM
DEMOCRACY, Legal Research Paper Series, Working Paper No. 07-13, http://ssrn.com/abstract= 960319
A.
Constitutional Prohibitions Against Binding Referendums A
system that would permit citizens to pass binding
referendums would not pass constitutional muster absent an amendment to the Constitution.
The Constitution provides no express mechanism for these types of initiatives. Such an approach also conflicts directly with the
method of government ensconced in the Constitution.302 To become law, both the House and the Senate must pass proposed
legislation, and the President must sign it into law. A mandatory referendum presumably would bypass this process and circumvent
congressional and presidential approval. Past
efforts to “end-run” the President’s power to veto legislation
have not fared well. In INS v. Chadha,303 the United States Supreme Court declared that unilateral action by the House of
Representatives could not invalidate decisions by the Executive Branch.304 Such a “one-House veto” is unconstitutional, the Court
reasoned, because “the prescription for legislative action in Art. I, §§ 1, 7, represents the Framers’ decision that the legislative power
of the Federal Government be exercised in accord with a single, finely wrought and exhaustively considered, procedure.”305
Similarly, the Supreme Court has invalidated efforts to diminish Congress’s role in the legislative
process. In Clinton v. New York,306 the Supreme Court concluded that the Line Item Veto had the “legal and practical effect” of
allowing the President to repeal portions of legislation without following the constitutional procedure of vetoing an entire bill.307
Consequently, the Court concluded “that the Act’s cancellation provisions violate Article I, § 7, of the Constitution.”308 Also,
because the Line Item Veto Act does not follow “the ‘finely wrought’ procedure commanded by the Constitution,” the Court did not
find it necessary to address “the District Court’s alternative holding that the Act ‘impermissibly disrupts the balance of powers
among the three branches of government.’”309 A mandatory
citizen referendum, therefore, likely would
meet the same fate at the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court. To the extent such a referendum mandated the
adoption of legislation and sidestepped both Congress and the President, Chadha and Clinton strongly indicate such a measure
would not survive constitutional scrutiny.
Referendums fail – history of courts overturning depresses confidence in democratic
ideals
Magleby 98 [David B. Magleby; professor of Political Science at Brigham University; “Ballot Initiatives and Intergovernmental Relations
in the United States” pg 151-152; The State of American Federalism Vol 28 No 1; Winter 1998; accessed 07/01/2015;
<http://mavdisk.mnsu.edu/parsnk/2011-12/Pol680-fall11/POL%20680%20readings/direct%20democracy%20wk%209/ballot%20initiatives.pdf>.]
Successful initiatives
face another high hurdle prior to implementation: an almost certain constitutional
challenge. State courts are often first involved in adjudicating disputes concerning the electoral rules of direct legislation.'6 The Progressives
were so distrustful of intermediary institutions that they minimized the role of elected officials in overseeing the process. Hence, disputes about
signature collection and verification, ballot title and summary, and subject-matter limitations are routinely referred to state courts.17 State
courts also regularly rule on the constitutionality of successful initiatives. State and federal courts have often
overturned a vote of the people on either state or federal constitutional grounds. The legal challenge to
successful initiatives generally arises immediately after the election and can delay implementation of an
initiative for years. The willingness of the state and federal judiciaries to invalidate initiatives has generated
controversy. In California, the frequency of the state supreme court's rejection of initiatives played a role in defeating Chief Justice Rose
Bird and two associate justices in a judicial retention election in 1986. Because the federal judiciary is more independent, UCLA law
professorJulian N. Eule believes the federaljudiciary should decide the constitutionality of initiatives.'8 Others contend that fear of defeat
injudicial retention elections means state court judges are less inclined to declare entire initiatives unconstitutional, opting instead to invalidate
only parts of the measures. The
willingness of federal courts to overturn state initiatives on U.S.
Constitutional grounds is an important manifestation of federalism. This assertion of federal constitutional
supremacy over the vote of the people was expressed forcefully in the landmark 1964 California openhousing initiative decision. The U.S. Supreme Court and the California Supreme Court agreed that the proposition violated the equal
protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.20 Chief Justice Warren Burger observed: "It is irrelevant that the voters
rather than a legislative body enact [this law] because the voters may no more violate the Constitution
by enacting a ballot measure than a legislative body may do so by enacting legislation."21 Federal courts have struck down successful
initiatives on the death penalty, abortion, homosexual rights, term limits, physician-assisted suicide, and illegal immigration. Criticism
of
federal judicial review has been expressed in the two most recent Congresses where legislation passed in the
House in 1995 to require that any challenge to a statewide referendum should be referred to a panel of three judges not one.22 There has even
been some skirmishing between appellate and district courts in the federal system. A three-judge appellate
panel wrote against a
federal district judge who enjoined Proposition 209 (affirmative action): "A system which permits one judge to block with a
stroke of the pen what 4,736,180 [actually 5, 268,462] state residents voted to enact as law tests the integrity of
our constitutional democracy."23
1AR Constitutional Rollback
---Cp is unconstitutional & gets rolled back.
Duvivier 2006
KK, assoc. prof. @ Univ. of Denver College of Law, THE UNITED STATES AS A DEMOCRATIC IDEAL? INTERNATIONAL LESSONS IN REFERENDUM
DEMOCRACY, Legal Research Paper Series, Working Paper No. 07-13, http://ssrn.com/abstract= 960319
Citizen participation in national affairs through referendums has a long tradition in Europe, and the trend toward allowing participation keeps
increasing worldwide. Nevertheless, the United States, once a leader in the concept of democracy, has fallen behind and now rests as one of
only four major democracies in the world that have never held a nationwide referendum.300 Implementing
a system of
mandatory citizen-initiated referendums could not survive constitutional challenge in the United States.
