Weekendavisen  Review of Books, November 12 1993:

Let the Political Power be Passed  Around

Reviewed by Mogens Herman Hansen. Professor Hansen is author of  The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes, Basil Blackwell 1991. His book on Athenian Democracy has been reprinted several times and is translated into seven languages (i.e. German, French, and Korean).

This is the first book in Danish to give a clear and professional presentation of direct democracy and of the technology involved in making direct democracy possible today. The author, Marcus Schmidt (MS) is neither a politician nor a student of political science, but an expert on opinion polls. He is a professional consultant of   GfK (a marketing research agency) and in the first chapters of the book the reader is given an excellent explanation by a professional, of the principles of how opinion polls work and the problems arising from their application. MS is familiar with the pitfalls and presents them in an open and above-board manner. In chapter three we are informed of how little the decisions of the politicians agree with the attitudes of their voters - a chapter bristling with compelling documentation from the author's substantial library of opinion polls.

In the same chapter evidence is presented which suggests that the members of the    Folketing (Danish Parliament) are a far cry from being a representative sample of the Danish population - and consequently cannot be expected to represent the attitudes of the people. At this point the reader should turn to page 71, note 15, where he or she will find quotations of selected members of the Folketing, who take a strong dissociate themselves from the "absurd" view that they should be in agreement with their electorate on controversial matters or in any way might be influenced by the opinions of their voters.

In chapter six MS puts forth his proposal regarding the ways and means of introducing direct democracy in Denmark: Today there are approximately four million voters. Letting all those four million vote on everything would, even with today's technology, be rather difficult and costly, but MS has found a solution: All Danes would participate in making the political decisions, but by taking turns at it (rotation by lot). The four million adult Danes are, on average, politically active for 57 years, that is from their eighteenth birthday until they die.

4.000.000 divided by 57 equals 70.000. So, every year in January 70.000 Danes would be chosen by lot and for one year they would vote, using a push-button telephone, on everything which is being considered and debated in the parliament. Next year another 70.000 electors are chosen by lot etc. Thus for one year in his or her life, every Dane will be directly involved in the political decision-making process. 70.000 Danes chosen at random is such a large number that the risk of their voting differently from what the 4.000.000 would have done, is extremely low - somewhere between one per thousand and one per cent. Furthermore, MS foresees that certain important questions would still have to be decided by referendum. Every political decision presupposes agreement between the  parliament and "MiniDenmark", as MS calls his 70.000 electors or electronic second chamber. In many cases the parliament and "MiniDenmark" would be in agreement about passing or rejecting a bill. If the  parliament and "MiniDenmark" disagree about something, the matter is to be decided by referendum involving the whole electorate. Whereas  "MiniDenmark" would vote as often as the parliament, there would be much fewer referendums.

Being a specialist in opinion polls and push-button telephones, MS has proposed a solution to the technical questions of how one ensures the secrecy of the poll and avoids electors voting twice. He also puts forward a number of suggestions as to how to go about providing the electors of "MiniDenmark" with political information and how to involve them in the political debate. For example, the 70.000 would have a paid day off each week to study the proposals they are to vote on, and they must have free access to all the political information they want. "MiniDenmark" would cost app. 5 billion DKK a year, or 2½ per cent of the state budget. Strangely enough, MS fails to draw attention to the fact that  "MiniDenmark" should reduce unemployment by about 10.000, and that the savings of unemployment benefits could reduce the costs considerably.

If we are to have some kind of direct democracy - and I am not sure whether we should - it might perhaps have another form than the one proposed by MS. His concrete proposal, however, has several good points which I have not seen before in discussions about teledemocracy. The combination of referendums with a rotation based on drawing lots is a fine solution to the problem of how to preserve the democratic debate and preclude its degeneration into a vulgar push-button democracy. And - like the popular assemblies of ancient Athens and present-day Switzerland - "MiniDenmark" can not only stop parliamentary decisions which a majority of the people are opposed to, but it can also vote in favor of a proposition rejected by the parliament, and have it put into effect, if a subsequent referendum shows that a majority are in favor of it. The parliament will continue to prepare all the laws and will be elected as hitherto, but now we have a safeguard concerning that the laws which have been passed are always supported by a majority of the people - though not necessarily by a majority of the parliament.

In chapter seven MS examines - and dismisses - a number of the most frequent arguments brought forward against direct democracy: The citizens are too dumb or too lazy. They will be in the thrall of the media or of charismatic leaders. They will only consider their own interests and not those of the country. They will be in the grip of emotions and promptly reintroduce the death penalty as well as a ban on immigration. MS points out that in various cases the representative democracy will be hit even harder by those objections than will direct democracy.

A final chapter eight on parliamentarism is not up to the standards of the rest of the book. Maybe MS was run down. It should be revised for the next edition.

There is a remarkable contrast between the tabloid-style of the text and the dissertation-like form of the annotations. On one hand, MS could be said to have fallen between two chairs, but on the other hand he is such well seated: The text is well-written and witty, and its lucid and precise argumentation can be easily read by everybody and give rise to both reflection - and doubt! The documentation in the annotations makes the book a weighty contribution to the technical literature. On pages 93-94 the reader is given a crash course in initiative, referendum and recall in the United States and Switzerland. On pages 77-79 note 1-6 there is an excellent, copious bibliography of the latest literature on   teledemocracy etc.

Moreover, MS is strongly historically oriented. His revolutionary idea of combining direct democracy with rotation based on drawing lots comes straight from Aristotle and ancient Greece, and I can vouch for his having read and understood all of the 400 pages of my English book on the Athenian democracy. His book abounds with amusing and well-chosen quotations from Aristotle, Machiavelli, Rousseau, Burckhardt, Sartori, and (slightly frightening) authors like Naisbitt and Toynbee.

In connection with his treatment of nepotism and  "backscratching" prevalent in the Danish parliament, MS cites the following quotation from Aristotle's politics: "A system of government where it is not allowed to take part in the deliberations, but where only those elected have access, where the son takes over his father's seat, where both are placed above the law, such a system of government is naturally an extreme instance of oligarchy."

MS is an enthusiastic advocate of direct democracy, in my opinion too much so, and he tends to overlook the difficulties of introducing it in a country which does not have the long experience with regard to the issue like, say, Switzerland. Nevertheless, there is a true and a liberating ring to many of his arguments both against representative democracy and in favor of direct democracy. Besides, teledemocracy faces us with the same problems as does genetic engineering: We have got to think the matter over and, preferably, before it gets beyond our control. So it is no good burying our head in the sand.