News


  • Grassroots missing from this year’s initiatives – What about last year?
  • Nearly one hundred years ago, progressives succeeded in amending the Constitution of Washington State to provide for three powers of direct democracy: The initiative, the referendum, and the recall. The purpose of establishing these three powers was not to supplant or replace our republican form of government, but rather, to give the people a way to get the gears of representative democracy turning in case they got stuck. Read the Rest...

  • Politics of Marginalised can help building stronger Human Rights Institutions (HRIs) in India
  • Majority of 1.21 billion plus population in India have been drawn immensely, through different mediums to politics, music/film, and cricket. Among the three, politics takes a centrestage and captures mind space affecting our day-to-day lives. Politics plays a significant role in the lives of the people, ultimately deciding cost of living, price of drugs, daily wages, sensex, and stock market. Read the Rest...

  • Left, Right and Wrong on ‘Reform’ of Initiative Process
  • By Joe Mathews Journalist and Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation, Fellow at the Center for Social Cohesion at Arizona State University and co-author of California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It (UC Press, 2010). Mon, July 11th, 2011 The good news: reform of the initiative process is finally on the table in California. The bad news: the left and the right are getting reform wrong. Read the Rest...

  • The challenges of direct democracy
  • Shyam Ponappa: The challenges of direct democracy India must weigh the pros and cons of various approaches to direct democracy and develop one of its own Read the Rest...

  • An Actionable Plan For 9/11 Truth And Justice
  • By Senator Mike Gravel 04 July, 2011 Countercurrents.org Read the Rest...

  • Beyond the ‘European Dream’
  • BRUNO KAUFMANN Today @ 09:23 CET EUOBSERVER / COMMENT – Crisis, crisis, crisis. Once again political Europe is in the middle of an institutional turmoil. The possible default in Greece, bye-bye to Schengen and a European Summit with clueless leaders. And in the Guardian Martin Kettles offers the results of more than sixty years of the integration process: 'The nationalist right and the global markets have won. The internationalist social and Christian democrats have lost'. Read the Rest...

  • Making Direct Democracy More Deliberative
  • by James Fishkin California has long led the nation in trying to involve the public directly in the making of laws – this year marks the 100th anniversary of California’s initiative process. Ever since that signature Progressive Era reform, the state has been the heartland of the nation’s political experimentation. Read the Rest...

  • Is it time to reform California’s initiative system?
  • This year marks the 100th anniversary of direct democracy in California, which is made up of the initiative, the referendum and the recall.  The most famous recall in recent memory is when Arnold Schwarzenegger replaced Gov. Gray Davis in 2003. Referendums are used occasionally to repeal unpopular laws the Legislature has passed.  But the initiative is the real prize, with citizen measures showing up on the ballot each election.     Read the Rest...

  • Direct Democracy in Italy
  • Direct democracy may not always be the best—or paradoxically even the most democratic—form of government, but sometimes it’s a great breath of fresh air. On June 12–13 Italians voted “yes” on four referendums in a resounding defeat for the Berlusconi government. It came just two weeks after the center-right was roundly voted down in municipal elections across Italy, and was a blow that even some of Berlusconi’s own colleagues think the prime minister cannot survive. But it was more than that. Read the Rest...

  • Lawmakers must focus on will of the people
  • The elections of fall 2010 are over, and the new members of Congress have been in their seats since January. Nevertheless, it still appears that there are openly hostile relations between various members of Congress and the two political parties as a whole. This comes at the expense of the great citizens of this fine country, who want and need to be more involved with the decision making of our nation, above and beyond merely voting for those who will make all of the decisions, which is very little power indeed. Read the Rest...