Civic Participation - 2 Answers
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1 :
Switzerland is the best current example of direct democracy, using both initiative and referendum. In the initiative process, citizens gather petitions to force an election (referendum) on a proposed law. In Switzerland over the last 120 years, about 240 issues have been put to referendum, only about 10% have gained approval. At lower levels, referenda only require a majority of voters to pass, but at the national level, both a majority of voters and a majority of voting states are required. This prevents states with small populations from being unfairly represented. The Swiss got the idea of double majority from the US Congress, which has both the House of Representatives (representation proportional to population of each state) and the Senate (same representation for each state)
2 :
In Porto Alegre, Brazil, some direct democracy is involved for deciding the budget. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_budgeting
