Since October 2004, the citizens of the Dutch capital Amsterdam can use a new initiative and referendum system. They first submit proposals to the city council, and if it does not accept the proposal, the initiators have the right to obtain a referendum. There is a low turnout quorum, and equal financial means for the citizen initiators and the administration. The local council can put an alternative proposal to the ballot. The citizen group "Amsterdams Initiatief" (AI) campaigned two years to get this result.

 

In 2001 a group of 7 young inhabitants of Amsterdam decided to start a campaign under the banner "Amsterdams Initiatief" (AI) to improve the possibilities for citizens to have a direct say in local politics. Some (among them the author) came from the Referendum Platform, the national group for introduction of direct democracy, others were coming from other groups or hadn’t been politically active before. Amsterdam had a facultative referendum, but it was working badly: the citizens were frustrated because many initiatives were blocked by the city council and most referendums failed because of the high turnout threshold: if less than 50 percent of the citizens who voted in the last local election, voted against the council decision, the referendum was invalid. Politicians were frustrated because, at the end of their long decision making process, the outcome of referendums was always 'no'.

 

AI decided therefore decided to conduct a 'positive campaign', which trumpeted the popular initiative with more fair rules as a way out this two-sided frustration. Citizens could expect to be taken more serious, because they could now present detailed and nuanced proposals about what they want, and because we demanded the abolishment of the turnout quorum. Politicians could be happy as citizens were more thinking along with them about new policies, instead of only resisting. We even thought of new words for old direct democracy concepts, to avoid triggering negative connotations about past experiences.

 

Information about similar systems in Germany and Switzerland was gathered, a coalition of well-known Amsterdam citizens was formed, money was gathered and a balanced, detailed proposal written. We made sure we new everything about the Swiss and German systems, and about arguments for and against direct democracy in general, and used every opportunity to quote figures, dates and percentages. We made sure we had well-known political scientists and lawyers in our Advisory Group, and we could use their prestige and know-how. This way, we became recognized as the experts.

 

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