Similarly, Hélène Landemore ( 2018: 323) focuses on how popular vote processes can be made more deliberative “to ensure that people vote in a minimally enlightened way”. Simone Chambers ( 2018: 305) thinks that “populist majoritarianism is an ever present danger of referendum democracy” that needs to be countered through inclusion of deliberative elements. Richard Bellamy ( 2018: 313) argues that referendums “risk being a mechanism whereby a majority dominates a minority”. The concern that referendums lead to less considered and enlightened decisions than parliamentary decision-making and, even more precariously, may be used to oppress minorities is the common thread running through all three replies to the lead piece by Francis Cheneval and Alice el-Wakil ( 2018). Therefore, he thought that it was “of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part” (Madison 2009b: 121). James Madison ( 2009a: 49) maintained that with direct participation of citizens in government decision-making, “measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority”. That fear was already present in the minds of the founding fathers of the United States. One of the most important objections to popular vote processes is that they may lend themselves to tyranny of the majority.
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