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To: German speakers, linguists, academics. Dear Colleagues and Friends, Most people agree that in procedures or methods of democracy the Swiss lead the world. Starting during the last century, at this moment still the 1800s, the people there introduced systems which added to the appointment and dismissal of representatives by election the right for citizens to propose law, to initiate referenda and to veto government legislation. Much experience has been gathered with this system which mixes direct and indirect (representative/parliamentary) democracy. Also in post-war Germany much has been achieved by efforts to improve participation of citizens in public decision making and policy development, mainly at the levels of federal state (Land), city and region. For instance, during the early 1990s in Bavaria a movement developed to introduce elements of direct democracy at the "communal" level. Then in 1995 the movement succeeded when a citizen-initiated referendum at the federal state level introduced initiative and referendum, over-ruling the governing political party. Since then, there have been several hundreds of initiatives in town and country, e.g about traffic, education, environment, which have often been enthusiastically debated and voted upon. In all Laender there are elements of direct democracy. In my opinion, these developments shoud be made better known in other countries. They show excellent examples of how "rich" western-style countries may constructively develop their societies, especially the culture of politics. My main point in this message to German speakers -- linguists, academics and others -- is that the above developments are little known in Britain. The language barrier remains a serious one. Perhaps an educational effort a bit like Mehr Demokratie e.V. should be started in Britain. Many of you will know it. There are WWW sites in several regions, e.g. http://www.mehr-demokratie.de/ and "Mehr Demokratie in Bayern" http://www.mehr-demokratie.de/bayern/ Another good place to get up to date is at the WWW site of Die Zeit -- in this week's newspaper there is an article by Bruno Kaufmann, with links to further information. "Die Welt der direkten Demokratie: Ein Überblick" http://www.ZEIT.de/tag/aktuell/199951.t-demokratie_.html Please contact me if you are interested to work, or to promote work in this area. Sincerely, Michael Macpherson ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dr. Michael Macpherson, PSAMRA/Integral Studies, Berlin FRG tel.: +49 30 262 3768 e-mail: [log in to unmask] INTEGRAL STUDIES http://www.snafu.de/~mjm/index.html NEW: Democr@cy Forum PSYCHO-SOCIAL AND MEDICAL RESEARCH PSAMRA http://www.snafu.de/~mjm/psamra.html %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%