The emergence of direct democracy - a typological approach

Abstract

Direct democracy as a concept and in practice comprises many institutional varieties. It has its origin in differing historical developments and structural conditions which may have influenced these institutional forms and their relations with the environment of political systems at large, particularly of representative democracy. Beyond individnal historical cases, more general patterns of emerging direct democracy can explain how the dynamics of a political process have been linked to specific institotional features. In a typological approach the paper identifies three basic models of emergence of direct democracy: deep internal conflict, national independence, and system transformation, and their possible links to some typical profiles of direct democracy design. In a first illustration we will discuss the positions of minorities in different institutional settings of direct democracy and how they relate to various emergence models.