The efforts of the Founding Fathers to devise a government with limited direct democracy effectively
blocked efforts in this direction. Nonetheless, an avenue for direct democracy remains available. Under the Petition Clause of the
First Amendment, the United States could institute, without amending the Constitution, a system of citizen-initiated nonbinding
referendums.301
Delay
History proves national referenda are impossible – 108 failed proposals, too radical,
no precedent for amending the constitution, and unbalances Federal v. State power
Polhill 14 [Dennis Polhill, Senior Fellow in Public Infrastructure at the Independence Institute writing on the role of democracy in the
United States; “The Issue of a National Initiative Process”; Initiative & Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California; ©2014;
accessed 07/07/2015; <http://www.iandrinstitute.org/National%20I&R.htm>.]
At the Congressional level, between 1895 and 1943, 108 proposals to amend the U.S. Constitution by
adding national I&R were submitted. Seven would have created a general I&R, that would have allowed for consideration of any
issue. The others created I&R for specific issues only or that had issue-specific prohibitions. For example, Abourezk would not permit the
declaring of war, calling up troops, or amending the constitution and would permit statutory modifications by Congress with a two-thirds
majority or simple majority after two years. Implementation
of national I&R is more complicated in the U.S. than in
other nations due to the unique Constitutional division of responsibilities between the Federal and State
governments. In most countries, governments are centralized to either a greater or lesser extent. Other variations of national I&R that
have been proposed in the U.S. include: The first proposal for national I&R was in 1895 by Populist Party U.S. Senator William Peffer from
Kansas. It provided for a national vote on an issue when 20% of voters nationwide or 20% of state legislatures requested it. In 1907 U.S.
Representative Elmer Lincoln Fulton from Oklahoma suggested that 8% of the voters in each of 15 states could put either a constitutional
amendment or statute proposal to a national vote or that 5% of the voters in each of 15 states or their state legislatures could challenge a
statute passed by Congress. In 1911 Senator Bristow from Kansas proposed that
the Initiative be used to reign in the
court. Any law held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court would go to a vote of the people. This was the
first proposal for using I&R as the method by which to reconcile conflicts between the equal branches of the Federal government. Socialist
Party U.S. Representative Victor Berger of Wisconsin introduced the most radical proposal ever. It would
have abolished the
Presidency, the Senate and the Supreme Court. Five percent of the voters in three-fourths of the state could propose a law or
challenge a law passed by Congress. U.S. Senator Bob La Follette from Wisconsin in 1916 proposed a non-binding national
advisory referendum that would be held when 1% of the voters in 25 states petitioned. The National
approach would require some percentage (usually in the range of 3%) of voters nationwide to sign a
petition. Because elections are managed by the states and there are no national voter rolls or other election
systems, leaving states out of the process would require changes in election management. Nullification advocates in the 1980s and 1990s
suggested that Federal statutes should go to a nationwide vote when 10% of the voters in 1/3 of the states sign a petition challenging it.
Nullification proposals were in reaction to “unfunded mandates” and directives imposed upon the states by Congress. A nullification
mechanism would effectively be a national application of the referendum petition or challenge petition.
Even if Congress did propose an amendment, chances of passage are low, time
consuming, and undercut democracy
Gorham 11 [Will S. Gorham, news researcher and online editor, former staffer in the United States Senate; “Of 11,000 attempts to
amend U.S. Constitution, only 27 amendments have passed”; Politifact; 08/30/2011; accessed 07/07/2015; <http://www.politifact.com/trutho-meter/statements/2011/aug/30/xavier-becerra/11000-attempts-amend-us-constitution-only-27-amend/>.]
Amendments can be proposed two ways: in Congress or by a national convention assembled at the request of the
two-thirds of the states legislatures. The national convention approach has been attempted twice but has never been
successful. So the successful amendments have all originated in Congress. And according to a congressional tally,
Becerra is just about right on target: Congress has considered "approximately 11,372 amendments" from 1789 through
December 31, 2008, the most recent tally available, according to the Statistics and Lists section of the United States Senate website. Why is it
"approximately" 11,372? The site says that's because of a number of factors, including inadequate indexing of legislation in the early years of
Congress. Of
those 11,372 proposed amendments, only 27 have been approved by Congress and ratified by the
states. Why such a low success rate? Senate Historian Donald Ritchie told us that amending the Constitution is "an extremely
complicated process" and an amendment "essentially only gets adopted when there’s a broad national
consensus on the issue." University of Pennsylvania law professor Kermit Roosevelt agreed, noting that "the founders wanted
the bar set high because they believed that most issues should be left to the ordinary political process. A
constitutional amendment takes an issue away from the normal process of democratic politics , quite likely
forever. So it makes sense to require an extraordinary consensus to resolve it permanently." Most proposals aren’t inspired by a broad
national consensus, however. The motivation for introducing a constitutional amendment is often political. "Every
time the Supreme Court makes a ruling some member of Congress doesn’t like, someone pushes for a constitutional amendment on the
matter," Ritchie told us. For example, the day after the Supreme Court ruled flag burning to be protected speech in 1989, U.S. Rep. Michael
Bilirakis, R-Fla., introduced an amendment outlawing desecration of the flag. Amendments to ban flag burning have been introduced in every
session of Congress since, spanning more than two decades. Many amendments are introduced many times. An amendment defining marriage
as between one man and one woman has been introduced numerous times in the last decade, including four times in a single session of
Congress. Some are introduced many times but with variations. Following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, members of Congress
introduced amendments that would provide for the continuity of Congress in the event of a sudden mass vacancy in the Capitol. The
amendments varied on what constituted that "mass vacancy" and how replacement lawmakers would be chosen. None of the amendments
passed. Back to Becerra. He was correct that only a tiny percentage of amendments ultimately
He said 11,000; the official count puts the number at approximately 11,372. That's close enough to earn a True.
pass and are ratified.
