Referendums and Democratic Government: Normative Theory and the Analysis of Institutions

Referendums and Democratic Government deals with the role of different forms of referendums in modern representative democracies. It analyzes the referendum from the point of view of social choice theory and various theories of democracy. The institutions of referendums are analyzed in 22 democracies, and referendums in Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland are analyzed as case studies. Different forms of referendums are classified according to how they are initiated and how their agenda is set. It is argued that various types of referendums have been justified by arguments based on different normative theories of democracy as referendum is not a unitary phenomenon.