The best example is the European Union. Most left hardliners are of course against more integration, because they claim it to be an instrument of the bad wolf (capitalism). So they call indirect democracy undemocratical (in spite of the fact that the EU Parliament is elected directly and the Commission represents the democratically elected governments, not the Evil Billionnaires and Multinationals).
So they play the Poll Chord ("polls all over Europe are against Europe") and demand "direct democracy", as more democratical. Which leads to the EU constitution, an opaque, technocratic document of hundreds of pages, being submitted to referendums, attacked with populist slogans, and being, logically rejected. Goal attained! 1-0 for the Direct Democracy! Tomorrow we'll vote to Give More Money to the People! After tomorrow, we'll vote For More Sunny Days! Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Is it that the voters are stupid? That the politicians aren't representing the best interests of the voters? That the decision-making architecture of the EU has fundamental design flaws? That state-level public debate fails to consider the federal issues? That the voters deem the federal level unimportant? All of the above?
But whichever our answer to where the democratic failure originated, there is no denying that a political class that's 90 % pro-EU and a public that's 40 % pro-EU and 20 % don't-know-don't-care signals a failure of democracy somewhere.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
I just wanted to point out that "Brussels" is our own elected, not some bureaucratical class parachuted from planet Mars.
Voters are not stupid, but (I think Frank said that already) the constitution is too technical. Referendums must be made on simple questions ending in yes, or no, not a 200 pages cryptical diplomatic formulations + annexes.
So this is where the difference between the public and the political class comes from, IMO. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
