The Role of Citizens in Referendum Processes

One of the main objections to referendum processes is that citizens cannot be trusted with policy decisions. In this view, their tasks in democratic systems should be limited to electing representatives and to providing them with input. This argument presupposes that initiative and referendum processes set additional democratic requirements in terms of competence and knowledge, which voters are unable to meet. Answers to this objection in democratic theory remain so far at the rhetorical level: if citizens are not competent enough to vote on issues, then they shouldn't elect representatives either. In this article, I consider this objection in more depth and use it as a starting point to specify the role of citizens in democratic systems including initiative and referendum processes. First, I reconstruct two arguments that justify the higher requirements for voters in referendums than in elections. The first one insists that higher competence is required because it is more difficult to decide on policies than to select representatives. The second one claims that higher competence is required when citizens act as legislators. I argue that these two arguments don't hold. Even if it is desirable that voters are informed, they have no additional duties to be competent or informed when they cast their ballots in popular votes compared to elections. Second, I offer a detailed account of the role of citizens in democratic systems including popular vote processes. I suggest that additional democratic requirements can only be justified when lay citizens represent other citizens and formally impact the empowered space of political decision-making. This only happens in bottom-up popular vote processes. In these cases, democracy requires that the subset of lay citizens who sign referendum or initiative petitions to authorize civil society groups to trigger popular vote processes is minimally competent. I specify the nature of these requirements in terms of political knowledge and of ability to justify the decision to sign. I conclude by discussing what innovative designs could best enable citizens to fulfill them.