Like any other public instrument, the referendum was created with a good purpose - to bring benefit to society. The point of the referendum is to make clear the opinion of the majority of members of society on a particular political issue. How appropriate is the use of this tool and how objective is it?
What allows a referendum
The mechanism of the referendum is such that the ability to find out the opinion of the people as reliably as possible is not its only task. For the authorities, a referendum is also a way to share responsibility with the people for a decision and its consequences. The objectivity of the referendum largely depends on whether its organization and posing of questions is somewhat impartial. Society will certainly agree with the results of the referendum, if the government does not manipulate the popular consciousness through the media.
Thus, the value of a referendum is very high only in the impartial and objective conditions of its organization. Only in this case the choice of the majority of members of society will be really the best of all the options proposed. If the interests of the people do not run counter to the interests of the structures of power, a referendum is the surest way out of difficult situations, capable of bringing benefits to both the “bottom” and “top”.
Such decisions follow from quite understandable social laws. Since a society led by authorities is a viable system, it has a kind of self-preservation instinct. In other words, by its actions society seeks to preserve its own existence. However, the actions and decisions taken by the authorities (more precisely, by its individual representatives) do not always meet this requirement. And this is also logical, because power is not the whole system yet, but only a small part of a single whole.
When is a referendum ineffective and biased?
In some cases, a referendum is not only ineffective, but also useless and even harmful to society. First of all, there is no point in holding a referendum if society is not a unified system. For example, it is inappropriate to hold a referendum in a state that is a collection of different colonies. Opinion pictures will be different for each colony.
No objectivity and, accordingly, benefit for society will not result in a referendum, which is held with the aim of "pushing through" the desired decision, which has already matured in the highest echelons of power. It is also useless to hold a referendum in which mistakes were made in the organization: the posing of questions can be carried out in a provocative manner, and the assessment of the results can be done in a fraudulent manner. A referendum cannot be objective in a society whose consciousness is manipulated by the structures of higher power.
