ABSTRACT
The history of democratic reforms is a history of two closely related trends. The first has been toward more direct public consultation. The public has been given a larger and larger role in determining who makes policy decisions and even in deciding directly on policies. Some obvious examples in the US include the spread of mass primaries and relatively open caucuses in candidate selection, the direct election of US Senators, the atrophying of the Electoral College into a mere vote aggregation scheme, the increasing reliance on referenda and initiatives in legislation, and the evolution of public opinion polls into unofficial, advisory referenda. Although the first few of these examples are specific to the US, the same general trend pervades the democratic world.
