Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum

"Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum" by J. W. (James William) Sullivan is a late 19th-century examination of direct democracy through the lenses of sociology, exploring the differences between systems of representative government and those where citizens directly shape laws. The author uses examples from Switzerland to illustrate the Initiative and Referendum processes, which enable citizens to propose and vote on legislation, and argues that these methods are mechanisms for empowering the citizenry and potentially reforming democratic practices elsewhere, contrasting this empowerment with the risk of control by elites in representative systems. He focuses mainly on the practical side of direct democracy.