Postrevolutionar's enthusiasm regarding the new democracy was gradually but surely turned into a general apathy of citizens to address the political world. The passion with which people attended the activities hosted by supporting policy in the early years of domestic democracy and, for a recent example, projects such as schimbalumea.ro look, no doubt, intuitive ability to people to understand basic democratic mechanisms. What happened, meanwhile, what can we do to fix it?
At home, in Ancient Greece, democracy means that the Citadel members (citizens) deliberau and decideau along the course of the policy. Today, this practice of direct democracy not only no longer put into value, but even the legitimacy they might seem questionable. We live in an era of democracy, and this is manifest in the weighting of the constitutional text, in the description of the fundamental political institutions. Sometimes, there are also mentions of specific institutions symbolic of direct democracy: the right of petitioning, citizen initiative and referendum. And yet, representative democracy has emerged as a solution to a problem that was insurmontabila in the paradigm of direct democracy: the huge number of citizens what constituted new Member-Nations and therefore unable to put the interests of the accord through direct methods.
The price paid was significantly: the power of citizen politics has been reduced to a strength that gives him the right to vote. And apathy pervading today is a direct effect of the fact that more and more have realized the futility of this symbolic gesture more than political. The representative policy logic is more similar to that of a lotteries. Election day is the day of "Great Lotteries", and after the lucky winners are established, begin negotiations for sharing benefits.
At this point it is necessary to clarify. At stake in the argument you bring is not a trial and will feel naive to say that we must return to a popular democracy, to replace representative democracy. A fundamental principle of maintaining individual freedom is the principle of the separation of powers in the State, and what principle is the cornerstone of the current democratic systems. On the contrary, the argument here is that, beyond the separation of power within the political class, it requires a political power de-monopolize the preserve political elite towards the citizen.
Theoretically, these tools exist. If a citizen has a Bill, then you just need to gather 100,000 signatures and it will be on the agenda of the Parliament. Of course, assuming that it gets up there, if Parliament rejects the draft, the story ended. Also, although the principles of decentralization and local autonomy are mentioned in the Constitution, the possibility of citizens ' initiative is taken into account only at the national level. Regarding these two aspects, it is worth mentioning the example of the United States. Although the possibility of citizens ' initiative is recognized only in about half of the States, however, raising the number of required signatures (which varies between 3 and 15% of the number of new voters) send the Bill concerned for ratification by popular vote, putting aside such legislative authority. In addition, citizen initiatives can be undertaken both at the federal level and the State or local level.
In Romania, the alternative policy tools that we have at hand the citizens are unusable. It's enough to try to remember at least one attempted citizen's initiative that would have been nearly as successful, how to figure out how feasible is the method. There are two competing explanations of this phenomenon. First put this failure on account of the indifference of the population, the same neglect that results in this extremely low voter turnout. It is a logic that sees these phenomena cause population indifference and possibly admire politicians sacrifice to try to do something for these citizens indolenti. The other explanation leaves the inability of citizens to do something beyond the electoral act. In this logic, there are no citizen initiatives because of the very high costs to successfully undertake such action, costs far exceeding the availability of a regular citizen. How donquijotesc would be a citizen effort that would submit the effort to collect 100,000 signatures, on paper, of a quarter of the country's counties, because in the end to find out that his initiative was in MPs ' vote?
And yet, you can do something to restore the trust of the citizens that their efforts can have a political hold? First of all, the issues that directly affect you in terms of which you own the relevant information are those at the local level. Secondly, we are living in the Internet age and there are safe and effective methods to express adherence to a citizen initiative from your own computer. As for the risks to expose ourselves by allowing access to the policy decision of the citizens (the promulgation of a law conceived of citizens), we can rely on the same institutional mechanisms (Constitutional Court) that protects us against aberatiilor politicians.
In conclusion, it needs an article clearly and explicitly stated in the Constitution that to diminish significantly the costs for carrying out such civic initiatives and projects that support legislative alternative approaches.