Resumé The thesis examines local referendums, a form of direct democracy that is used the most in the Czech Republic. Nowadays, it is a standard part of municipal politics. The goal of the paper is to provide a complex analysis of the legislation, based primarily on relevant case- law, including the newest rendered in fall 2014. The thesis is composed of an introduction, nine chapters and a conclusion. The order of the paper largely follows the composition of the Act on Local Referendum. Chapter One examines the relevant constitutional and international legislation. Chapter Two describes the scope of topics that may be subjects of local referendums in general and also looks at the most frequent ones. Chapter Three concerns itself with the preparative committee - a body that puts forward the proposal to hold a local referendum - and examines its assembling and operation. Chapters Four and Five explores the review procedure of the committee's proposal conducted by municipal authorities and by municipal councils that render the final decision to hold a local referendum. Chapter Six focuses on the conditions that need to be fulfilled in order to achieve a valid and legally binding decision in a local referendum. Chapter Seven describes all four types of judicial review procedures that relate to local...

On July 5, 2015, Greek voters were asked to vote on whether the country should accept the terms of austerity offered by the European Union for bailout from the country’s financial crisis. With a turnout rate of 62.5% overall, 61.3% of Greeks voted “no.” While a majority of voters in every district opposed the bailout’s terms, the margin against the proposed austerity measures ranged from 51.2% in Lakonias to 73.8% in Chanion. This paper explores whether political parties influenced Greek voters’ decisions to accept or reject the EU's budgetary reforms. We first review the literature relevant to that question, focusing on whether party platforms are merely “cheap talk” or instead are salient in determining electoral outcomes. We then test our hypotheses empirically at the voting district level. In this model, our key independent variable is party influence, which is measured by party vote shares in the nationwide election held in January of 2015. The dependent variable is the percentage that voted “no” to austerity in July 2015 in each of Greece’s 56 electoral districts. We also control for average age and the unemployment rate across regions, as well as the fraction of first-time voters in each electoral district. After conducting simple regression analysis, we report evidence that a pro-austerity party (New Democracy) was a significant factor impacting the results of the referendum. This research finding bolsters the claim that parties can shape electoral outcomes on questions decided by an institution of direct democracy.

<p>The aim and research questions of this study are concerned about how, and what kind of, problems and subjects that citizens raise during verbal interaction with politicians and officials in the field of participatory democracy. The theoretical framework of the study dominates by theories with a positive approach towards participatory democracy, but there is also a broader discussion on the phenomenon’s strengths and weaknesses.</p><p>The case in focus of the study is a specific phenomenon of participatory democracy created by the municipality of Växjö. The empirical material that is analysed is consisted of written text based on the verbal interaction from these meetings between citizens and politicians/officials.</p><p>The outcome of the study shows that most of the verbal interaction was held between citizens and politicians/officials in a vertical direction and that a major part of the responsibility concerning the raised subjects is estimated to be in the hands of the latter part. In the light of under what circumstances the meetings are practised, the democratic and collective minded performance of the citizens is argued to be in good condition, despite the dominating vertical interaction and estimation of trust.</p>

Referendum in the Czech Republic Abstract This thesis focuses on the issue of the national referendum in the Czech Republic, which the Constitution assumes to be held, but the general legal regulation in the Czech legal system is missing. The most extensive part of this work is therefore devoted to the drafts of constitutional acts regulating the general national referendum (hereinafter also "proposals"), which have been submitted to the Chamber of Deputies since the establishment of the Czech Republic. At the beginning of the work, the author defines the concept of referendum and further categorizes the referendums according to the functions in which people can initiate them, the time when they are held, whether the obligation is to be performed, whether their results are binding, what their subject can be, what territory they are taking, their legislation form and whether judicial review is possible. This categorization is supplemented by examples of legal regulations of referendums from selected European Union countries (including the Czech Republic) and Switzerland. Categorization of referendums are used in the analysis of proposals, to which the second part of this paper is devoted. It is possible, for example, to find out how many proposals were submitted to the Chamber of Deputies since the...

No description available.

The Diploma thesis will deal the main actors who support elements of direct democracy in Czech political system. Concurrently I want critically approach to their thesis and valorize its relevance, viability and potential impact for Czech society. First of all I will present each of elements of direct democracy, which are town meeting, initiative, referendum and recall. I refuse that a direct election of president or other political actor is an element of direct democracy. I classify a direct election of political actor like a synonym of representative democracy in this Diploma thesis. I will also present examples of countries like Switzerland or California, which has huge experience with using of direct democracy. Focus of my interest will be also on Scottish independence referendum and Slovak referendum about family and marriage. After this theoretical and empirical introduction I will critically approach to thesis about elements of direct democracy of Czech political actor like the Dawn of Direct Democracy, the Public Affairs, the Movement for Direct Democracy and the Czech Pirates Party, however I will mention other political actors and theirs ideas of elements of direct democracy, mainly I will mention the Czech government's proposition of law about general referendum in Czech republic. The...

