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IN 2004, while tossing chunks of meat to his pet Bengal tigers, Saif Qaddafi (then seen as the Libyan ruler’s reformist scion) outlined to a foreign visitor his plans to convert his father’s rambling theory of direct democracy into a real political system. Something on Swiss lines would be ideal.
The particular ambition may seem risible now. Yet the general sentiment is common. The Alpine federation’s political system, in which citizens may vote 30-plus times a year in a mixture of local and national polls, is proving seductive for politicians and voters of all stripes.
Some Swiss votes are ordered by politicians, yet many, known as “initiatives”, are binding votes on national legislation triggered by citizens’ petitions. In recent years these have widened state health-insurance to cover alternative medicine enforced deportation of foreigners guilty of serious crimes and benefit fraud and banned the building of mosques with minarets.
Helvetian zeal for direct votes skews global statistics. Nearly a quarter of all recorded national referendums have taken place there. Countries hold almost twice as many referendums as they did 50 years ago, says David Altman, a political scientist at the Catholic University of Chile. In the past 20 years more than 100 have introduced some sort of direct voting, says the Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe (IRI-E), a think-tank.

A. 어휘
Vox populi 여론, 民聲(민성). hoi polloi 민중, 서민, 烏合之衆(오합지중).
perils 위험. chunk 큰 덩어리. scion 자손, 상속인.
convert 전환하다. rambling 산만한, 방랑성의, 종작없는.
risible 우스운, 웃을 수 있는. mixture 혼합물. seductive 매력 있는, 유혹하는.
The Alpine federation’s political system 알프스(스위스)연방의 정치제도.
stripes 종류, 類型(유형), 줄, 線條(선조). national legislation 국가입법.
trigger 유발하다, 계기가 되다, 방아쇠를 당기다. petitions 請願(청원).
alternative medicine 대체의학. enforced deportation 강제出國(출국).
benefit 援護(원호), 복지 급부금, 연금, 이익. fraud 사기, 挾雜(협잡).
ban 금지하다. mosques 回敎寺院(회교사원). minaret 회교사원의 뾰족탑.
Helvetia 스위스의 라틴어 이름. zeal 열중, 熱狂(열광).
skews 구부리다, 휘게 하다, 곁눈질.
skews global statistics 세계통계에서 비중이 매우 높다.
think-tank=Institute 연구소.