Die Pfadabhängigkeit direkter Demokratie in Deutschland

The discussion about the introduction of direct democracy at the federal level in Germany is focused almost exclusively on direct legislation. Both with regard to the difficulties of embedding the latter within a parliamentary system and in international comparison, this is quite remarkable. How did direct legislation attain such dominance among the spectrum of direct democratic instruments? This book employs the concept of path dependence in order to answer this question. It traces the development of ideas about direct democracy from the Empire to the Federal Republic and shows that there was a continuous development at the state level in the course of which alternative forms of direct democracy were gradually displaced by direct legislation. A consciousness for this historical background could also open up possibilities for a reconsideration of some of these suppressed alternatives.