PhD project: “Contesting Restrained Democracy” - 2024-2028 - Funded by NWO

Short project description:

According to many observers, democracy today is in deep crisis because decision-making is too remote from the people. Referendums are, therefore, often put forward as the essential instrument to solve democracy’s crisis. Historiography follows this image of democracy in contemporary Western Europe as a form of “restrained democracy.” Since 1945, democracy has allegedly been characterized by powerful parliaments, strong political parties, and a strengthened executive branch of government. Today’s call for direct democracy is widely seen as a rupture with this postwar democratic model.
 

Contesting Restrained Democracy challenges this dominant understanding of postwar democracy and its contemporary crisis. By historically comparing debates, practices, and evaluations of referendums in France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, it will be the first project to reveal that the call for referendums is by no means a new phenomenon, but that is has been an integral part of democracy since the end of the War. The project will, therefore, answer the question why referendums were debated and practiced in the postwar period across Western Europe, and explain the strikingly divergent national experiences with referendums.
 

This project’s innovation is threefold. First, it presents a new understanding of postwar democracy, which puts the experiences of referendums front and central. Second, it contests the image of a uniform European democratic model, by explaining why referendums were applied differently in different states. Third, it provides an empirically-based, critical perspective on referendums as the perceived solution for today’s crisis of democracy, which underlines the project’s social and political urgency.