Challenging Democracy - 9th Dialogue on Science of the Academia Engelberg Foundation 2010
Professor Stefanie Bailer from ETH Zurich reported that...
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Challenging Democracy - 9th Dialogue on Science of the Academia Engelberg Foundation 2010
Professor Stefanie Bailer from ETH Zurich reported that in globalized political order, there are debates of whether the end of parliamentarism has come or whether it is time to declare a postparliamentarist period. She explained the problems of free votes. Afterwards, she analysed voting processes for complex issues and factors which explain these decisions. She came to the conclusion that modern democracies face two types of challenges. On the one hand, national parliamentarians lost competencies to international organizations with increasing power such as the European Union. On the other hand, the representatives are faced with more intricate policy problems due to more complex societies (e.g. legislation on genetically modified mechanisms). For the Swiss militia system, she mentioned the following risk: "The more complex the issues, the more successful lobbyists will be!"
