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Making laws is not the only activity in which parliaments engage, and lawmaking may be done without parliament. Direct democracy is a political process in which the law of the land is made by citizens firsthand. In the experience of most democratic countries, direct legislation takes place in the form of a referendum, a procedure through which parliament passes on an issue of public policy to the citizens for their participatory approval or disapproval. British membership in the European Community was effectuated through a referendum in 1975; referenda brought about ratification of the Maastricht Treaty in Denmark, France, and Ireland in the mid 1990s, further integrating the countries of the European Commu nity,-a celebrated proposed constitutional settlement to resolve the status of French Quebec was defeated in Canada in 1992; funda mental majoritarian political reforms were approved through refer enda in Italy in 1991 and 1993; and new constitutions have been put into effect through referenda in as many as fifty-five countries. The initiative, a procedure in which citizens directly propose public policies which are then voted on, is a much rarer form of di rect legislation than the referendum. Only in Switzerland, and in twenty-six of the American states, is the initiative regularly prac ticed. A Swiss initiative in 1990 imposed a decade-long moratorium on the construction of nuclear power plants, and another in 1993 declared a national workers' holiday in August to commemorate the creation of the Swiss confederation. National initiatives (or refer enda) have never been conducted in the United States, but state bal lots can be replete with proposals …