The Effects of Direct Democratic Institutions on the Political Process - Much Ado About (Almost) Nothing?
33 Pages Posted: 17 Nov 2009 Last revised: 19 Jul 2010
Date Written: November 16, 2009
Abstract
It has been shown that both formal existence and actual use of direct democratic institutions have effects on a number of variables such as fiscal policies, quality of governance but also economic growth. Further, it has been argued that direct democratic institutions do not only impact upon the incentives and the behavior of politicians but also those of citizens: If they are involved in concrete issues, they would have incentives to get informed, would use that information to deliberate amongst each other and so on. Direct democratic institutions would thus not only have an impact on the outcomes of the political process but influence that very process. We test these conjectures and find that voter turnout remains unaffected by direct democratic institutions, that the number of initiatives is positively correlated with an interest in politics and political action such as signing a petition and that the formal possibility of initiatives is negatively correlated with trust in political organizations such as government, parties and parliament.
Keywords: Direct Democracy, Political Process, Voter Turnout, Confidence in political system, legitimacy
JEL Classification: H1, H3, H5, H8
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
On Government Centralization and Budget Referendums: Evidence from Switzerland
-
By Matthias Benz and Alois Stutzer
-
The Impact of Voter Initiatives on Economic Activity
By Akila Weerapana, S. Brock Blomberg, ...
-
Direct Democracy: Designing a Living Constitution
By Bruno S. Frey and Alois Stutzer
-
Who Controls? Information and the Structure of Legislative Decision Making
By Arthur Lupia and Mathew D. Mccubbins
-
The Role of Direct Democracy in the European Union
By Lars P. Feld and Gebhard Kirchgässner
-
The Economic Effects of Direct Democracy - A First Global Assessment
By Lorenz Blume, Jens Müller, ...
-
Making International Organizations More Democratic
By Alois Stutzer and Bruno S. Frey
-
The Economic Effects of Direct Democracy - a Cross-Country Assessment
By Stefan Voigt and Lorenz Blume