Direct Democracy and Political Equality in the American States*

Abstract

Objectives. This study investigates the relationship between direct democracy and the equality of opinion-policy representation in the American states. Methods. Using public opinion measures from the National Annenberg Election Surveys and data on state policy outputs, I generate an index of the equality of political representation (based on citizens' incomes) that is comparable across the states. I then evaluate the relationship between different measures of direct democracy and political equality. Results. States with the ballot initiative process are no more politically equal than states without the process. However, among those that have the ballot initiative process, states where it is easier to place a measure on the ballot for popular vote and states where the ballot initiative is more frequently used tend to weigh citizens' opinions more equally in the policy-making process. Conclusion. These findings suggest that having and frequently using direct democracy leads to more egalitarian policy outcomes. More generally, this study underscores the importance of laws and institutional design in promoting political equality in the United States.

Assessing the Electoral Impact of the 2010 Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review

“…Initiative elections provide a particularly important context in which to study cross-level deliberation. In spite of their broad popularity (Collingwood, 2012), initiative elections have received mixed reviews for their fidelity with public preferences (Flavin, 2015;Matsusaka, 2008;Nai, 2015) and their implications for minorities, in particular (Hajnal, Gerber, & Louch, 2002;Lewis, 2011;Moore & Ravishankar, 2012). There is also reason to be concerned about the quality of information on which voters judge such laws (Broder, 2000;Gastil, Reedy, & Wells, 2007;Milic, 2015;Reedy, Wells, & Gastil, 2014;Saris & Sniderman, 2004).…”

Do the Affluent Override Average Americans? Measuring Policy Disagreement and Unequal Influence

“…This methodological approach could also be used in longitudinal analyses to investigate how the extent of unequal influence may vary over time, and whether political and macroeconomic conditions help explain this variation. Investigating the conditions under which middle‐ or low‐income Americans do wield a degree of political influence in particular states (see Flavin, 2014, 2015a, 2015b; Rigby and Wright, 2011, 2013) is also a fertile area for future research.…”

“…Other studies have found that federal representatives’ voting behavior is more closely related to the ideological preferences of the affluent than to those of the less affluent (e.g., Hayes, 2013). Additional evidence of unequal democracy based on constituents’ ideological preferences has been found in state legislatures (Flavin, 2012b, 2014, 2015a, 2015b; Rigby and Wright, 2011) and state party platforms (Rigby and Wright, 2013).…”

“…The unequal responsiveness finding has motivated additional research into potential economic, political, and policy factors that might explain variation in the extent of unequal responsiveness across states, across time, across policy domains, and across party lines. This research has investigated party control, state inequality and poverty levels, voter turnout, constituent and representative party affiliation, campaign finance laws, and ballot initiatives as potential explanations for this variation (Flavin, 2012a, 2012b, 2014, 2015a, 2015b; Lax, Phillips, and Zelizer, 2019; Maks‐Solomon and Rigby, 2019; Rigby and Wright, 2011, 2013).…”