The recent Swiss anti-immigrant referendum has triggered a debate in the EU in which opponents have gone as far as to raise the possibility of sanctions.
The political writer Richard Herzinger wrote in the German weekly Die Welt am Sonntag (February 17) that “direct democracy is by no means as ‘popular’ as its advocates make it out to be: in fact, plebiscites are even easier to manipulate than representative democracy….
“By initiating the referendum the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) obtained a majority that it could never have attained through parliamentary democracy. That shows how easy it is for parties to use referendums to further their own calculated self-serving interests….
“When the most important parties share government responsibility this puts a brake on the temptation to use plebiscites as a permanent means of mobilising the masses to further their own strategic goals. Since the SVP departed from the concordance model, it has above all brought about an intense polarization of the Swiss population….
“Rather than letting the real views of ‘the people’ be heard by ‘the elites’ – as its SVP masterminds like to claim – the razor-thin result of the vote above all reveals a deep rift in society.”
Eric Koch’s new book, New Beginnings, was launched on September 20. The book is available from 
Ah, the democracy dilemma(s). The elite, including the educated, will always prefer other elite to represent them. Unless of course they can buy the referendum (as in California). But then you can buy the representatives (as in the US Senate, Congress, etc.). This raises the question ‘how much do we really believe in democracy?’. And immigration IS a huge issue, which is not being discussed enough (I’m not even sure it’s possible to have a ‘balanced’ discussion in most countries).