Does Process Matter? Direct Democracy and Citizens’ Perceptions of Laws

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 232-237
Author(s):  
Christina Ladam
Keyword(s):  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Negligible Effect ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
Ballot Initiative ◽  
Initiative Process ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Outcome Evaluations ◽  
The Way

AbstractDoes the process used to pass a law affect the way citizens evaluate the outcome? In a series of experiments, I manipulate the way in which a law is passed – ballot initiative or the legislative process – to test the effect of process on citizens’ evaluations of policy outcomes. The results show that people view the ballot initiative process as fairer than the legislative process, but that process has a negligible effect on outcome evaluations.

Fiscal Effects of the Voter Initiative Reconsidered: Addressing Endogeneity

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 327-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa J. Marschall ◽  
Anirudh V.S. Ruhil
Keyword(s):  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Full Information Maximum Likelihood ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
American States ◽  
Initiative Process ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Voter Initiative ◽  
Biased Estimates ◽  
Positive Effect

Several recent studies have investigated the relationship between direct democracy and public policy outcomes, with mixed findings. These inconsistencies may stem, in part, from researchers' failure to recognize that direct democracy institutions are distributed nonrandomly across the American states. That is, certain factors may lead a state to adopt the initiative process and influence other policy choices. We revisit the question of how the initiative influences state fiscal policy using panel data from 1960–2000 and a full-information maximum likelihood estimator that explicitly accounts for the endogeneity of the initiative. Our findings suggest that failure to endogenize the initiative in empirical analyses leads to substantially biased estimates of its effects. In particular, we find that once factors that predict whether a state has adopted the initiative are controlled, the initiative has a positive effect on state revenue generation and spending.

scholarly journals Local Legislative Process in Russia: Perspectives and Barriers

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 83-110
Author(s):  
Victoria Mamontova ◽  
Elena Gladun
Keyword(s):  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Professional Training ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
Willingness To Participate ◽  
Context Analysis ◽  
Initiative Process ◽  
Barriers And Challenges ◽  
Law Making

The legislative process is an important tool of direct democracy for creating checks and balances on public authority. Making local laws is an essential function of the local government that is linked to direct communication between public officials and citizens. This paper sets out to evaluate the opportunities, constraints and challenges in the practices of local direct democracy in Russian municipalities, and to describe the frameworks and capacities that municipal authorities provide for citizens. The paper analyzes the political and legal circumstances for law-making initiatives at the local level and examines citizens’ activities in the local legislative process. The research question is whether citizens have the capacity and opportunity to participate in the local legislative process and to what extent barriers and challenges prevent them from doing so. To answer the research question the authors use methods of context analysis to study Russian legislation and municipal legal documents, a case study of several Russian municipalities and a survey with representatives of local communities in Tyumen, a Russian mid-sized city located in Western Siberia. The results of the study show a reluctance on the part of local residents to engage in the various aspects of direct democracy and a lack of the necessary skills, knowledge and willingness to participate in the initiative process. The results further show that the initiative process is frequently not well planned and lacks clear objectives, requirements and guidelines. The study concludes that seminars and professional training as well as roundtable workshops are effective ways to support local law-making initiatives. One promising step towards modernizing initiatives would be to organize them in e-forms. Many citizens demonstrate their ability to use electronic options that can expand the possibilities for their participation in the local legislative process.

Legislation and the Constitutional Framework

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Steiner
Keyword(s):  
Civil Law ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
French Law ◽  
Major Overhaul ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Way

This chapter introduces the main constitutional institutions and mechanism governing France, taking into account the major overhaul of the 1958 Constitution in 2008. It also shows that legislation is the primary source of law in France, that there are different types of legislation, and that legislative sources are organised hierarchically. Moreover, the chapter also considers, within the constitutional framework, the legislative process and examines the way in which bills are drafted. It also seeks to familiarise readers with the layout of a French statute. In addition, this chapter shows that much of French law though not all of it is codified. Codification is a particular legislative technique common to most civil law systems.

Direct Democracy and Public Policy

2019 ◽  
pp. 362-379
Author(s):  
John Matsusaka
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Median Voter ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Fiscal Policies ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
American States ◽  
Conservative Policy ◽  
Initiative Process ◽  
Swiss Cantons

An extensive literature seeks to measure the effect of the initiative and referendum on public policies. Several conclusions emerge: The initiative and referendum have different effects on policy. Requiring popular approval of fiscal policies (mandatory referendums) results in lower expenditure, taxes, and debt. The initiative process gives voters more power and results in policies closer to the median voter preference; this often has reduced spending (American states, Swiss cantons), but sometimes has increased spending (cities). The initiative is associated with more socially conservative policy choices. Spurious correlation is a concern in many studies, and more research on causality is needed.

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

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 205316801770073 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anouk Lloren
Keyword(s):  
Field Experiment ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
State Legislators ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Popular Belief ◽  
Quality Of Democracy

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.

