Referendumsin Review:A Discourse on the Legitimacy Crisis of Western Democracies
Since the 1970s,a wave of referendums has swept across Europe and other Western democratic nations.Confronted with complex political and non-political issues,an increasing number of governments have resorted to direct democracy,entrusting decision-making power to citizens.Countries without prior referendum legislations have initiated lawmaking processes to regulate their use,while those with long-standing constitutional provisions for referendums have enhanced their decision-making roles through political practice.This trend has led to suspicions among scholars and the publicthat representative democracy may no longer be an adequate mechanism for the functioning of modern states.Arguments abound that direct democracy,exemplified by referendums,might supplant representative democracy as the primary decision-making tool in Western nation-states.The legitimacy crisis of representative democracy is indeed profound and long-standing,hampering governance efficiency in Western societies.Nevertheless,it currently lacks the potency to structurally alter the entrenched political systems of the West.The heightened recourse to referendums signifies a diversification of decision-making modes rather than the redundancy of representative democracy.Referendums serve primarily as an institutional mechanism for those in power to address public demands for political participation.The political barriers posed by established power structures and elite institutions remain formidable obstacles for direct democratic decision-making.
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