You can download the report in English or German by clicking on the links below.

Direct Democracy in Bavaria (pdf, 158 kB, English)

Direkte Demokratie in Bayern (pdf, 216 kB, German)

In 1995 the citizens themselves introduced direct democracy on the local level at Germany's Southern region called Bavaria. Mehr Demokratie ran the successful campaign. Ten years after this decisive victory Mehr Demokratie has published a report about the experiences.

This was celebrated with an event organized in cooperation with the Christian Democrats (CSU). This party leads the Bavarian government without interruption since the 1956. The CSU was heavily opposing the introduction of local referendums in 1995. But the good practice of direct democracy in Bavaria has convinced many representatives of the party, that referendums improve the quality of political decisions.

In the meantime citizens have started 1371 initiatives, 835 of them have resulted in a local referendum. The Bavarian Minister of Inner Affairs (Günther Beckstein) has announced, that he will support an improvement of the regulations in Bavaria. In cities with 10.000 up to 50.000 inhabitants the quorum should be reduced. In cities of that specific size citizens’ initiatives often fail to achieve that hurdle: 20% of all voters have to vote in favour of the proposal. Beckstein supports a reduction to 15%.

Beckstein was always in favour of direct democracy, but he could not convince his party to support the introduction of local referendums in 1995. He is now one of two candidates to become Prime Minister of Bavaria.