Ready to reform: How popular initiatives can be successful

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractWe study whether the number of signatures collected to qualify a popular initiative affects the probability of reforming the status quo. The initiative process is modeled as a sequential game under uncertainty: petitioners make an entry decision and collect signatures to qualify the initiative. Politicians decide about a political compromise -a counter proposal -after which petitioners have the option to withdraw the initiative before the vote. In equilibrium, politicians infer the initiative's popularity from the number of signatures and collection time. They more likely grant counter proposals to initiatives perceived as a threat to the status quo. To prove their success probability, petitioners sometimes have the incentive to collect more signatures than required for qualification.We test model predictions based on the data set of all Swiss constitutional initiatives at federal level between 1891 and 2010. Overall, we find supporting evidence for the model mechanisms. Reforms are most likely once a far-reaching counter proposal is issued such that the initiative is withdrawn. We find a significant effect of collecting more signatures than required on the probability of provoking a compromise.

Public Demand for Extraterritorial Environmental and Social Public Goods Provision

“…After fierce political debates and despite initial rejections of the initiative's demands, this induced the Swiss Parliament to deploy a rarely used political instrument: a less radical parliamentary counter-proposal to come into force in case the public refuses support for the constitutional amendment (Serdült 2014). This counter-proposal was less stringent (having no liability requirement) and conditional on what other European countries do but still addressed the issue 4 – the strategy being to undermine public support for the initiative by changing the status quo (Hofer, Marti and Bütler 2017). A majority of Swiss voters (50.7 per cent) still supported the stringent RBI proposal, relative to the more lenient counter-proposal.…”

Voluntary business initiatives can reduce public pressure for regulating firm behaviour abroad

“…In 2016, in response to a perceived lack of political effort in Switzerland along the lines of the UN Guiding Principles, an alliance of humanitarian and environmental civil society organizations forced (by collecting and submitting Swiss citizens' signatures in favour) a popular referendum (Hofer et al 2017, Serdült 2014) over a constitutional amendment (the "Responsible Business Initiative", short RBI). On the one hand, this amendment would oblige the Swiss government to enact binding regulation of corporate environmental and social protection efforts, hereby compelling Swiss companies with international supply chains to engage in due diligence reporting.…”

“…However, since its submission the RBI has been stuck in Parliament without being voted upon to this day (for Swiss direct democratic institutions see Serdült2014).The reason is that the Swiss Parliament has decided to draft a so-called 'indirect counter-proposal' (see above). The policy-making process, thus, has turned into a strategic game between the petitioners and the different chambers and committees inside the Swiss Parliament (see, e.g Hofer et al 2017…”

Complex Ballot Propositions, Individual Voting Behavior, and Status Quo Bias

“…5 Hessami (2016) analyzes the effect of proposition complexity on aggregate referendum outcomes using the number of subjects per proposition as a measure of complexity. 6 For recent research and more institutional details on direct democracy in Switzerland we refer readers for instance to Funk and Gathmann (2013) and Hofer, Marti, and Bütler (2017).…”