Experts Key
Only experts have the capability to understand rapidly changing technology relevant
to surveillance and understand intelligence gathering and law enforcement missions
with a comprehensive background
Clarke et. al 13 [Richard A. Clarke, former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism for the
United States; Michael J. Morell, former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, serving as acting director twice in 2011 and from
2012-2013; Geoffrey R. Stone, American law professor at U Chicago’s Law School and noted First Amendment scholar.; Cass R. Sunstein,
American legal scholar, particularly in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and law and behavioral
economics; Peter Swire, Nancy J. and Lawrence P. Huang Professor in the Scheller College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Technology
and internationally recognized expert in privacy law; Report and Recommendations of The President’s Review Group on Intelligence and
Communications Technologies; “Liberty and Security in a Changing World” pg 120-121; 12/12/2013; accessed 07/07/2015;
<https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2013-12-12_rg_final_report.pdf>.]
We recommend that the
government should commission a study of the legal and policy options for assessing the
include technological experts and persons
with a diverse range of perspectives, including experts about the missions of intelligence and law
enforcement agencies and about privacy and civil liberties. Are there any circumstances in which the government should
distinction between metadata and other types of information. The study should
be permitted to collect and retain meta-data in which it could not collect and retain other information? One question concerns the meaning of
“metadata.” In the telephony context, “meta-data” refers to technical information about the phone numbers, routing information, duration of
the call, time of the call, and so forth. It does not include information about the contents of the call. In the e-mail context, “meta-data” refers to
the “to” and “from” lines in the e-mail and technical details about the e-mail, but not the subject line or the content. The
assumption
behind the argument that
meta-data is meaningfully different from other information is that the collection of metaquestionable. In a world of ever
more complex technology, it is increasingly unclear whether the distinction between “meta-data” and
other information carries much weight.120 The quantity and variety of meta-data have increased. In contrast to the telephone
data does not seriously invade individual privacy. As we have seen, however, that assumption is
call records at issue in the 1979 case of Smith v. Maryland, 121 today’s mobile phone calls create meta-data about a person’s location. Social
networks provide constant updates about who is communicating with whom, and that information is considered meta-data rather than
content. E-mails, texts, voice-over-IP calls, and other forms of electronic communication have multiplied. For Internet communications in
general, the shift to the IPv6 protocol is well under way. When complete, web communications will include roughly 200 data fields, in addition
to the underlying content. Although
the legal system has been slow to catch up with these major changes in
meta-data, it may well be that, as a practical matter, the distinction itself should be discarded. The
question about how to govern content and meta-data merits further study. Such a study should draw
on the insights of technologists, due to the central role of changing technology. Economists and other social
scientists should help assess the costs and benefits of alternative approaches. The study should include diverse persons, with a
range of perspectives about the mission of intelligence and law enforcement agencies and also with expertise
with respect to privacy and civil liberties.
No Turnout
The U.S. has a referendum turn out problem – can’t gather enough participation until
the 2016 election, and voters will fail to cast a vote on the referendum, at best a
solvency deficit and at worst a takeout
Le Duc 6 [Lawrence LeDuc, political science professor at the University of Toronto; “Referendums and Deliberative Democracy” pg 19-20;
prepared for presentation at the International Political Science Association World Congress; 07/09/2006; accessed 07/06/2015;
<http://paperroom.ipsa.org/papers/paper_5268.pdf>.]
Turnout tends to fluctuate more widely in referendums than it does in national elections. In general, it tends to be
lower, but can sometimes rise to much higher levels when a particular issue engages wide voter interest or when a more intense campaign is
waged by interested groups. When turnout is low, the ability to mobilize one’s own supporters counts for more.
When it rises, it is generally because the issue itself is perceived as an important one for most voters, sometimes generating new sources of
participation. Some important referendums in which turnout registered higher than that of a comparable national election are the 1994 EU
membership referendum in Norway, both Quebec sovereignty referendums, the 1992 Canadian constitutional referendum, and the Danish and
Swedish referendums on the Euro (table 6). But there are also several cases in which turnout was very low in comparison with the levels
generally obtained in elections. The Spanish referendum on the EU constitution drew a participation of only 42 percent of the electorate – 35
percentage points lower than in the general election of the pervious year. Turnout in both Irish referendums on the Nice treaty was very low in
comparison with national elections, and the low turnout of only 35 percent of voters in the first (2001) referendum was widely blamed for the
defeat of the treaty. Polls in the run-up to the referendum shown a majority of the Irish public in support of the treaty. But the combination of
low levels of information regarding its content, a lackluster campaign, and widespread disinterest 20 in the vote combined to defeat it. Turnout
is often also low in Swiss initiative and referendum votes, sometimes even falling below 40 percent. But turnout also tends to be low in Swiss
elections, and referendum participation is frequently higher than electoral participation, depending on the salience of the particular issue being
considered. In the case of the 2002 initiative on UN membership, for example, turnout was a full 13 percent higher than in the federal assembly
election held the following year. It was also higher than that recorded for any other initiative votes held in 2002, which ranged as low as 42
percent in the vote on two other items held only three months later (table 2). Turnout
is also a serious problem in many of
the initiative and referendum votes held in the U.S. states. Typically, such items appear on an electoral ballot
together with a vote for other public offices. But the turnout then depends largely on the election in which the
vote is occurring, and not on the propositions per se. Because turnout in U.S. presidential elections tends to be higher than in
off year or state elections, items that appear on a presidential ballot achieve higher levels of participation. In the
two California examples considered here (see table 3), the basic turnout of voters in the 2004 presidential election in the state was 57 percent,
compared to 36 percent in the 2002 election when seven propositions were on the ballot together with state and Congressional offices. But
turnout on U.S. ballot propositions must also be measured in terms of the total vote cast on the specific
item, rather than as a percentage of those going to the polls, since many voters will fail to vote on some
or all of the propositions appearing on the ballot. A “drop-off” of as much as ten percent is fairly typical,
but for some propositions it can be much higher. In the 2002 vote for example, the total vote cast on the court consolidation
proposal (proposition 48) was 14 percentage points lower than in the election as a whole, meaning that only 22 percent of the eligible
California electorate cast a vote on this item. Although 73 percent voted YES on proposition 48, it can nevertheless be said that this decision
was effectively made by only 16 percent of eligible California voters.
