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This chapter introduces this book’s examination of changing political institutions and practices in established democracies that provide citizens with access and participation opportunities. After describing past waves of democratic reform, it argues that in recent years reformers have been calling for changes to improve elections and representative democracy, while at the same time pushing for new forms of direct democracy and an expansion of advocacy democracy. The analyses presented in this book focus on three key principles of democratic politics: access, transparency, and accountability. They consider changes in rules and behavior in each of these areas, and ask whether the observed changes add up to a transformed style of democracy.

Democracy is defined as a political system in which citizens rule, either by themselves or through others that are elected, influenced, and controlled by the people, in a way that puts each citizen on a par with every other. After the rise and fall of the Athenian and Roman archetypes of democracy and republicanism, the idea of citizen rule was shelved for a long time. This chapter discusses how democracy revived in subsequent waves of democratization, and how multiformity and multi‐interpretability became inevitable characteristics of democratic life. Consequently, democracy comes in many shapes and forms, many definitions and categorizations. This chapter presents an abstraction of this multitude by specifying four crucial variations on the general theme of democracy, juxtaposing the dimensions of direct versus indirect democracy and integrative versus aggregative democracy. This results in four ideal types: pendulum democracy (indirect‐aggregative), consensus democracy (indirect‐integrative), participatory democracy (direct‐integrative), voter democracy (direct‐aggregative).

The forms of representative democracy familiar to democratic theory are being overgrown by many new political forces that would appear to have democratic features. These include the rise of social movements, dramatic increases in the numbers and activities of civil society organizations, new forms of direct action, increasing use of referendums, devolution and de-concentration of decision-making and governance, stakeholder representation within bureaucracies, a growing use of the courts to press citizen interests, new experiments in deliberative democracy and collaborative governance, more vigorous public sphere debates about policies, public monitoring of government and corporate activities, new political uses of communication technologies, and small groups aggregated into networks that are now often global in scale. The first major transformation of democracy involved changes from pre-modern forms of local and direct democracy to modern forms of representative democracy. The question of whether these new changes so consequential that they amount to second major transformation of democracy is raised.

Representative democracy means delegation, and delegation implies the risk of agency problems. Parliamentary democracy is a particular delegation regime, a way to structure the democratic policy process, and an attempt to solve agency problems. This chapter finds that there are persistent and essential cross-national differences between European parliamentary democracies along two dimensions of citizen control: partisan influence and external constraints. This chapter’s investigation leads us to conclude that there has been a decline in the strength and cohesion of political parties and an enhancement of international, sub-national, judicial, and direct democratic external constraints. In most respects, these changes strengthen ex post controls and weaken ex ante screening devices.

The conclusion discusses the broader implications of the book’s findings for the ‘state’ of parliamentary democracy in the EU and the prospects for parliamentary democracy in other international organizations. Are concerns for democracy in international polities linked to the degree to which national governments transfer sovereignty to international organizations? Under what conditions can we expect parliamentary institutions to arise and develop outside the EU?

This chapter examines the role political parties play in elections in established representative democracies, and asks whether new institutions and procedures are reducing parties’ traditional role as political mediators. It traces the growing adoption and use of devices of direct democracy, the low usage of non-partisan elections, and the trend towards direct election of municipal executives. Taken together, these changes are indicative of a trend towards expanding citizens’ opportunities to have a direct say in policy decisions and in the selection of political leaders. However, the magnitude of the shift is small, and political parties still dominate most political decisions within these countries.

Examines whether the behaviour of parties in cabinet formation and in control of the executive branch have changed over time. The evidence indicates that parties remain entrenched in the core of the executives studied, but party control seems to wane the further we move from this institution. The chapter concludes by examining the implications such changes have on the primacy of parties in government, arguing that among the several alternatives to representative democracy, pluralist democracy seems to be the most likely alternative to party government.

This concluding chapter reviews key points and steps back to consider what these new approaches and arguments, built around the claim‐based approach to representation, might mean for democratic representation and ‘representative democracy’. The issue of how observers might judge the democratic character of representative claims is examined, not by offering an independent theory of legitimacy but by exploring the conditions under which certain constituencies and audiences may evaluate claims. The important distinctions between intended and actual audiences, and intended and actual constituencies, are used to define and defend the idea of an appropriate constituency for the democratic judgement of representative claims. The chapter further highlights ways in which received wisdom about representative democracy need to be revised, including assumptions about the contrasting nature of direct and representative democracy, and the importance of political representation outside as well as within the state.

This introductory chapter establishes the importance of direct democracy to the process of European integration. It provides an overview of referendums on European integration, outlining the origins and implications of the use of direct democracy in Europe. It categorizes EU referendums into three types: membership referendums, treaty ratification referendums, and single‐issue referendums. Thereafter, it lays out how the ideas of this book fits into the current academic and policy debates about referendums and presents the research design and an overview of the main arguments and findings.

