When the People Vote, What Has Democracy Lost?

The Swiss limit. What is a referendum in democracy?

In June 2026, Swiss voters took part in a referendum on an initiative proposed by the Swiss People’s Party. The initiative called for introducing a national population limit of 10 million inhabitants by 2050. In practice, this would have meant a significant restriction on the inflow of immigrants. Although a majority of voters ultimately rejected the initiative, it revealed something more than the result of one particular ballot. Moreover, it exposed the fundamental paradox of a referendum in democracy.

Democracy rests on a minimum level of trust. We elect representatives so they can make complex decisions on our behalf. These are decisions that all of us at once cannot realistically analyse. In such a system, a referendum in democracy — a situation in which citizens directly decide on matters that concern them — is an exceptional instrument.

On one hand, it proves the strength of democracy and embodies the vision of popular sovereignty. On the other, the very fact that an exceptional vote becomes necessary suggests that the normal way of making decisions has ceased to suffice. In this sense, a referendum becomes not only an expression of sovereignty. It also becomes a symptom of its crisis.

Rousseau’s illusion: the dream of the people’s direct will

Jean-Jacques Rousseau dreamed of a community in which citizens truly author the law, because only then do they remain free. In The Social Contract, he wrote that the “first rule of public economy” should be the general will. The general will always tends toward the preservation and welfare of the whole and every part, and which is the source of law.

In this view, the direct voice of citizens seems to be more than a procedure. It becomes a condition of political agency. Democracy would then consist not primarily in entrusting decisions to elites, but in the community itself establishing the laws to which it will later be subject.

An alibi for politicians

The problem is that the modern referendum rarely realises this ideal. It usually does not appear where the general will flows freely through institutions, but precisely where that flow has been disrupted. A referendum is then not a calm act of collective lawmaking. On the contrary, it becomes rather an attempt to recover lost agency.

Citizens vote directly not because the system works perfectly. Instead, they do so because they feel ignored, dismissed, or forced to accept decisions made earlier over their heads.

In practice, referendums are most often invoked when trust in democratically elected representatives has been damaged. Citizens feel that decisions are being made above them, in a language that fails to explain their real consequences. At the same time, their own fears are discredited rather than heard.

Direct voting then becomes not so much a natural element of political life as an extraordinary gesture. It is an attempt to regain influence where the ordinary mechanisms of representation have ceased to be enough.

The flight from responsibility

There is another dimension to this paradox. A referendum is not always merely a tool of civic pressure on those in power. It can also become a way for power itself to evade responsibility.

Politicians, after all, are elected to make difficult decisions, including decisions that are unpopular, risky, or conflict-ridden. Yet in practice, when such issues arise, they sometimes try to shift the burden of judgment onto citizens.

That allows them to say afterward: “It was not we who decided. The nation decided.” At that point, a referendum ceases to prove the strength of democracy and becomes evidence of the weakness of political leadership.

Referendum in democracy: polarization instead of debate

A referendum is also often evidence of political calculation. Although it may appear to hand a decision over to citizens, the scope of that decision is very often strictly defined in advance by those who frame the question. The same people also impose the terms of the dispute, and organise political mobilisation.

That is why a referendum so easily becomes a tool of polarisation. Instead of building a political community, it forces that community to choose one of two sides in a dispute. Instead of deeper debate, the logic of mobilisation takes over: simplified slogans, emotional campaigns, and the conviction that only one answer expresses the “true will of the nation.”

This is precisely why referendums so often concern such sensitive issues as migration, European integration, taxes, or security. These are questions burdened with strong emotions, fear, and the sense that something fundamental is at stake. At the same time, they are areas in which trust in elites is weakest. It is here that citizens most sharply feel the gap between the declarations of elites and the reality of their own lives.

Does a mature democracy need plebiscites?

On one hand, it is difficult to imagine democracy without the possibility of appealing to the people on the most important questions. Without such moments of direct voice, political freedom can easily become an empty form. Citizens vote once every few years, and then merely watch politics unfold in the media.

On the other hand, the more often a system reaches for a referendum, the more clearly we see that the ordinary mechanisms of representation — parties, parliament, government — are not fulfilling their role. In this way, a referendum is no longer the summit of a well-functioning democracy. Rather, it is a symptom of its illness.

Perhaps, then, mature democracy does not consist in the people being able to decide everything directly. Perhaps it consists in not needing to rescue itself constantly through referendums in order to regain influence over the course of events. Instead, it consists in representatives having the courage to make the decisions for which they were chosen. It also depends on citizens trusting them enough not to demand a plebiscite at every turn.

Only in such an arrangement does a referendum in democracy become what, in theory, it was meant to be from the beginning: not a symptom of systemic crisis, but one of the normal tools of shared self-government.

Read this article in Polish: Święto czy choroba demokracji? Ukryty sens referendum