Precedents
Their evidence creates democracy in the context of long term referendum use. The
counterplan can only fiat one referendum, not long term referendum use.
Net Benefits
2AC A2: Direct Democracy Impact
---National referendums don’t result in direct democracy
(A.) Party politics.
Cox, Their Author, 2012
William John, retired police officer, prosecutor, public interest lawyer, author and political activist, A Peaceful Political Evolution,
http://thevoters.org/
As effective as a national referendum may be to establish government policy, little good will come of it unless
those we elect are forced to pay attention to our interests and to actually carry out our policies. As it is,
presidential candidates say one thing and do another to the extent they believe they can get away with it,
and because of party politics, we keep getting stuck with having to decide upon the lesser of two evils.
(B.) Low voter turnout.
Landow 2011
Charles, associate director of the Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations, Direct Democracy and Its
Dangers, http://www.cfr.org/democracy-and-human-rights/direct-democracy-its-dangers/p23763
But popular
policymaking has significant drawbacks. First, an initiative said to be approved by "the people"
might well be approved by only a small percentage. The recent Swiss initiative on expelling criminals, for example, passed
with 52.9 percent of the vote in a referendum with 52.6 percent turnout. Of course, the same thing happens in elections, and this is a
serious shortcoming -- but it is all the more damaging for popular referendums given the common
assumption that direct democracy conveys the people's views.
(C.) Discursive barriers.
Hendriks 2009
Carolyn M., Crawford School of Economics and Government @ Australia National University, Securing public legitimacy for long-term energy
reforms, PUBLIC POLICY NETWORK CONFERENCETHE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, CANBERRA29-30 JANUARY
These proposals offer useful options for how to improve the legitimacy (and accountability)of governing long term energy reforms. There
are, however, some particular challenges with these ‘democratic solutions’, most notably the difficulties in
determining and incorporating the views of those potentially affected by policies, such as futuregenerations.
Further, when there are varying degrees of affectedness, should those mostaffected have more say, and if so, who determines degree of
affectedness? Perhaps
the most serious limitation of these democratic strategies is their feasibility in any
given policy context. In my empirical work of the Netherlands I have found that it is often the discursive barriers that
influence the extent to which democratic matters are taken into consideration in energy reforms, for
example negative ideas on the public’s capacity and willingness to engage in policy issues (Hendriks 2009b).
2AC A2: Direct Democracy First
---Direct democracy has no intrinsic benefit --- Democratic participation cannot be
separated from larger assessment of aggregate consequences.
Budge 1996
Ian, Prof @ U. of Essex, The New Challenge of Direct Democracy, p. 34
Proponents of participation on the other hand have tended to feel that once the moral case for it was made - and it is,
probably, unanswerable - this was all they had to do. But in a multi-valued world where stability, order and justice
might be argued to be the first concerns of the State, the effects of unlimited participation on these and
other values have to be weighed up. This is what critics of direct democracy have done when they have
ventured beyond their opening feasibility gambit. And they have a point. If participation, however
valuable in itself, has negative effects on other values, then it may need to be limited to secure a
balance of benefits. Whether this is in fact the case we shall see in the following chapters.
Democracy
Referendums are tools of the elite which advance discriminatory and nationalist
policies – empirics prove
Koinova 14 [Dr. Maria Koinova, Associate Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick; “Referendums: A
Legitimate Democratic Tools or a Mechanism for Nationalist Cooptation[sic]?”; Research on South Eastern Europe; 06/08/2014; accessed
07/06/2015; <http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsee/2014/06/08/referendums-a-legitimate-democratic-tool-or-a-mechanism-for-nationalist-cooptation/>.]
