Democracy Beyond Secrecy: Assessing the Promises and Pitfalls of Collective Voting

Mueller, Sean; Gerber, Marlène; Schaub, Hans-Peter (2021). Democracy Beyond Secrecy: Assessing the Promises and Pitfalls of Collective Voting. Swiss political science review, 27(1), pp. 61-83. Wiley 10.1111/spsr.12422

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This paper assesses collective voting as a specific mode of democratic decision‐making and compares it to secret voting. Under collective voting, voters gather in one place and decide by the show of hands. We theorise two potential advantages and two disadvantages of collective voting so defined. We then draw on original survey data from one of the largest polities practising collective voting, the citizen assembly of the Swiss canton of Glarus. We find that both the promises and pitfalls of non‐secret voting are exaggerated. Non‐secret voting’s suspected pitfalls – social pressure and abstention – do not generally materialise in our sample, although for women they do appear to be relevant to some extent. However, the promises of collective voting – enabling cue‐taking and discursive bridging and bonding – are equally realised to a limited extent only.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Institute of Political Science

UniBE Contributor:

Müller, Sean, Gerber, Marlène, Schaub, Hans-Peter

Subjects:

300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 320 Political science

ISSN:

1424-7755

Publisher:

Wiley

Language:

English

Submitter:

Hans-Peter Schaub

Date Deposited:

19 Apr 2021 15:17

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:49

Publisher DOI:

10.1111/spsr.12422

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Landsgemeinde

BORIS DOI:

10.48350/153781

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/153781

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