The Direct Democracy Navigator, a unique platform gathering all direct democracy and citizen participation instruments around the globe, turned ten last week. Over the past decade, it has developed from a small crowd-sourced instrument to a full-fledged database and research project. Dr Klaus Hofmann, Academic Adviser and the driving force behind the Navigator, talks about the platform’s early beginnings and what awaits in its teenage years.

On 1 November 2010, Dr Klaus Hofmann uploaded the first “legal design”, a schematic analysis of the legal framework defining a specific direct democracy instrument in a given country, onto the Direct Democracy website. It was the beginning of quest to map all existing direct democracy instruments in the world on all levels: national, regional and local.

The simple idea behind the Navigator database: to provide a tool for citizens and experts alike, providing basic knowledge on the rules of direct democracy instruments worldwide. Everyone can use the database to look up what possibilities exist in her or his country and get all the necessarry information. Of course the data the Navigator provides also constitutes a great starting point for research and comparision. The Navigator database is updated regulary and offers additional tools to make comparison and visualisation easier.

The Navigator had been called into life by the Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe (IRI Europe), which had worked on developing a general typology of direct democracy instruments and now wanted to set out to chart the existence and use of these tools around the world. Originally, the Navigator was a crowd-sourced platform where people could enter in the information on the existing laws in their country themselves, but soon the need for a more permanent, academic approach became clear. This is where Dr Hofmann came in.

“Back then we started from the very basics,” he explains, “I started by researching the constitutions of ever nation state in the world and analyzing which provisions and framework it provided for direct democracy. I was researching all of these countries I had never visited or given much thought to, like for example the Pacific island states. So, to put myself in the mood when I started to research a new country, I listened to the national anthem first.”

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