Does an Active Use of Mechanisms of Direct Democracy Impact Electoral Participation? Evidence from the U.S. States and the Swiss Cantons

Altman, David

doi:10.1080/03003930.2012.679933

Cited by 23 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…Newer findings for the state-level context in the USA, thus, somewhat consistently show that direct democracy increases election turnout. The same cannot be said for Switzerland: Research has found an effect of direct democracy on electoral participation neither for national [18] nor for cantonal elections [19,20]. For the present study, another, less thoroughly studied aspect of voter mobilization in the context of direct democracy is more relevant than direct democracy's effects on election turnout: The factors that mobilize voters to participate in direct democratic ballot measures themselves.…”

Section: Direct Democracy and Voter Mobilizationmentioning

confidence: 42%

Sow the Wind, Reap the Whirlwind? Mobilization Cascades in Direct Democratic Initiatives.

Kovic

2014

SSRN Journal

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This paper explores the possibility of mobilization cascades in direct democratic popular initiatives. A mobilization cascade is a salience-based mobilizing effect whereby one popular initiative has a positive mobilizing effect on a subsequent popular initiative that deals with with a similar policy issue. The existence of a mobilization cascade would imply that voters develop salience for and positive attitudes towards policy issues merely through directdemocratic exposure to those policy issues in the recent past. In order to explore the mobilization cascade, I analyze three popular initiative pairs from Switzerland from the years 2012, 2013 and 2014. In each year, two initiatives dealt with similar policy issues, and the second initiative in each pair was making more far-reaching demands. The results suggest that a mobilization cascade might exist, but that it is probably a weak effect.

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Section: Direct Democracy and Voter Mobilizationmentioning

confidence: 42%

Sow the Wind, Reap the Whirlwind? Mobilization Cascades in Direct Democratic Initiatives.

Kovic

2014

SSRN Journal

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“…The analyses yield similar results (see Table 5). To sum up, direct democracy might encourage citizens to participate more in politics (Altman, 2012) and to contact their legislators more frequently. However, our findings suggest that citizens' direct participation in lawmaking does not encourage legislators to respond more to citizens policy requests.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, many argue that direct democracy leads to policy choices that are (more) consistent with majority preferences (Leemann and Wasserfallen, 2016;Matsusaka, 2005). Previous research also suggests that direct democracy increases the political knowledge of citizens, voter turnout, party membership, and trust in political institutions (Altman, 2012;Dyck and Lascher, 2008;Olken, 2010;Peters, 2016). Yet, we know little about the effect of direct democracy on the behavior of elites and their responsiveness to citizen-initiated contacts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does direct democracy increase communicative responsiveness? A field experiment with Swiss politicians

Lloren

2017

Research & Politics

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Many argue that direct democracy improves the quality of democracy. In particular, many scholars claim that it increases the representation of the public's preferences by fostering communicative responsiveness between politicians and citizens. While studies have come to mixed conclusions about the effect of direct democracy on policy outcomes, little is known about how direct democratic processes affect politicians' responsiveness. Using a field experiment, this study examines whether direct democracy increases the responsiveness of Swiss state legislators to citizen-initiated contacts on policy concerns. Contrary to popular belief, our results show that direct democracy does not enhance politicians' responsiveness to policy requests.

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“…Direct democracy relates to turnout in at least two important ways. First, there is the question ‘whether direct democracy fosters or undermines the representative game through enlightening citizens or alienating them from participating at representative elections’ (Altman, , p. 1). Second, direct democracy is criticized for often seeing lower turnout than elections held on the same level of government which raises questions about the representativeness and legitimacy of direct democratic votes.…”

Section: Turnoutmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Evidence from Switzerland, where referendums are even more important relative to elections than in the US, supports this intuition. Here, referendums are associated with lower turnout in elections (Altman, ). Interestingly, a study distinguishing between referendums held up to six months prior to the general election and referendums held in preceding years finds the latter, more long‐term factor to have a stronger negative effect on turnout (Freitag and Stadelmann‐Steffen, ).…”

Section: Turnoutmentioning

confidence: 99%

Direct Democracy in Europe: Potentials and Pitfalls

Leininger

2015

Global Policy

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Diagnoses of a democratic recession or 'hollowing out' of democracy are numerous and varied but usually encompass the following symptoms: a decline in turnout and other forms of political participation; policy making that is increasingly detached from ordinary citizens and their preferences; and an erosion of trust in government and satisfaction with democracy among citizens -all of which ultimately challenge the legitimacy of democratic institutions. Direct democracy is one of the most prominent, far-reaching and popular remedies proposed in response to such diagnoses. It, by allowing citizens to directly vote on questions usually decided by representatives, seems intuitively appealing as an obvious extension and deepening of democracy. In this article I survey the potentials but also pitfalls of an increased institutionalization of direct democracy and use thereof in the countries of the EU focusing on the three key aspects identified above: representation, turnout and citizens' political support.

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Does an Active Use of Mechanisms of Direct Democracy Impact Electoral Participation? Evidence from the U.S. States and the Swiss Cantons

Cited by 23 publications

References 67 publications

Sow the Wind, Reap the Whirlwind? Mobilization Cascades in Direct Democratic Initiatives.

Sow the Wind, Reap the Whirlwind? Mobilization Cascades in Direct Democratic Initiatives.

Does direct democracy increase communicative responsiveness? A field experiment with Swiss politicians

Direct Democracy in Europe: Potentials and Pitfalls

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