Økonomi & Politik, 1, 1994, book review:

Reviewed by Niels Thomsen, Professor of Political History, University of Copenhagen

The author who is an associate professor of market research at the Southern Denmark Business School has for a couple of years served as a professional consultant of  GfK (One of the leading marketing research agencies in Europe). In the introductory chapters of the present book, the reader is given an excellent explanation by a professional concerning the principles of how opinion polls work, and the problems arising from their application. He particularly stresses the pitfalls and cautions resulting from an uncritical interpretation of polls. However, the whole book is nevertheless based on a comparison of the numerous bids and clues the population has thus signalized with the laws and remedies which politicians have enacted.

It is quite easy for Schmidt - and an entertaining read for us - to uncover a bunch of examples regarding straight collisions between the people's clear answers to specified questions one the one side and the policies being pursued by politicians on the other: From grading in primary school to low beam on cars during daytime; from legalizing euthanasia to punishment for severe crimes; from a law giving permanent residence permit to selected Palestinians to the referendum on joining the European Union in l992. Instances of agreement are provided. However, not quite as many.

Moreover, we are not told about the many instances where most today agree upon that the politicians were more far-sighted than the electorate, i.e. the land reform laws of l963. Neither does the reader learn about cases where the politicians might have done even worse, provided that they had been "following the crowd" i.e. the South   Schleswig issue in 1946-47, the laws regulating housing rents in the decades after the second world war, and numerous interventions in the mechanisms of income.

The selection of cases has hardly been made with the necessary impartiality needed for a serious and well-balanced examination. The author seems to have succumbed to the (momentary) polemic power and entertainment quality of one-sidedness. His obvious "populism" stands out even clearer in a very harsh, almost derisive characterization of our present parliamentary rule. He questions the legitimacy of the politicians, partly based on polls showing the population's skepticism and lack of support concerning the political system, and partly by showing how politicians fail to be representative of the populace. The representative body contains by far too many males, middle-aged, and academics.

According to Schmidt the massive contempt for the political system is partially caused by constitutional restrictions on referendums. Another source of mistrust is attributable to the politicians' eager efforts to nullify or "circumvent" the electorate's decision (i.e. lowering the electoral age and the rejection of the 1992  Maastricht-Treaty).

In an attempt to find a better system than the Danish, Schmidt then systematically settles with the prevalent objections to direct democracy, which he preferably takes from G.  Sartori and other scholars of political science.

It is alleged that ordinary voters at referendums think and act more egoistic than the popularly elected politicians, more prodigal (the budget problem) more impulsive, less considerate towards minorities, more short- sightedly conservative. Moreover, they tend to change their mind and are incapable of surveying and assessing complex problems. These counter-arguments are often put forward by opponents of direct democracy. The author object to each of these arguments and tries to refute each of them with reference to history and polls from Denmark, the US and the ancient Athenian Democracy. The arguments thus brought forward to us cover some of the points fairly well. However, some do not hold quite well. One example: Popular initiatives and referendums seem to have some difficulty respecting and modifying civic and self-government rights.

Schmidt thinks that his answers have taken well care of the objections and he thus draws the conclusion that one must and is morally obliged to create a real peoples democracy by means of modern information technology - "a push-button democracy" where all important issues and appropriations are subject to a binding referendum via the telephones. He puts forward convincing technical and financial arguments in favor of the introduction of a push-button democracy, arguments drawn from futurists like John  Naisbitt and Alvin Toffler, going all the way back to l940.

The author counters the most obvious of the operational problems - the decision of which questions to put to the voters (the agenda setting problem), with an ingenious and original new creation: By a rotation based on drawing lots, all voters are to take turns at being part of an "Electronic Second Chamber" or  "MiniDenmark". These citizens, who should have an especially easy access to information about public affairs, are to vote on all the bills that the Folketing passes - and those that are rejected are then being referred to a proper referendum. It is actually suggested that  MiniDenmark is also to vote on the proposals which the  Folketing rejects, and might agree to refer them to a referendum. Even without this last provision, which is sure to create total chaos in the  Folketing - the proposals are obviously more radical than any that have ever been brought forward to reform the democracy without dismantling it altogether.