This is an indisputably wide range of using referendums to legitimate
policies. But how democratically legitimate are
such policies indeed? As a tool of direct democracy – in contrast to representative democracy – referendums are
considered highly authoritative because they allow for an unmediated expression of the popular will. But, as
Qvortrup (2014) argues, referendums are considered legitimate, when the rules of their engagement are negotiated
between the stakeholders in advance, and the referendum is conducted afterwards. This was definitely not the
case in the recent referendums in Ukraine, nor in other historical cases, when benign and not-so-benign autocrats – threatened domestically or
internationally – have used referendums to justify their policies. At the end of the Soviet Union the communist
leader Michael
Gorbachev resorted to the use of referendum, as did nationalist leaders of the disintegrating Yugoslavia. I take this discussion
further and focus particularly on the relationship between referendum and liberal democracy. In the past decade
and especially after the economic crisis hit Europe and other parts of the world, anti-migrant and anti-minority sentiments
have been growing, and populist and ultranationalist parties have been thriving. Operating in political systems
with no viable alternative to democracy, such nationalist and exclusivist groups have been adapting to
the established democratic “rules of the game,” and seeking to co-opt them. They have been using the procedure of
referendum, or the threat of a referendum, to justify their nationalist goals. In the processes, they have been
undermining liberal democracy. Let me demonstrate this argument by way of some examples. In my recently published book
“Ethnonationalist Conflict in Postcommunist States” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), I discuss the role of the Macedonian diaspora,
primarily from Australia, which inaugurated a civic referendum together with the Macedonian nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party in 2004. They
wanted to oppose the decentralization reforms aimed at giving more self-government rights to the minority Albanians in Macedonia. The
referendum asked voters whether they supported a proposal to retain the municipal boundaries existing before the Ohrid Framework
Agreement which put an end to the brief 2001 internal warfare between Albanian guerrillas and the Macedonian army. The EU and the US put
enormous efforts to keep the voters away from the polls. The EU launched a massive public campaign linking nonparticipation in the
referendum with commitment to EU integration. The US provided a highly tangible benefit by recognizing the country with its constitutionally
proclaimed name. The referendum went ahead, but gathered only 27% turnout, and eventually failed. Thus, the ruling coalition was further
enabled to introduce decentralization reforms. The EU exerted similar pressure to prevent the conduct of a referendum in Republika Srpska, a
constitutive part of Bosnia-Herzergovina. Milorad Dodik, Republika Srpska’s President, called in 2011 for the inauguration of a
referendum “to reject Bosnia’s state war crimes court and special prosecutor’s office established in 2005 by international decree.” This
presented one of the most serious crises that Bosnia-Herzegovina experienced with the EU after the Dayton Peace Accords (1995), since
the referendum attempted to roll back the existing democratic achievements. If the referendum were in fact
conducted, it would have resulted in heavy EU sanctions towards Republika Srpska, as the High Representative to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Valentin
Inzko, claimed. In my book I also discuss the highly controversial role of the ultra-nationalist party Ataka in Bulgaria, especially in exacerbating
ethnic tensions and attacking Muslims and ethnic Turks. Former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, of the populist Citizens for the European
Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party, who depended until July 2011 on Ataka’s parliamentary support for his government, agreed easily to a
2009 proposition of Ataka’s leader Volen Siderov to hold a popular referendum on whether Turkish language broadcasts should continue in the
Bulgarian media. This policy had been introduced as an effect of EU conditionality to increase minority representation in the state media. Only a
quick outcry from other Bulgarian parties and the European Parliament convinced Borissov to withdraw his support for the referendum. Being
part of the EU does not preclude parties or groups from using referendum for exclusivist purposes. In December 2013, less than six months
after Croatia joined the EU, a Catholic citizens group called “On Behalf of the Family” inaugurated a referendum to ban same-sex marriage.
Unlike in the referendums in previously discussed countries, this one was conducted and succeeded. Much to the dismay of EU officials, but not
to local politicians, 65% of Croatians voted to change the constitutional definition of marriage to be considered “a living union of a woman and
a man.” On the pages of the Guardian Horvat argued: “Anti-minority moves in Croatia are symptomatic of a Europe-wide slide back to the worst
nightmares of the 20th century.” For him Croatia is not an outlier, but is getting close to other countries in Western and Eastern Europe, where
anti-minority sentiments are growing rapidly. In Greece, for example, there was a recent proposal to hold a referendum to ban the erecting of a
mosque in Athens, although Athens has been heavily criticized of being the only capital in Europe that has no mosque. In conclusion, most of
the current discussion on referendums is focused on whether and when referendums become legitimate.
While this discussion is fruitful from the perspective of a procedural democracy, scholars and practitioners need
to delve deeper into how such referendums affect liberal democracy. They can be co-opted by various
groups to advance nationalist and exclusivist political agendas. In a world of growing anti-minority
sentiments, we need more than less of this discussion.
California proves – selfish and unorganized referendum government is easily
controlled by the rich, disenfranchising minority, poor, and disabled people
Reynolds 88 [Pamela Reynolds, award winning writer for the Boston Globe; “Referendum Trend Hurts Government”; Orlando Sentinel;
11/06/1988; accessed 07/07/2015; <http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1988-11-06/news/0080150059_1_ballot-measures-local-governmentshasta-county>.] Concede the counterplan sets a precedent and win that referenda are bad. *Card has been modified for ableist language
Residents of the rural county of 137,000 people, located about 125 miles north of Sacramento, had been given an option at the ballot box.
Either they could keep their libraries open by approving a flat $24-a-year special ''per- parcel'' tax to be levied
on each homeowner, or they could watch their 10 libraries shut down for good. The county simply couldn't keep the libraries open any longer
without new revenue. Apparently, voters felt the extra $24 could be spent on better things, perhaps a night at the movies. By
a margin of
55 percent, Shasta County residents voted to shelve the libraries. ''Bring your own books,'' Michael Johnson, Shasta
County administrative officer, wryly jokes these days. California legislators, however, are not laughing. They are appalled by
what they say is a gloomy new trend in the Golden State: government by referendum. In communities throughout
California, from Sacramento County to Los Angeles, voters are sorting through a plethora of referenda on their ballots.
