Diante do descontentamento do povo com seus representantes, nota-se a existência de uma possível crise democrática. Percebe-se haver uma falta de identificação entre as leis vigentes e políticas públicas adotadas com as reais necessidades populares o que gera descrença no sistema e nos políticos, levando o povo, cada dia mais, a se afastar das decisões políticas. A máxima democrática de que todo poder emana do povo e deve ser exercido em seu nome, não vem sendo demonstrada no histórico brasileiro, pois, após a eleição, alguns representantes acabam exercendo o poder em benefício próprio, e pior, muitas vezes contra o anseio popular. A Constituição da República de 1988, seguindo tendência democrática atual, buscou contornar o problema prevendo instrumentos que propiciassem a participação popular de forma direta, sem, contudo, alijar a representação. Todavia, mais de vinte anos após a promulgação da Constituição, esses mecanismos têm sido pouco utilizados. Assim, o presente estudo tem por objetivo analisar, em especial, os instrumentos da democracia direta que traduzem a vontade popular manifestada nas urnas, quais sejam: o plebiscito e o referendo. A partir de uma análise histórica da democracia, busca-se entender o porquê da escassez dessas consultas populares, bem como avaliar os meios de que dispõem para conformar o ideal do cidadão às políticas governamentais adotadas por seus representantes.

Over time there has been an increasing schism between elected officials and the electorade, this causing a crisis of our democracy. This schism strengthens the view among citizens that public policy and enacted laws and regulations do not address popular needs. The result is growing disenchantment with politics itself, leading to distrust of political system, government, and, of course, politicians. This leads to the failure of our democratic system, specifically, lack of plebiscite and referendum. The principle that all power emanates from the people and must be exercised on their name has never been a reality in Brazilian history. Although such a concept may be abstract and difficult to implement, the primary reason for the failure of its implementation is the lack of accountability of politicians to their electorate. Instead, what our democratic society has seen, or at least has perceived, is that politicians do not act to address popular needs; rather, politicians act to address special interests for themselves personally and for persons with the ability to influence political decisions. The Constitution, enacted in 1988, sought to address some of these representation failures by providing mechanisms that would encourage, and enable, public participation in a more direct way with their representatives. Almost twenty-five years after the promulgation of the Constitution, it has become obvious that mechanisms have done little to address representation. The purpose of this thesis is to identify and provide a better understanding of why these representative failures occur and to examine certain instruments of direct democracy that better reflect the popular will expressed and polls by electorate.