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drops below 50 percent” (p. 101). Interestingly, Altman also finds that the opposite logic applies to citizen-initiated referendums. These are more likely to succeed the longer the government has been in office: “their probability of success only increases above 50 percent after the government has been in office for eight years.” He also finds “that the probability that a popular initiative or referendum will succeed is nearly 90 percent when a country is experiencing an extreme economic contraction” (p. 101). Citizenship and Contemporary Direct Democracy is not merely a book about the recurrent patterns and laws of direct democracy. The author also proposes mechanisms for how referendums can be made compatible with the ideals of deliberative democracy. To this end, he proposes that a “Deliberative Citizens Commission” be established, in “which a stratified random sample of eligible voters are convened for the purpose of discussion, deliberating and offering a policy question that will be decided upon in a future popular vote” (p. 183). Yet, Altman does not mention that this mechanism was used before the 2018 abortion referendum in Ireland (see Jane Suiter, “Deliberation in Action–Ireland’s Abortion Referendum,” Political Insight, 9 (3), 2018). Sometimes, good ideas are overtaken by events, and the success of the Irish provision only supports his argument. Although one might take issue with some of its conclusions, this is an impressive study. To paraphrase Robert Nozick’s words about Rawls, henceforth “students of referendums, must follow Altman’s lead or explain why not!”