According to observers, this latest political reality raises grave questions about the nature of democracy, the future of
local government, the willingness of middle-class voters to support social services from which they do not
benefit. The referendum has become a way of life in California, and it is precisely this fact that worries lawmakers and academics. ''It's a
terrible way to run our government'' said John McClure, a city councilman in Rialto, Calif. ''It raises very serious
questions of equity,'' said Peter Detwiler, consultant to the California Senate Local Government Committee in Sacramento. While
some say that the growth of the referendum is both desirable and beneficial, leading as it may to a more democratic
system in which American citizens are allowed an even greater capacity to tinker with the great engine of government, others dread
the type of society such haphazard governing is likely to produce. Many fear it is likely to create a society
where selfishness reigns, where busy citizens, earnest but uninformed, are forced to vote on a list of
highly technical issues. In referendum politics, government is likely to be seized by a highly organized, well-financed
''initiative industry'' composed of advertising firms, pollsters, lawyers and direct-mail advertisers who charge hefty fees to help groups
or individuals sponsor and pass their ballot measures. Minorities, the poor, the handicapped disabled, are likely to be left
out of the process altogether, since many in these groups lack the funds to push an initiative onto the
ballot. ''I think we want to treat this as some idyllic process,'' said David Magleby, professor of political science at Brigham Young University
and the author of a book on ballot measures. ''But this is very much an upper-middle- class process,'' he said. Government by
referendum has settled on many states around the country, including Colorado, Ohio, Michigan, Oregon, Washington and, to some degree,
Massachusetts. But it is especially the way of life in California in the wake of Proposition 13, the famous 10-year-old voter initiative that rolled
back property-tax assessments. Proposition 13 required that revenue-hungry communities send every tax-increase proposal to the voters for
approval by a two-thirds margin. Therefore, Californians
no longer have the luxury of letting legislators they've
elected do most of the governing. Rather, citizens, piecemeal, must legislate on their own.
Capitalism
Referendums cede power to rich political elites who control the issue more than they
could in representative democracy
Magleby 98 [David B. Magleby; professor of Political Science at Brigham University; “Ballot Initiatives and Intergovernmental Relations
in the United States” pg 148-149; The State of American Federalism Vol 28 No 1; Winter 1998; accessed 07/01/2015;
<http://mavdisk.mnsu.edu/parsnk/2011-12/Pol680-fall11/POL%20680%20readings/direct%20democracy%20wk%209/ballot%20initiatives.pdf>.]
Compared to agenda-setting in other contexts, the
initiative empowers those who use the process to take their issue
directly to the voters of the locality or state. The opportunity to bypass the institutions of representative democracy
is seen by those who use the process as an advantage. Direct legislation is often faster than the legislative process, and
the proponents of the issue control the wording of the issue. Agenda-setting by initiative means that proponents need
to meet the minimum signature requirement which, in most states, requires either a large number of highly
motivated volunteers or ample funds to hire signature collectors. Since there is difficulty qualifying for the ballot, the
initiative is less and less a grass-roots phenomenon and more and more dominated by large and well
organized interests. While the authors of initiatives control the wording of their propositions, the campaign serves to define what the
issue means for voters. Initiative campaigns are largely fought in thirty- and sixty-second commercials using
attention-getting advertisements that motivate people either to care about a problem and vote for the proposition,
or to create doubts about the initiative and scare voters into voting "no."5 Not surprisingly, the issue as defined by
the opponents is not at all what the proponents desire or intended. Well organized and well funded opposition campaigns
win about two-thirds of the time.6 Agenda-setting and campaign management in initiatives is thus primarily
organized by elites but must involve mass audiences in qualifying for the ballot and winning on election day. The mass-politics
side of initiatives is largely carried out by paid consultants and organized by elites. As the process has become
more visible and more central to the politics of a dozen or more states, an initiative industry that specializes in such services
as petition circulation, polling, media management, direct mail, and legal advice has grown accordingly.7 Those who
use this tool include citizens who can link their concerns to other organized groups like the sponsors of recent California initiatives on
immigration and affirmative action, governors or legislators who want to take their issue directly to the voters or enhance their own standing,
and interest groups.
Politics
Links to politics, and EU proves – politicians debate the substance of referenda before
they are put to a vote
Kirk 15 [Ashley Kirk, data analyst and reporter, Masters in Interactive Journalism at City University London; “EU referendum: MPs clash
over voting franchise and reforms in debate”; City AM News and Politics; 06/09/2015; accessed 07/07/2-15;
<http://www.cityam.com/217535/eu-referendum-mps-clash-over-voting-franchise-and-reforms-debate>.]
Members of Parliament filled the House of Commons to debate the government's proposed EU referendum, as
parties clashed over the future of the UK and the EU. Foreign secretary Phillip Hammond introduced the EU
Referendum Bill, calling it a "simple but vital piece of legislation". He said that the EU is often seen as "something done
to [British citizens], not for them". "EU's democratic mandate is wafer thin" He pointed to the lowest ever turnout in last year's
European referendum, where it dropped to 13 per cent in some EU countries. He said the Conservatives would
deliver on their promise to give voters an in-out referendum, claiming that the way the EU has changed since the last
referendum in 1975 had "eroded the democratic mandate for our membership to the point where it is wafer thin and demands to be
renewed". While the bill had support from the main opposition, the government faced unrest from its backbenchers. Former Tory
chancellor and pro-European Ken Clarke said he would not vote for the Referendum Bill. He said: The idea that
we somehow advance our future prosperity[sic] by withdrawing from the biggest, organised trading bloc in the world, at the same time the
Conservative Party being an advocate of free trade wherever can be obtained, will be an absurdity. Ukip MP Douglas Carswell was also
vocal during the debate, while supporting the referendum. "The answers lie in cooperation" Hilary Benn,
shadow foreign secretary, said that Labour supported the referendum, but also supported Britain's membership of the EU. He said the
referendum presented a "clear and simple question", but one whose "answer will a profound impact" on
the country. Benn mocked Cameron on his perceived u-turn about whether ministers should be given the freedom
to campaign for British withdrawal of the EU. On jobs, economic growth, climate change and terrorism, Benn said, "the answers lie in
cooperation" and "work[ing] with others".
