Voting on everything: potential pitfalls
While voting on issues like the creation of a pedestrian street has worked for Vienna, there are other things that are a no-go for direct democracy, argues Maria Vassilakou. First of all, there are legal considerations: the Austrian Constitution stipulates that no direct votes may be held on issues of taxes and fees because “no one wants to pay for anything”. Then, there are special interests and fairness to consider.
“We can’t have old people voting on whether children should be able to play in the neighborhood – some topics aren’t right for direct democracy,” Vassilakou says.
Same thing for issues such as topics that directly affect a specific population: “I don’t want to live in a society where people can vote on women’s rights, like in Poland a few weeks ago,” she added.
In the end, she finds the question of whether to put an issue to a direct vote down to a few questions that can be difficult to answer: Who is affected directly? Who profits from a certain measure, and who has something to lose?
External Content
Maria Vassilakou: We must ask those who will be affected by the decision and respect them in order to avoid tyranny of majority #globfor16External link
— Democracy Intl (@democracy_intl) November 17, 2016External link
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