Versammlungsdemokratie realistisch betrachtet: Die Gemeindeversammlungen der Schweiz

Assembly democracy is considered not only the oldest, but also the most direct form of democratic community organization. While assembly democracies are rare worldwide, they enjoy widespread use in the Swiss community landscape in the form of community assemblies. It is all the more surprising that community assemblies have rarely been empirically studied. This book addresses this research gap. Based on objective data from more than 1600 community assemblies in the canton of Aargau and enriched with an experiment, this study shows in detail how small-scale communities practice a direct, pragmatic and, what is more, cost-effective form of democratic decision-making.