Court rollbacks get the government involved - <go to the rollback debate>
Poverty
Nonunique net benefit - violence, crime, and poverty are decreasing as democracy
grows worldwide
Jose 14 [Coleen Jose, multimedia journalist and documentary photographer based in New York City writing on international news and U.S.
foreign policy; “Good news: The world is becoming more democratic than ever”; Mic; 11/04/2014; accessed 07/06/2015;
<http://mic.com/articles/103294/good-news-the-world-is-becoming-more-democratic-than-ever>.] Concedes that democracy solves the
impacts the neg reads
Evidence also shows we
are becoming less violent and more tolerant, and poverty around the world is
declining. The conclusions seem far-fetched considering the daily news of airstrikes, natural disasters and images of
loss from the conflict in Iraq, Syria or the Central African Republic, but Roser argues that kind of thinking is far too micro in what is a
very macro discussion. "It is not possible to understand how the world is changing by following the daily news," Roser wrote. "Disasters
happen in an instant, but progress is a slow process that does not make the headlines." In the past 200 years of
governmental changes, democracies have grown dramatically. "Democracy is contagious and brings about
more democracy because it is very successful," Roser told Mic. "Thinking about the future, maybe the most promising
development is that the young generation around world is much better educated than before." Why is the world becoming more
democratic? As the narrative and pattern of history has shown — from the French Revolution to the Arab Spring — a common
grievance of the masses can topple autocratic rule. One of the catalysts for the spike in democratic regimes is
growing economic inequality. "In nondemocratic societies, the poor are excluded from political power,
but pose a revolutionary threat, especially during periods of crisis," wrote political scientists Daren Acemoglu and James A.
Robinson. "The rich will try to prevent revolution by making concessions to the poor, for example, in the form of
income redistribution," yet the elite can also resist and in doing so create an environment for their downfall.
The latest example of the death knell for one autocratic rule unraveled in Burkina Faso last week. A similar pattern of inequality was observed
when the West African country's President Blaise Compaoré attempted to amend the constitution to extend his 27-year rule, and tens of
thousands of Burkinabé protested across the country in response. Another
factor leading up to resistance is simply one's ability
to purchase food. Data scientists at the New England Complex Systems Institute presented examples when high food prices led to mass
uprising, Mic reported. Yaneer Bar-Yam of the NECSI "charted the rise of the Food and Agriculture Organization Food Price Index — a UN
measure that maps food costs over time — and saw that whenever that figure rose above 210, riots broke out around the world." Bar-Yam's
hypothesis became reality during the 2008 economic collapse and the Tunisian protests in 2011. He also predicted the Arab Spring weeks
before it reached a tipping point in Egypt. But almost no
matter what the causes are, more democracy across the world
is undoubtedly a good thing. "Taking all these and more long-run trends into account paints a very positive picture of how the world
is changing," Roser told Mic. "If you look at this over the long run, then we see the change from a world where
everyone but a few enlightenment thinkers thought that democracy is impossible to a world in which
half the world population lives in democracies." Talk about change we can believe in.
Mongolia proves – democracy alone won’t solve poverty, and collapses public
confidence
Tuya 13 [Nyamosor Tuya, foreign and domestic policy expert on international affairs, former democracy activist; “Democracy and Poverty:
A Lesson from Mongolia”; Brookings Institute; 04/2013; accessed 07/07/2015; <http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2013/04/09mongolia-tuya>.]
The case of Mongolia on poverty and democracy is instructive. The country started transitioning to democracy
over twenty years ago and, for almost as long, the rate of poverty has stood at 30 percent and above. In the
1990s, much of it could be attributed to the disruptions caused by changes in its political and economic system. Harsh weather has been an
intermittent factor, too. But no
significant progress has been registered in later years, when the economy has grown
at an annual average of 9 percent in the past decade. The latest available figure (2011) shows that poverty still stands at 29.8
percent, despite the double-digit economic growth in the past two years. The gap between poor and rich has
continued to grow, and infrastructure has languished in a chronically decrepit state. Corruption, on the other hand, has continued to
increase. Between 1999 and 2011, while the economy was growing, the country’s corruption ranking has managed to drop from a place where
it was comfortably ahead of some of its fellow post-communist countries in Europe to a dismal 120th place out of some 180 countries surveyed
by Transparency International. The implications
for democracy were grave: most reforms stalled, vote buying
became a serious concern, and public trust in the institutions of democracy was shaken. In a survey conducted
in June 2012, over 80
percent of respondents believed that government policies were “always” or “often” failing
to solve their concerns, chief among them unemployment and poverty.
