There is swagger, chutzpah even, in David Altman’s latest opus Citizenship and Contemporary Direct Democracy. At a time when political science research is often either too technical to be relevant or too banal to warrant attention, it is refreshing to encounter a book that promises to present “a new general theory that explains…the likelihood of CI-MDD [Citizen Initiated Mechanisms of Direct Democracy] adoption in a given country” (p. 55). The grand theory Altman seeks to develop is designed to explain when provisions for citizen-initiated referendums are adopted, although he also touches on when they are held, when they are won (or lost), and proposed mechanisms for reform.
Altman is at his most original when theorizing the reasons why countries adopt mechanisms of citizen-initiated referendums. No other serious study has dealt satisfactorily with this issue before. According to the author, “the crucial determinants of CI-MDD adoption [are]: crisis, past use of MDD, and the level of democratization” (p. 64). Operationally, these variables are correlated with Altman’s unique Index of Direct Democracy Practice (DDPP). One can always quibble with the choice of statistical measure, but the reasons given for adopting this one are convincing and the results are statistically impressive.
Some cases conform to the theory. For example, after Slovenia broke away from Yugoslavia (following a referendum in 1990), the Slovenians inserted a new clause into the constitution that stated, “The National Assembly shall call a referendum on the entry into force of a law that it has adopted if so required by at least forty thousand voters” (Art. 90). This is, Altman suggests, a clear corroboration of his hypothesis, because the provision was introduced after “rapid democratization, high levels of democracy... and vivid memories of a successful use of a MMD [Mechanism of Direct Democracy]” (p. 76).
But other examples are less convincing. At a stretch, it could be argued (and Altman does this) that the introduction of citizen-initiated referendums in the Italian constitution followed a crisis (the end of World War II), rapid democratization (after two decades of fascism), and “vivid memories” (of the 1946 referendum on the abolition of the monarchy). Yet the referendum abrogativo (Art. 75, which contains the provision that grants Italians the right to request a referendum on all existing laws) was only implemented in 1970 following an opportunistic compromise between the Communists and the Christian Democrats to repeal the ban on divorce and not as a result of events that happened in the 1940s. And other examples seem to falsify the theory. Thus, the adoption of the citizen-initiated referendums in Switzerland in 1874 was not the result of a crisis, nor was there an increase in the levels of democratization, although there were vivid memories of previous referendums (in this case the 1866 constitutional referendum that extended citizenship to the Jews). The theory would have been corroborated had the mechanisms been introduced in the wake of the Sonderbund War in 1848; however, the constitution adopted in that year only provided for mandatory referendums on constitutional changes (see, e.g., Wolf Lindner, Swiss Democracy, 2010). Further, and more critically, there is little to suggest that the adoption of the citizen-initiated wet raadgevend referendum in the Netherlands in 2014 conformed to Altman’s theory (see Saskia Hollander, The Politics of Referendum Use in European Democracies, 2019). And there is no convincing explanation why New Zealand’s parliament passed the Citizens’ Initiated Referendum Act of 1993. Overall, the model is statistically impressive, but the case studies challenge the universality of the results.
Perhaps the author should have been less categorical and aimed instead for mid-ranging theories. Indeed, his more modest observation that CI-MDD are “usually introduced in times of political change and instability” and that these “times produce windows of opportunity … accompanied by anti-party feelings and apolitical beliefs —situations where there is willingness to break with the past in one way or another” (p. 44) is more accurate. Moreover, Altman does not mention the ubiquitous factor of miscalculation: situations when provisions for citizen referendums are introduced only to backfire, as was the case in Italy in the 1970s and a century before in Switzerland.
Notwithstanding the anomalies and seemingly falsifying cases, Altman’s book is a tour de force: it is a study that combines statistical prowess with exceptional scholarship and an extraordinary knowledge of the literature in Spanish, German, Italian, and English. In addition to its impressive statistical analyses, the book cites interesting and often surprising research findings; for example, that referendums have a “positive effect on women’s political inclusion” (p. 150). Further, Citizenship and Contemporary Direct Democracy does a superb job in empirically debunking many common myths about referendums. Some commentators have lamented that provisions for CI-MDD strengthen conservative forces (ee Liubomir Topaloff, “Elite Strategy or Populist Weapon?” Journal of Democracy, 28 (3), 2017). Yet based on both statistical analysis and detailed case studies, Altman finds “no evidence of statistically significant skewedness…to either side of the ideological divide” (p. 137).
The book is at its most interesting when Altman analyzes the factors that determine the outcome of referendums. He corroborates my “honeymoon theory”— “most no outcomes occur when a government has been in office for many years” (Qvortrup, A Comparative Study of Referendums, 2005)—with solid statistical data. For example, “a plebiscite or obligatory referendum has a probability of success of 70 percent during the first 100 days of a government in office. [This] situation remains relatively stable until 800 days in office (about 2.2 years).... Once 1,600 days in office have elapsed the probability that a [top-down] referendum will succeed drops below 50 percent” (p. 101).
Interestingly, Altman also finds that the opposite logic applies to citizen-initiated referendums. These are more likely to succeed the longer the government has been in office: “their probability of success only increases above 50 percent after the government has been in office for eight years.” He also finds “that the probability that a popular initiative or referendum will succeed is nearly 90 percent when a country is experiencing an extreme economic contraction” (p. 101).
Citizenship and Contemporary Direct Democracy is not merely a book about the recurrent patterns and laws of direct democracy. The author also proposes mechanisms for how referendums can be made compatible with the ideals of deliberative democracy. To this end, he proposes that a “Deliberative Citizens Commission” be established, in “which a stratified random sample of eligible voters are convened for the purpose of discussion, deliberating and offering a policy question that will be decided upon in a future popular vote” (p. 183). Yet, Altman does not mention that this mechanism was used before the 2018 abortion referendum in Ireland (see Jane Suiter, “Deliberation in Action–Ireland’s Abortion Referendum,” Political Insight, 9 (3), 2018). Sometimes, good ideas are overtaken by events, and the success of the Irish provision only supports his argument.
Although one might take issue with some of its conclusions, this is an impressive study. To paraphrase Robert Nozick’s words about Rawls, henceforth “students of referendums, must follow Altman’s lead or explain why not!”
