Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Michigan Law Review

Abstract

The conventional response has been to look to relatively small units of government, localities, to serve as the forums for public participation. Even at the local level, however, direct participation in the political process seems anomalous. The town meeting model of government has little application to contemporary municipalities, and even the Jeffersonian appeal to tum the counties into wards seems inappropriate for the wide variety of local problems that require regional or interjurisdictional solutions. Advocates of increased mass participation, therefore, generally recommend mechanisms more passive than direct entry into the public forum by large numbers of citizens. Most frequently, commentators suggest plebiscitary processes - initiatives and referenda8 that permit direct legislation without requiring gatherings in which all decisionmakers meet simultaneously. Proponents of these processes presume that plebiscites accommodate participation within the constraints of technical feasibility. The plebiscite, however, is not without its detractors, even among those otherwise sympathetic to participatory processes. These objections take a variety of forms, but they make essentially the same claim: Plebiscitary processes are less likely than representative ones to generate decisions that reflect common conceptions of the public interest or social welfare. In this article I consider that comparative claim and conclude that, at least in discrete areas with identifiable characteristics, criticisms of plebiscites both understate the capacity of participation and overstate the capacity of legislative processes to serve public interest.

First Page

930

DOI

https://doi.org/10.2307/1289235

Volume

86

Publication Date

1988

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