How a referendum can be anti-democratic

Winston Churchill is quoted as saying that 

“…democracy is the worst form of government - except for all the others that have been tried.”

And democracy can indeed be frustrating. It’s difficult sometimes to understand why the majority cannot see things your way and vote in the candidates that you think will serve us best in parliament. 

Referenda are, or at least should be, the ultimate item in the toolbox for the pursuit of true democracy. The Rolls Royce in the exercise of the right of every adult citizen of a country to have his or her say on the outcome of a proposal that will effect everybody. 

We are facing an important referendum in Ireland on May 31st next, on whether or not we will sign up to the European Union Fiscal Treaty provisions. 

While the idea of a referendum if attractive to anyone who is in favour of democracy, this one, and others in the past, have brought forward at least the suspicion that in practice such plebiscites can fall more than a little short of the democratic ideal. This has been discussed here before: Democracy and a referendum on fiscal union in Ireland. Here it was argued that as, on occasion, less than half the people who are eligible to vote in referenda actually do so, the majority are in fact saying they not want referenda at all and are happy to let others make these decisions. Unfortunately this can open the door for well organised groups that have separate agendas.

I now believe this situation has the potential to get even worse. The coming referendum is shaping up to be positively anti-democratic. This situation will arise because of two things: strong evidence from opinion polls that nearly half the voters are prepared to admit that they do not understand the treaty provisions, and the decision of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to instruct its members how to vote on the question. The admitted lack of understanding feeds into the idea that people are prepared to let others make the decision on their behalf - if not they would do whatever it takes to gain sufficient knowledge of the issues. The trade union involvement is more insidious. It suggests that, if enough of the people who vote are both trade union members and among those who do not understand the treaty provisions, the outcome could depend on the attitude to the treaty of policy makers in the trade union movement. 

The problem is that these people do not have a mandate from the public at large. They have not put themselves up for election in front of anyone other than their own members. To put it another way - what’s the difference between abrogating, in practice if not in theory, a national decision to the leaders of trade unions on the one hand, and allowing the democratically elected members of Dail Eireann to bring forward a result after a full and transparent debate on the matter in the parliament of the country, on the other? Could the answer have something to do with the subverting of democracy?

Democracy and a referendum on fiscal union in Ireland

Many people understand democracy only in terms of the will and dominance of the majority. However, as was well recognised by Thomas Jefferson and many others, majorities can be just as tyrannical as the worst dictators. That is why the free world operates under a system of constitutional democracy, which has other elements in the mix, like parliamentary representation and a constitution that guarantees the rights, not only of minorities, but of the individual.  
 
A referendum in Ireland on EU fiscal union will, almost certainly, be bedeviled by euro skeptic campaigners who will be quite happy to condemn the Irish people to all the very significant disadvantages of having to operate, in a globalised marketplace, outside of the membership of a major monetary unit, so long as they can strike a blow against abortion / the end of neutrality / the perceived defects of current government / whatever you're having yourself.  
 
At the end of the process it will be discovered, yet again, that half or less of those entitled to do so will have actually voted. Therefore the outcome will go to the faction that is best able to mobilise its troops.  
 
In the referendums on the constitution that were held in the years in the chart at the top, on no less than four occasions the turnout was below 50%. For what it’s worth, at those times a majority of the people was saying, in effect, that it did not want referendums. On no occasion was the turnout greater than 60% and in many cases it just managed to pull above the 50% level. In the 17^th amendment referendum, on cabinet confidentiality, the number in favour was 52.6% of those who voted, but this was a mere 23.5% of all registered voters. Significantly less than a quarter of the eligible voters in the state were thus able to have the constitution changed. This was not really a good exercise in democracy.

Reports on abuse, and The Separation of Church and State

The Irish Times - Thursday, September 8, 2011

Sir, – Many commentators claim the abuse of children and vulnerable adults in the past was as much the responsibility of the State as it was of the churches that managed the various institutions. Thus Dermot Keogh (Opinion, September 6th) writes: “There were many so-called bystanders when crimes were committed against the weakest and most vulnerable”.

It’s not that simple. Because the professions and the wide section of society mentioned by Dr Keogh, including, most notably, the political establishment and the civil service, were in thrall to the Catholic hierarchy, to a level that seems incredible today, there was really no distinction to be made between church and State. There were, therefore, very few bystanders, and none with any power.

Now that we seem to have an appreciation for democracy and the rights of the individual, we should reasonably expect a long overdue separation of church and State. In particular, we need to reclaim our national schools so that children can, at the level of State involvement in their education, learn how to think, rather than what to think, and thereby avoid the possibility of them being subjected to the disastrous indoctrination that was the lot of their recent forebears. – Yours, etc,

SEAMUS McKENNA,