Direct Democracy: Designing a Living Constitution

No 167, IEW - Working Papers from Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich

Abstract: A crucial aspect of constitutional design is the provision of rules on how a constitution is to be amended. If procedures for constitutional amendment are very restrictive, changes will take place outside the constitution. These changes are likely to be against the citizens' interests and their ability to influence the political process. We argue that the development of the constitution must be based on the rule of law. We propose direct democratic rights that allow citizens to participate in the amendment process. The direct democratic process of institutional change is theoretically and empirically analyzed. A number of counter arguments and issues for a gradual introduction are discussed.

Keywords: collective decision-making; constitutional design; constitutional economics; direct democracy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H1 H7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe, nep-pbe and nep-pol
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Working Paper: Direct Democracy: Designing a Living Constitution (2003)
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