Deliberative and effective governance by direct democracy: will ConDems deliver?

[IandRgb]

INIREF COMMENTS:
Andy Mycock writes, "Attention is often drawn to young peoples' 
democratic malaise, often identified in lower turnouts in elections of 
18-24 year-olds." and earlier, "Efforts to denigrate the student 
protesters overlook the sense of helplessness and disempowerment felt by 
many students in secondary, further and higher education."

Some promising, at least partial, remedies for these maladies of our 
democracy are to be found in ConLibdem proposals, in aspects which may 
have have been overlooked by students and ignored, perhaps deliberately, 
by most of the pundits. There are seeds of genuine democracy of the sort 
which is run and carried through by electors, citizens. To what am I 
referring? Let me give you chapter and verse. David Cameron said in a 
public speech that if elected to govern he would introduce 
citizen-initiated referendum both at local and national levels. Further, 
the Con/Libdem coalition agreement states, "We will give residents the 
power to instigate local referendums on any local issue." Local direct 
democracy may be included in the Localism Bill, which has been delayed 
but may appear soon. More detail about the ConLibdem proposals are here 
http://www.iniref.org/conlibdem.html

Strong public support for more democracy is needed *now* to ensure that 
the reforms which are on the table are introduced with "user friendly" 
regulations. Careful "democracy design" will be required in order that 
deliberative and effective governance can begin to develop.
----------------------------

A REPLY TO
Student protests give voice to the ‘disconnected’ generation Andy 
Mycock, 9 December 2010
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/andy-mycock/student-protests-give-voice-to-‘disconnected’-generation

----------------------------
I&R ~ GB Citizens' Initiative and Referendum
Campaign for direct democracy in Britain
http://www.iniref.org/