This article is an opinion piece whose contents represent the standpoint of its author and not UPF Lund or the Perspective’s editorial board.
The curtain rises on a familiar act: a politician is elected with campaign promises, but once elected they decide to break those promises or change them entirely; a regional representative sells out their own constituents; a president tries to undermine democracy or enrich themselves. What can we as citizens realistically do against that? Parliaments and courts may attempt to impeach, but success depends less on justice than on political majorities.
But what can we as “normal people” realistically do about it? Nothing. Once an election is over, we are forced to wait for years before we can even try to replace the people in charge. That is problematic. Enter the concept of recallability.
What does recallability mean? It means that elected officials are held accountable for their actions by those who elected them. Imagine this: your district elects a representative, with elections held every 4 years. Under normal circumstances, if they misrepresent their district while in office or abuse their power, you would have to wait 4 years until they are gone. The concept of recallability, however, allows voters to take back their mandate—to hold officials politically accountable right then and there.
Where does this concept come from? While this concept is a democratic idea in its ideal form, and has been applied in modern democracies (more on that later), the original roots are socialist in nature. It first appeared in the short-lived Commune of Paris in 1871, where recallability was applied to politicians as well as to other bureaucrats and judges. This strongly inspired Marxism and later Leninism, and was propagated as a Soviet ideal. Indeed, it was even enshrined in the Stalin-era constitution of 1936.
Does that mean that the Soviet Union was more democratic than the West? No, because it was never implemented in a democratic way. It was a form of propaganda to appear more democratic than Western democracies. In reality, candidates were recalled from the top-down to purge any opposition. In addition, recalls had to be approved by the leadership of the Communist Party. Not to mention the fear of retribution if a district wanted to recall a pro-government official as a form of protest.
Granier-Phelps | Wikimedia Commons | CC BY-SA 2.5)
Where does this leave us? Luckily the system did not die with the Soviet Union. California is one of the few states in the US with active recalls. Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected in 2003 through a recall election in California, in which he replaced Gray Davis. Likewise, Taiwan recently experienced its own recall efforts. The system lives on.
We live in a world in which recalls can be a real possibility. We live in a modern world where innovation is endless. There could be an app to make recall elections and petitions easy to access while saving costs. Picture the following: you have the option of voting a politician out whenever you want, just by pressing a button. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? There could be an AI platform monitoring whether a politician has gone back on their promises or if their policies have caused harm. We might not be ready to fully trust AI yet, but having a neutral outlet—AI or not—is feasible. And perhaps necessary. Just think of Trump. It is no secret how quickly he has turned parts of the American population against him within just a few months of his second term. And it is no surprise why. We have no peace, there is a trade war, and the Epstein files are being hidden. The world could be a better place if the American population had the chance of getting him out of office. Lives could be saved, economic malpractice would be stopped, and he and others could be held accountable.
While these examples show that recall mechanisms persist, their true strength lies in whether people still are supportive of them. There are sources that indicate that a great majority of people consistently support upholding recallability. However, since elections are generally very expensive, many voters feel that specific recall elections are at times unnecessary. Recalls in Taiwan, for example, failed as the process was seen more as a protest against overusing the power of recalls. However, one could ask whether this might be an agreeable price to pay for serious accountability. Elections are expensive, and yet, we would not be free without them. Recall elections will cost money, but they will give us, the people, more power.
By Michael A. Volkonsky
September 25, 2025
