Download or read book Referendums and Democratic Government written by Maija Setälä and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-01-06 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Referendums and Democratic Government is the most systematic analysis of the referendum so far. The referendum phenomenon is approached from different perspectives: social choice theory, theories of democracy, a comparative study on 22 democracies, and in-depth case studies of Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland. The referendum is not a unitary phenomenon but it serves various functions and different normative goals in the political systems studied. This variation may largely be explained by the differences in the initiating and agenda-setting procedures.