Uruguay: A prodigious user of direct democracy mechanisms

Uruguay is one of the most prodigious users of mechanism of direct democracy in the world and it provides a rich milieu to test many hypotheses advanced by a literature that principally comes from the "north," and very especially from Switzerland (the world champion of direct democracy) an...

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Autor principal: Altman, David
Formato: Working Paper NonPeerReviewed
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: 2008
Materias:
Acceso en línea:http://dx.doi.org/10.5167/uzh-95344
http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/gsdl/cgi-bin/library.cgi?a=d&c=ch/ch-001&d=95344oai
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id I16-R122-95344oai
record_format dspace
institution Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales
institution_str I-16
repository_str R-122
collection Red de Bibliotecas Virtuales de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO)
language Inglés
topic C2D Working Paper Series
320 Political science
340 Law
900 History
spellingShingle C2D Working Paper Series
320 Political science
340 Law
900 History
Altman, David
Uruguay: A prodigious user of direct democracy mechanisms
topic_facet C2D Working Paper Series
320 Political science
340 Law
900 History
description Uruguay is one of the most prodigious users of mechanism of direct democracy in the world and it provides a rich milieu to test many hypotheses advanced by a literature that principally comes from the "north," and very especially from Switzerland (the world champion of direct democracy) and from the United States, where direct democracy is frequently used at the state level. This literature tends to suggest that economic interests or social groups could easily utilize direct democracy for their own particular benefit, making it, in the end, harmful to representative democracy. Nonetheless, this study will show that, at least for the Uruguayan case, this argument does not hold equally and consistently for all cases. Mechanisms of direct democracy in Uruguay do not undermine representative democracy because their passage depends largely on the mobilization efforts of organized partisan groups operating outside the conventional legislative arena. In this small country, unlike other cases, the central actors working for the approval of mechanisms of direct democracy are political parties' fractions, the basic institutions of electoral, legislative, and political representation. Therefore, an overall normative evaluation of mechanisms of direct democracy as either inherently good or bad for representative democracy must take into account the very different institutional contexts in which these mechanisms are utilized, as well as the strength of the political actors involved.
format Working Paper
NonPeerReviewed
Working Paper
NonPeerReviewed
author Altman, David
author_facet Altman, David
author_sort Altman, David
title Uruguay: A prodigious user of direct democracy mechanisms
title_short Uruguay: A prodigious user of direct democracy mechanisms
title_full Uruguay: A prodigious user of direct democracy mechanisms
title_fullStr Uruguay: A prodigious user of direct democracy mechanisms
title_full_unstemmed Uruguay: A prodigious user of direct democracy mechanisms
title_sort uruguay: a prodigious user of direct democracy mechanisms
publishDate 2008
url http://dx.doi.org/10.5167/uzh-95344
http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/gsdl/cgi-bin/library.cgi?a=d&c=ch/ch-001&d=95344oai
work_keys_str_mv AT altmandavid uruguayaprodigioususerofdirectdemocracymechanisms
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