I found your entry interesting thus I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog :)…

In addition to greater political knowledge and stronger sense of citizenship which accompany or maybe are caused by having elements of citizen-led democracy a heathy scepticism about public institutions and politicians would seem desirable for better public governance.

One reason for lack of trust in central government of the USA could be that there is no direct democracy. Some such as National Initiative for Democracy http://ni4d.us/ propose that this should be introduced.

Why do not political scientists work more to discover how barriers to the introduction of more democracy can be identified and overcome, for instance in about half of the USA states? (Sentence added like: People must lack a sense of control.)

Regards,
Dr. Michael Macpherson
I&R ~ GB
http://www.iniref.org/carta.htm election campaign call
http://www.iniref.org/index.enter.html web site index

Here in Colo., ballot initiatives recently gave us the country’s first Renewable Energy Mandate (Amendment 37), the country’s strongest ban on lobbyists giving politicians ANYTHING (41), campaign finance reform (27), increased K-12 funding (23), Background Checks at Gun Shows (22), Medical Marijuana (20), cleaner hog farms (14) and Term Limits (12), just in the last 6 general elections. Research with the National Conference of State Legislatures’ database: http://www.ncsl.org/programs/legismgt/elect/dbintro.htm

Oregon just passed a law allowing for Citizen Initiative Review, in which randomly-selected citizen juries would hold hearings, take expert testimony, debate, consider amendments, and issue reports, so voters get the kind of info legislators get, but conducted independently from the Legislature. http://healthydemocracyoregon.org/node/125

I’m afraid that Joshua may be carrying water for those who are looking for ways of eliminating ballot initiatives because of some problem initiatives which get all the publicity. Strangely, most of these folks call themselves “Democrats.”

“The cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy” NY Gov. Al Smith, D. Current Dems lack vision and boldness and, want to turn back the clock on citizen participation because of trauma over a few bad apples. My Congressman Jared Polis is a sterling exception. http://spryeye.blogspot.com/2008/12/my-congressman-jared-polis-on-record.html He sponsored CO Amendments 41 and 23.

One reason for lack of trust in central government of the USA could be that there is no direct democracy. It is remote and people must lack a sense of control. Some such as National Initiative for Democracy http://ni4d.us/ propose that this (dd) should be introduced.

Why do not political scientists work more to discover how barriers to the introduction of more democracy can be identified and overcome, for instance in about half of the USA states?

Regards,
Michael
I&R ~ GB
http://www.iniref.org/carta.htm election campaign call
http://www.iniref.org/index.enter.html web site index

For example, people are not forcefully “exposed” to these ballots, but are asked “Would you like to take part in this survey?” What if the people who have less trust in government are more likely to take part in such surveys, perhaps to air their grievances? In this case (voluntary) exposure to the ballots is not the cause of the lack of trust in government, but the same result would be found, i.e. people who take part in lots of ballots are more likely to have little trust in government. The ballots are merely skewed towards attracting people who do not trust the government.

I’m not saying that the above is correct, and perhaps these effects have been accounted for in the study (I have not read the actual study), but the article does seem to draw conclusions that might not be fully supported by the actual correlation reported.