Consensus Gained, Consensus Maintained? Changing New Zealand's Electoral Law 1927-2007

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
James Christmas
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Active Search ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Electoral Change ◽  
Electoral Law ◽  
The Way

<p>In the eighty years between the passage of New Zealand's first unified Electoral Act in 1927, and the passage of the Electoral Finance Act 2007, the New Zealand Parliament passed 66 acts that altered or amended New Zealand's electoral law. One central assumption of theories of electoral change is that those in power only change electoral rules strategically, in order to protect their self-interest.1 This thesis is an investigation into the way New Zealand governments effect and have effected their desired changes to the electoral law through the legislative process, and the roles self-interest and the active search for consensus between political parties have played in that process. It argues that, while self-interest serves as a compelling explanation for a great deal of electoral law change in New Zealand, altruistic motivations and the development of parliamentary processes influenced behaviour to an equal, and perhaps even greater, extent.</p>

scholarly journals Disentangling photoperiod from hop vernalization and dormancy for global production and speed breeding

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
William L. Bauerle
Keyword(s):  
Plant Traits ◽  
Humulus Lupulus ◽  
Controlled Environment ◽  
Yield And Quality ◽  
Flower Yield ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Way

Abstract Humulus lupulus L. (hop) flowers are a key ingredient in beer, imparting the beverage’s aroma and bitterness profile. Photoperiod is known to interact with temperature to control flowering in hops. Studies have stipulated that resting dormant buds on hops require a minimum chilling duration for their meristems to break dormancy and grow fruitfully. This assertion, in part, led to a long-held notion that hops require vernalization and/or dormancy for the meristem to change from a vegetative to floral state. The research in this study aims to separate photoperiod from vernalization and dormancy through a series of experiments that artificially control photoperiod to prevent the onset of dormancy and chilling exposure. Six experiments were performed to assess flower yield and quality for seven diverse hop cultivars (with and without exposure to chilling and dormancy) to quantify the impact on flowering performance. Vernalization and dormancy, two plant traits previously considered necessary to the proliferation of hop flowers, do not influence hop flower yield and quality. The findings have broad implications; global hop production can be distributed more widely and it paves the way for speed breeding and controlled-environment production to achieve 4 hop generation cycles per year, as opposed to 1 under field-grown conditions.

When Moderate Voters Prefer Extreme Parties: Policy Balancingin Parliamentary Elections

2005 ◽  
Vol 99 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
ORIT KEDAR
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Design ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Voter Behavior ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Voter Choice ◽  
The Way

This work develops and tests a theory of voter choice in parliamentary elections. I demonstrate that voters are concerned with policy outcomes and hence incorporate the way institutions convert votes to policy into their choices. Since policy is often the result of institutionalized multiparty bargaining and thus votes are watered down by power-sharing, voters often compensate for this watering-down by supporting parties whose positions differ from (and are often more extreme than) their own. I use this insight to reinterpret an ongoing debate between proximity and directional theories of voting, showing that voters prefer parties whose positions differ from their own views insofar as these parties pull policy in a desired direction. Utilizing data from four parliamentary democracies that vary in their institutional design, I test my theory and show how institutional context affects voter behavior.

Direct Democracy and LGBT Politics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel C. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Lgbt Rights ◽  
Direct Role ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ballot Measures ◽  
Lgbt Politics ◽  
Lgbt Community

While many landmark policies affecting LGBT rights have been determined by legislatures and courts, voters have also often played a more direct role in LGBT politics through direct democracy institutions, such as the initiative and referendum. For example, in 2008 California voters approved Proposition 8, barring same-sex marriage in the state and setting the stage for a key federal court decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry (2013). This followed on the heels of 31 ballot measures to ban same-sex marriage in the previous decade. Direct democracy has also been employed frequently to consider a range of other important issues relevant to the LGBT community, including bans on same-sex couple adoptions, nondiscrimination policies, education policies, and employment benefits. Further, as issues addressing transgender right have emerged on the political landscape, local referendums have addressed public accommodation discrimination, including so-called “bathroom bills,” like the high-profile Houston referendum in 2014. Most of these prominent direct democracy contests have resulted in negative outcomes for the LGBT community, spurring concerns about subjecting the rights of marginalized groups to a popular vote. However, some ballot measures, such as Washington’s 2012 vote to legalize same-sex marriage, have expanded or protected LGBT rights. Yet the effects of direct democracy institutions extend beyond the direct policy outcomes of elections and have been shown to shape the decision-making of elected officials as well. Still, studies of both the direct and indirect effects of direct democracy on LGBT rights reveal mixed results that are contingent upon public attitudes and how the issues are framed. When the public is supportive of LGBT rights and views them through a civil right frame, direct democracy has been used to expand and protect these rights. However, when the public views the LGBT community more negatively and views the issues through a morality or safety lens, LGBT rights are put at risk by direct democracy. As such, direct democracy institutions function as a double-edged sword for the LGBT community, simultaneously offering an opportunity to elevate LGBT rights issues onto the public agenda with a civil rights frame and posing a threat to the community when these issues are viewed in a more hostile manner.

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