World bank of ideas

Is there any reason the United States couldn't adopt some version of Question Time? True, it would need to be adapted to our presidential style of government -- Americans don't like to see their presidents, even unpopular ones, publicly humiliated -- but as things stand now, the president need face Congress and the American public only once a year, during the State of the Union address. Any other appearances take place when the Karl Roves of the world deem it politically expedient. And Question Time has one other advantage: It is a lot more fun to watch than those scripted news conferences that have become a hallmark of the Bush presidency.

4. Direct democracy, Swiss-style

Switzerland places an unprecedented amount of faith in the wisdom of its people. What that means, in practical terms, is that the Swiss vote early and often. Every few weeks, the typical Swiss citizen casts a vote on questions ranging from whether to build a new bridge to whether Switzerland should join the United Nations. The Swiss constitution, is, quite literally, a document of the people; more than half of its provisions were born of referendums or ballot initiatives. Any Swiss citizen can bring a matter to a national vote by collecting 100,000 signatures.

Only about one in 10 referendums pass. But even the failures serve a function, since they give voice to people and causes that might otherwise never be heard. The process of referendums allows ordinary Swiss -- not only politicians -- to shape the national debate. For instance, some two decades ago a few Swiss wanted to abolish the army, and so they brought the issue to a vote. It didn't pass, but it did spark a debate about what kind of military role the Swiss want to play in the world.

Alfred Berkeley, former president of the NASDAQ stock market, says the Swiss political system "is the NASDAQ of democracies. It brings ideas to people faster -- and with fewer means of choking them off in transit -- than perhaps any other political system in the world." That system isn't perfect -- women weren't given the right to vote until 1971, and all those referendums slow down the wheels of democracy -- but surely elements of the Swiss system are ripe for import. "It is only by a perverse insularity, or a stubborn ignorance, that one would want to ignore the Swiss experience," concludes Gregory Fossedal in his excellent book, "Direct Democracy in Switzerland."

Would this kind of direct democracy work in the United States? Could we see U.S. voters deciding whether to ban gay marriage or whether to go to war in Iraq? Critics say no. American voters are too apathetic. They don't have the time, or the desire, to study these issues in depth. And besides, the naysayers claim, a few big spenders will hijack the process by "buying" the necessary signatures to hold a referendum, just as they did in California, the state that opponents of direct democracy like to point to as the example of what happens when voters go wild.

It's true that the Founding Fathers chose a representative form of government partly because they were wary of putting too much power in the hands of the masses. At the time, though, the masses were largely uneducated. Not so today. People have access to all the information they need to make informed decisions.

Fossedal argues that the Swiss system of direct democracy works so well because it is a system, not a bunch of random referendums, California-style. Swiss voters take their charge more seriously than Americans because "when someone knows he is going to be asked to render an opinion, and that opinion will become law, he treats the matter more seriously." The difference between answering a Gallup poll and voting on a referendum, he says, is the difference between a bystander to a murder trial and a juror. The latter is going to take the case much more seriously. There is no reason why American voters wouldn't also rise to the challenge.

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I realize many Americans will balk at the suggestion that we should import democracy at all -- especially from tiny countries like Switzerland or impoverished ones like India. It's not that we're xenophobic. We love our reggae and our pad Thai and our Ichiro. Our embrace of foreign cultures, however, does not extend to the world of politics. When it comes to democratic institutions, if it's not Made in America, we don't want to hear about it.

But why? The answer lies in America's Myth of Creation, which goes something like this: One day, the Founding Fathers miraculously invented the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution out of thin air. There was nothing like it before and there has been nothing like it since.

The truth, of course, is that the Founding Fathers borrowed liberally from foreign thinkers -- Rousseau, Locke and Swift, among others (and, according to some scholars, from the Iroquois nation). Not only did our Founding Fathers borrow from foreigners; many of them were foreigners. These days, however, it is treasonous to suggest we have anything to learn from other nations, especially those cheese-eating surrender monkeys across the Atlantic.

Importing democracy does not mean importing foreign values or foreign cultures. Besides, much of what we import will be Americanized, just like California sushi. In this age of globalization, there is no such thing as purely American democracy or purely British democracy or, should it come to pass, purely Iraqi democracy. We are living in the age of mongrel democracy, where every nation consists of a hodgepodge of beliefs and institutions.

The greatest resistance to importing democracy is likely to come not from American citizens but from career politicians --- on both sides of the aisle. "You don't really know what's going to happen [if these ideas are imported], so there is a hesitation on the part of a variety of interests -- Democrat and Republican -- to take a risk," says Luis Fraga, a fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study. And what politician these days wants to be seen touting foreign ideas?

There are other, more strategic reasons why America should import, as well as export, democracy. It would improve our standing in the world and enhance what Harvard's Joseph Nye calls America's "soft power." Other nations would see evidence that all of this talk about globalization is not merely a smoke screen for Americanization.

Perhaps the best reason to import democracy, however, is a selfish one. It's good for America. This was something that the English statesman Edmund Burke recognized in the late 1780s, when he warned that "we must reform in order to preserve."

The Romans also knew this well. Their empire lasted more than 1,000 years -- longer than any other -- partly because they had a knack for brutality, no doubt, but also because they borrowed heavily from the peoples they conquered. The Romans, Jim Garrison writes in "American Empire," "appreciated Greek democracy and wisdom and absorbed them, along with the wise traditions of Egypt and Carthage."

So as we prepare to anoint another president, and as Democracy Inc. gears up for another bloody sales campaign in Iraq, I have one question for us to ponder. What wise traditions have we absorbed lately?

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