Institutional Threat and Partisan Outcomes: Legislative Candidates' Attitudes toward Direct Democracy (original) (raw)
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Agenda Setting by Direct Democracy: Comparing the Initiative and the Referendum
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Measuring the Effect of Direct Democracy on State Policy: Not All Initiatives Are Created Equal
Numerous studies attempt to assess direct democracy's impact on state policy using dummy variables or the frequency with which initiatives appear on a state's ballots. We offer an alternative to these measures that accounts for how rules governing the initiative process vary among the states. We replicate several studies using different measures of direct democracy and demonstrate that results of hypothesis tests are contingent on how these institutions are measured. We contend that commonly used dummy variable measures suffer validity problems, and that hypothesis tests using such measures produce imprecise estimates of the initiative's effect on policy.
Numerous studies attempt to assess direct democracy's impact on state policy using measures of direct democracy based on dummy variables or the frequency with which initiatives appear on a state's ballots. We offer an alternative to these measures that accounts for how rules governing the initiative process vary among the states. We replicate several studies using different measures of direct democracy and demonstrate that the results of hypothesis tests can be contingent on how these institutions are measured. We contend that commonly used dummy variable measures of state direct democracy have validity problems and that hypothesis tests using such measures produce imprecise estimates of the initiative's effect on policy.
Measuring The Effects of Direct Democracy on State Policy and Politics
We assess the current state of research testing for effects of direct democracy on state policy and politics. We compare theories about effects of ballot initiatives to several measures used to operationalize them, and develop measures of the initiative process that better account for variation in how the institution is structured in each state. Existing theory is used to assess the validity of these measures. We also replicate several studies using different measures of direct democracy, and demonstrate that results of hypothesis tests are often contingent on how institutions of are measured. Our results demonstrate that commonly used dummy variable measures suffer validity problems, and hypothesis tests using such measures may under-estimate the initiative's effects on state policy.
Election Reform and Direct Democracy
American Politics Research, 2002
Changes in rules governing how legislators seek office, such as term limits, open primary laws, and regulations on campaign contributions, might not always find majority support in a state legislature. Direct democracy provides groups advocating such policies with an extra method for shaping the public agenda, a method that is absent in noninitiative states. This may lead initiative states to implement different electoral laws than noninitiative states. We test if direct democracy is associated with the regulations a state places on contributions to legislative candidates. We find that states with frequent initiative use placed more restrictions on contributors between 1984 and 1998 and that initiative states were more likely than noninitiative states to increase regulations on contributions from political parties and political action committees.
Agenda Setting by Direct Democracy
State Politics & Policy Quarterly, 2012
Using research on the initiative as a point of comparison, we consider how frequently and for what ends state legislators use the referendum. Akin to initiative use, we find that legislators are constrained by procedural hurdles in their ability to place referendums on the ballot. However, in contrast to research on the initiative, which emphasizes the role of interest groups as the drivers of initiatives, our analysis suggests that referendum use is motivated by partisan legislative majorities seeking to achieve a mix of political and policy goals.
Electoral Institutions and Legislative Behavior: The Effects of Primary Processes
Political Research Quarterly, 2012
Electoral institutions can affect the voting behavior of legislators who are elected through those institutions. In this article, the authors apply social network theory to study patterns of legislative choices under different primary election systems, and this approach leads the authors to study how electoral institutions affect legislative behavior differently than most previous research-that is, they focus on how electoral institutions affect the interactions between legislators. The authors use data on legislative voting behavior from the California State Assembly and exploit the changes that have been implemented in California's primary elections process over the past two decades. Specifically, they hypothesize that legislators who were elected during the years in which a nonpartisan blanket primary was used in California (1998 and 2000) will be more centrally networked and more likely to compromise with other legislators. They find evidence to support their hypothesis: legislators elected under the nonpartisan blanket primary are more likely to agree with other legislators. Electoral institutions, especially primary elections, have important effects on legislative behavior. The authors' results have implications for highly polarized state legislatures.