Monen vaihtoehdon kansanäänestykset ja enemmistöjen mystiikka

Författare

• Eerik Lagerspetz

Abstract

Referenda are often seen as more democratic than representative forms of decision making. This view overlooks one central problem in direct democracy: the role of agendas. Most referenda are based on the supposition that the issues voted on are dichotomous: there are only two relevant alternatives (yes or no) and the simple version of the majority rule is applicable. When an issue is not pereceived as dichotomous, agenda-setters either have to omit some relevant alternative(s), or use some other procedure than the simple majority rule. Alas, when there are more than two alternatives, the number of possible rules is enormous. This gives arise to the problems unveiled by the theory of social choice. In this article, various methods actually used in referenda with multiple alternatives (e.g. in Sweden, Switzerland, New Zealand, and the USA) are discussed in a social choice framework. Because of the requirement of simplicity commonly associated with the referendum device, methods used in multi-alternative cases tend to treat the preferences of some voters unfairly – they tend to violate some intuitively acceptable criteria of fairness more often than, say, the methods used in parliamentary decision-making. However, more complex procedures are available. Thus, the results need not be seen as a decisive argument against the use of referenda