Abstract
If 'Democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people', the citizens' role consists of mostly voting for their representatives during general elections. Still, from time to time, they are also called to vote for referendums. Once seen as an exceptional event, popular votes of this type are now more often used as part of the decision-making process in Europe. Thus, it has been said that direct democracy (that referendum symbolizes) could be a threat for elected parliaments because it inherently contradicts representative democracy. At first, referendum seems to be a rather clear concept but is in fact a dual phenomenon and here a crucial distinction has to be made. Referendum in a large sense designates any direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. In its restricted meaning, it concerns only votes launched by political institutions and has to be opposed to initiatives which are triggered by popular petitions.
In this essay I will use the word 'referendum' in its restricted sense. Yet the study will also address the effects of initiatives in parliaments. To do so, I will divide my essay into four sections. First, I will briefly introduce the theories of direct and representative democracy. In the second and third sections, I will examine the effects of referendums in parliaments by analyzing their respective scopes and how they interact. Finally, in my fourth section, I will study the effects of initiatives in parliaments in the context of the Swiss case.
