The DI book project - update

In 2006, Democracy International will publish an international edition of the book "Direct democracy: facts and arguments about the introduction of initiative and referendum" by Jos Verhulst in about 10 European languages. The book was published earlier in 1998 in Dutch, and inspired many people in Belgium and the Netherlands to start working for direct democracy.

The book is a perfect introduction to direct democracy; it is thorough and extremely well documented, but non-technical and easily accessible for every interested reader. The theory of direct democracy is build up in an extremely logical, step by step manner. The book furthermore deals with federalism - how societies can be created bottom-up, starting from individuals, rather than top-down as in the past – and with the psychology of direct democracy: social capital, trust and civicness. A broad range of recent scientific material is quoted which clearly proves that direct democracy promotes civicness, responsibility and freedom. In the last chapters, direct democracy in practice is explored through examples from Switzerland, California, German and other states, and arguments against direct democracy are carefully analyzed and answered.

In the summer, the first language editions will be coming out: the Dutch, English and German versions, followed by the French, Spanish and Italian versions. In the second half of the year, some versions in among others Danish, Polish, Slowak, and Slovenian and probably some other languages will appear too.

Of each version, an professionally layouted electronic PDF version will be created, which will be freely distributed through the Democracy International and other websites. From the PDF, paper versions can be made easily. This should be arranged in cooperation with the national movements for direct democracy. Next to these versions, we also try to find publishers for a trade publication in some key countries like Germany and the UK.

We are looking forward to cooperating with individuals and movements from various European countries with publishing and distributing this most interesting book.

Arjen Nijeboer