Diante do descontentamento do povo com seus representantes, nota-se a existência de uma possível crise democrática. Percebe-se haver uma falta de identificação entre as leis vigentes e políticas públicas adotadas com as reais necessidades populares o que gera descrença no sistema e nos políticos, levando o povo, cada dia mais, a se afastar das decisões políticas. A máxima democrática de que todo poder emana do povo e deve ser exercido em seu nome, não vem sendo demonstrada no histórico brasileiro, pois, após a eleição, alguns representantes acabam exercendo o poder em benefício próprio, e pior, muitas vezes contra o anseio popular. A Constituição da República de 1988, seguindo tendência democrática atual, buscou contornar o problema prevendo instrumentos que propiciassem a participação popular de forma direta, sem, contudo, alijar a representação. Todavia, mais de vinte anos após a promulgação da Constituição, esses mecanismos têm sido pouco utilizados. Assim, o presente estudo tem por objetivo analisar, em especial, os instrumentos da democracia direta que traduzem a vontade popular manifestada nas urnas, quais sejam: o plebiscito e o referendo. A partir de uma análise histórica da democracia, busca-se entender o porquê da escassez dessas consultas populares, bem como avaliar os meios de que dispõem para conformar o ideal do cidadão às políticas governamentais adotadas por seus representantes. / Over time there has been an increasing schism between elected officials and the electorade, this causing a crisis of our democracy. This schism strengthens the view among citizens that public policy and enacted laws and regulations do not address popular needs. The result is growing disenchantment with politics itself, leading to distrust of political system, government, and, of course, politicians. This leads to the failure of our democratic system, specifically, lack of plebiscite and referendum. The principle that all power emanates from the people and must be exercised on their name has never been a reality in Brazilian history. Although such a concept may be abstract and difficult to implement, the primary reason for the failure of its implementation is the lack of accountability of politicians to their electorate. Instead, what our democratic society has seen, or at least has perceived, is that politicians do not act to address popular needs; rather, politicians act to address special interests for themselves personally and for persons with the ability to influence political decisions. The Constitution, enacted in 1988, sought to address some of these representation failures by providing mechanisms that would encourage, and enable, public participation in a more direct way with their representatives. Almost twenty-five years after the promulgation of the Constitution, it has become obvious that mechanisms have done little to address representation. The purpose of this thesis is to identify and provide a better understanding of why these representative failures occur and to examine certain instruments of direct democracy that better reflect the popular will expressed and polls by electorate.

The organisation of the municipalities is based on the principle of representation. It has previously been impossible to give the citizens more influence through direct democracy, but the information technology gives new possibilities and the choice of democracy model might no longer be obvious. Representation can be interpreted in many ways and there is a need for a more distinct definition of the rule that the municipalities shall be governed according to the principle of representation. It should also be further investigated how the new technology can be used to increase the use of direct democracy. The municipalities ought to work to supplement the representation with direct democracy in the form of active discourse with the citizens. This can be done for example through referendums, consultations or citizen councils. There are already possibilities to increase the civil influence, and the municipalities are therefore responsible to ensure that these possibilities are used.

Do the physical settings in which a voter casts their ballot affect their vote choices? Every state uses a variety of polling locations for the administration of election: churches, schools, libraries, fire stations, and etcetera. The literature on priming effects and voting is massive, but very little research examines the impact of the venue in which a ballot is cast has on voters’ decisions. In this study I argue that polling venues situated on church, school, or veteran’s association property influences the proportion of votes cast in favor of ballot measures related to each institution. I test these hypotheses using precinct level election results and population data from California’s 2008 general election and find results supporting, or suggesting, such a relationship.

Scholars of economics, sociology, political science, and social psychology have attempted to define and quantify quality of life in order to make meaningful observations of society and to formulate optimal policy prescriptions. Unfortunately few if any of these attempts have systematically measured or used quality of life in a quantitative evaluation of data. In what follows I develop an empirically valid metric for measuring quality of life, establish the role of quality of life in determining societal and political outcomes, and explore what predicts higher quality of life to provide insight to about how quality of life can be improved.