Warming
Direct democracy fails to address the scientific level of policymaking surrounding
global warming – no solvency
Holden 2 [Barry Holden, senior lecturer in politics at the University of Reading and co-director of the Centre for the Study of Global
Change and Governance, editor of and contributor to The Ethical Dimension of Global Change.; “Democracy and Global Warning” pg 88-90;
Political Theory and Contemporary Politics; 2002; accessed 07/06/2015;
<https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=1GiVxFAaATMC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=democracy+and+global+warming&ots=i1KSRPkseg&sig
=PeNY_s6cBItDPuAjxcaEouQvkRU#v=onepage&q=democracy%20and%20global%20warming&f=false>.]
Underlying the contention that decisions
about global warming are properly the concern of scientists rather than the
of government upon
opinion that was the object of classical critiques of Athenian democracy by Plato in The Republic, on the grounds that
mass of the people is Plato’s critical distinction between knowledge and opinion. It was the dependence
knowledge (epirtéme'), not opinion (doxa), should steer the ship of state' (Weale.1999: 14). In today's world science is frequently seen as
providing episte'mé. Stemming from Plato, then, the central traditional
arguments against democracy derive from the
idea of ‘guardianship'. As Dahl puts it: A perennial alternative to democracy is government by guardians. . . . Ordinary people,
these critics insist, are clearly not qualified to govern themselves. The assumption by democrats that ordinary people are
qualified. they say, ought to be replaced by the opposing proposition that rulership should be entrusted to a minority of
persons who are specially qualified to govern by reason of their superior knowledge and virtue. Most beautifully and
enduringly presented by Plato in The Republic, the idea of guardianship has exerted a powerful pull throughout human history. (Dahl, 1999: 52)
Down the ages, then, the central
criticism of democracy has been that as government is a matter for those with
knowledge and virtue the ordinary people are net qualified to rule. As Dahl says (1999: 65), ‘{m]uch of the
persuasiveness of the idea [of guardianship] stems from its negative view of the moral and intellectual competence of ordinary people'. We
have already seen that the guardianship argument was central to ‘ecoauthoritarianism', with Ophul's justification of his anti- democratic stance
[being] basically the traditional argument of “the ship of state" requiring the best pilots, and the dangers of “rule by the ignorant" when faced
with such a complex and complicated issue as social-environmental dilemmas' (Barry, 1999: 195). And, of course, the global warming problem
amounts to, or poses, a - if not the - major social-environmental dilemma of our time. We have here, then, the grounds for key
arguments
against the involvement of ordinary people in policy-making concerning global warming. Initially I shall focus on
knowledge regarding the phenomenon of global warming itself, rather than on knowledge relating to
the ‘social-environmental dilemmas’ it poses. The former raises issues that deserve some separate consideration, especially
regarding the nature and role of scientific knowledge. However, the full complexity of the global warming problem does, of
course, involve both the nature of the phenomenon and the possible responses to it by society, or societies.
Clearly, then, knowledge relating to both is necessm'y, and I shall take up the latter below, in this and later chapters (remembering that it
includes matters such as the workings of the international syStem). I am at this point, too, primarily concerned with (to use Dahl's terms) the
intellectual rather than the moral competence of the ordinary people. Originally the two could not be separated since the original idea of
guardianship centred on moral knowledge knowledge of moral truths. In modern thought, however, separation is quite common. This flows
from a
critical distinction in modern discourse - especially salient in the case of science - between
knowledge and moral evaluation, according to which it is denied that there can be ‘moral knowledge'. Now, it is true that this
distinction and denial are often challenged. And criticisms of guardianship continue to be made that focus upon moral know- ledge. But these
can still be applied to knowledge of other kinds. As Harrison (1993: 160) says in his critique of Platonic guardianship arguments, 'the same
points as were made [about moral knowledge] go through for other kinds of knowledge'. Since the essential
points concern
knowledge as such, it is to non-moral knowledge that they must be applied if this is the only kind of knowledge there is. But even if we
go along with the modern invalidation of moral knowledge', and the concomitant assertion of a distinction between intellectual and moral
competence, we should more that when we come to the ‘social-environmental dilemmas' posed by global warming there is a blurring of this
distinction. There is an important dimension to the question of the competence of the ordinary people to engage with the global warming
problem which cuts across, or overlaps, this distinction. It
concerns the capacity of ordinary people to curb their avarice
and to think and act in ways which involve sacrificing their short-term interests. To those who doubt that the
people have this capacity, this is partly a matter of lack of knowledge - knowledge of the nature and importance of adverse
long-term consequences of anions that further short-term interests. But it is also a matter of lack of will - the will to sacrifice
short-term interests even where adverse long-term consequences are known? Such lack of will can be seen as a moral defect. And even
if balancing short- and long-term self-interest is not a moral matter, and hence the lack of a will to avoid long-term damage to one's own
interests is not a moral defect, there are other dimensions. The long- term consequences in question may be adverse for other people instead
of, or as well as, oneself. And in the case of global warming such ‘other people' includes future generations. Clearly
here moral questions are involved; but these will be considered later and for the moment I shall concentrate on the issue of knowledge. What I
am concerned with at this point, then, is the argument that decision-making regarding the global warming problem should be in the hands of
experts - those who have knowledge of the nature and causes of global warming - rather than in the hands of the ignorant mass of the people.3
We shall see below that the argument has various Other asPeCts, implications and assumptions, but these undoubtedly also draw strength
from its general form, which, as I have already remarked, is that of the guardianship attack on democracy. In my critical assessment, then, I
shall take up the democrats’ general critique of guardianship and consider its applicability to the particular argument regarding global warming.
The central idea in the general guardianship argument is the notion that only
an elite has appropriate knowledge (episléme’) and
that because of this it, and not the ignorant masses. should govern. This idea rests on the notion that there is a special
set of objective truths of which members of the relevant elite have superior knowledge.