9
for the party on the public electoral campaign agenda. Last but not least parties use ini-
tiatives and referenda to activate their own members and activist inbetween two elec-
tions.
In the final step of the direct democratic process the parties are even more dominant
than during the signature collection phase. Campaigns prior to a popular vote are almost
entirely in the hand of established politicians for several reasons. As we have seen even
for initiatives there is a parliamentary debate where politicians discuss an issue. Later in
the process parties always give recommendations on every issue to their voters and es-
tablished politicians are most present in the media. Furthermore there is a strong per-
sonal linkage between the major interest groups and political parties anyway. Because
being an MP at the national level is only a part time job, many national politicians are
involved in an interest group in one way or the other and key figures of many major
interest groups are members of the national parliament too.
2.4
The effects of direct democracy on parties
One of the key questions that has been discussed theoretically is whether direct democ-
racy weakens political parties or not. The overall feeling is that political parties are
weakened through direct democracy (Kobach 1993). The main argument is that direct
democracy demonopolizes the role of parties in the process s of interest articulation and
interest mediation (Neidhart 1986). According to (Beyme 1982) direct democracy in
Switzerland has favoured interest organizations rather than political parties. The argu-
ments on the negative impact on parties can be summarized as followed (Ladner and
Brändle 1999):
•
Direct democracy forces broad consensus beyond political parties. Interest groups
are more directly integrated into policy making than in representative demoocray.
•
Direct democracy introduces greater conflict between parties because they are
forced to decide constantly on political issues.
•
Direct democracy puts excessive demands on parties that have limited resources
anyway. They lack money and professional staff to constantly engage in political
campaigns.
•
Direct democracy makes partiers unimportant because the important questions are
decided directly by the voters anyway.
However there are counter arguments too.
•
According to (Papadopoulos 1991) direct democracy leads to a greater openness of
the political system mainly for smaller parties.
Convention