This concluding chapter summarizes the key arguments and findings of the book. It discusses the normative and policy implications of this study, focusing particularly on the issue of voter competence and the arguments for and against direct democracy. It also offers some general thoughts and recommendations on the use of direct democratic institutions in the European Union. Specifically, it evaluates the proposal to hold Europe‐wide referendums in light of the evidence presented in this book. It concludes that while such referendums should not be viewed as a panacea for the democratic deficit in the Union, they could facilitate Europe‐wide debate and political participation. Moreover, evidence from past referendums has shown that voters tend to make competent decisions when they are provided with sufficient information.

Denmark is close to an ideal-typical model of parliamentary democracy; however, the picture is complicated by at least five general features of Danish politics. First, Denmark is a small state, heavily constrained by international ties. Second, Denmark has frequent minority governments, which affects the chain of parliamentary delegation. Third, the delegative chain can be circumvented by direct democracy (referendums). Fourth, interest organizations strongly influence policy outcomes in Denmark. Fifth, strong party discipline enables political parties to structure delegation and accountability between voters, Parliament, and government.

Among ‘Continental’ welfare states, Switzerland had and has the highest per capita income and the highest employment ratio in the group of advanced welfare states included in this study. Its export‐oriented industries and services have remained highly competitive; its levels of taxation and welfare expenditures are low; and its labour‐market institutions are highly flexible. Nevertheless, Switzerland suffered severe job losses in the first oil‐price crisis and responded by introducing compulsory unemployment insurance. In the 1980s and 1990s, political pressures from export‐oriented businesses were successful in reducing the tariff and non‐tariff barriers, protecting the sheltered sectors of the Swiss economy, whose inefficiency was beginning to hurt the competitiveness of internationally exposed firms. However, when the demand for neo‐liberal reforms touched on the benefits provided by the — not particularly generous — Swiss welfare state, they were stopped not by the ‘social partners’ as in other consociational/ corporatist democracies, or by electoral shifts in governments, but by the direct democracy of the referendum system. As a consequence, limited retrenchment had to be combined with some important extensions of welfare coverage.

Four features are highly valued in Switzerland's political system and political culture: the militia principle, direct democracy, federalism, and consociationalism. These factors also have a strong impact on the structure of the Swiss political elite: Some politicians qualify as real professionals, but because of the concurrence of the militia principle and the federal character of the Swiss political system we are bound to speak of an incomplete professionalization of the political class. Furthermore, the pivotal role of associations (Verbändestaat) and the controlling function of direct democracy make it difficult to determine a centre of a political class. Nevertheless, it is possible to define a small elite cluster even in Switzerland – but certain qualifications have to be taken into account.

This chapter responds to the second part of the realism objection, the problem of institutional possibility. To set the foundation, it outlines Rousseau's views about institutions: rule of law, majority rule, direct democracy, executive power, government accountability to citizens, rights of association, and limited material inequality. One account of Rousseau's view (suggested by Habermas) is that he conflates the contractual/consensual theory of legitimacy, or the idea of the general will, with a defense of direct democracy. The chapter responds that direct democracy is not an a priori commitment, but is founded on several strands of argument about the institutions needed in the society of the general will. The chapter concludes by asking whether real power in the society of the general will lies in the hands of elite officials and, correspondingly, whether popular assemblies are largely for show. Rejecting this conception of Rousseauean democracy as a mask for elite dominance, it argues that Rousseau's institutional requirements aim to prepare citizens for the self-rule of which we are capable.

This chapter considers how the referendum has been appraised within contemporary theories of democracy, setting out the key debates, and establishing points of further enquiry that will enable a fuller answer to be offered in the latter chapters of the book. Section II addresses three main concerns raised by critics of referendums: how they are controlled; how popular participation is engaged within a referendum process; and the conditions under which decisions are reached by way of direct democracy. These issues also highlight how attitudes towards direct democracy can vary from one democratic tradition to another. Section III explores the tradition of ‘civic republican democracy’, setting out its key aims and values. The chapter argues that this is a useful turn in constitutional theory both for offering a powerful democratic critique of how contemporary representative democracy has been overpowered by hegemonic interests and in highlighting the importance of popular engagement in processes of constitutional change as a partial remedy for this malaise.

Referenda are becoming a common tool for public decision-making, and as reliance on direct democracy increases, so does the importance of giving representation to strongly held minority preferences. This chapter discusses the application of the simplest Storable Votes scheme to large elections: voters faced with multiple referenda are given one regular vote for each proposal plus a single additional bonus vote to cast as desired. If the referenda differ exclusively on the extent of support, then Storable Votes and majority voting yield identical outcomes: the minority never wins, and both voting rules maximize welfare. But if the referenda differ in the intensities of preferences of opponents and supporters of different proposals, then, from a welfare point of view, a proposal supported by a minority should occasionally pass, and Storable Votes typically dominate simple majority voting.