IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ajecsc/v67y2008i4p629-644.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does Direct Democracy Increase Voter Turnout? Evidence from the 2004 General Election

Author

Listed:
  • Richard J. Cebula

Abstract

. This empirical study seeks to broaden the interpretation of the “rational voter model” so as to include the potential effects of “direct democracy” on the voter participation rate. Direct democracy is assumed to take two forms: initiatives and popular referenda. This study tests the hypothesis that direct democracy may not on balance significantly affect voter turnout because, although it may elevate the expected gross benefits of voting by “empowering voters,” the transactions/information costs correlative with direct democracy raise the costs of voting. Using cross‐section analysis for the 50 states for the 2004 general election, this study finds that the existence of initiatives and/or referenda does not significantly influence voter turnout.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard J. Cebula, 2008. "Does Direct Democracy Increase Voter Turnout? Evidence from the 2004 General Election," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(4), pages 629-644, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:67:y:2008:i:4:p:629-644
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1536-7150.2008.00590.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2008.00590.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2008.00590.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lapp, Miriam, 1999. "Incorporating Groups into Rational Choice Explanations of Turnout: An Empirical Test," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 98(1-2), pages 171-185, January.
    2. Richard Cebula, 2005. "Strong Presidential Approval or Disapproval Influencing the Expected Benefits of Voting and the Voter Participation Rate," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 33(2), pages 159-167, June.
    3. Katherine Swartz, 2003. "Reinsuring Risk to Increase Access to Health Insurance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 283-287, May.
    4. Riker, William H. & Ordeshook, Peter C., 1968. "A Theory of the Calculus of Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(1), pages 25-42, March.
    5. John Ledyard, 1984. "The pure theory of large two-candidate elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 7-41, January.
    6. Cox, Gary W. & Munger, Michael C., 1989. "Closeness, Expenditures, and Turnout in the 1982 U.S. House Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(1), pages 217-231, March.
    7. Timothy J. Feddersen, 2004. "Rational Choice Theory and the Paradox of Not Voting," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(1), pages 99-112, Winter.
    8. Ashenfelter, Orley C & Kelley, Stanley, Jr, 1975. "Determinants of Participation in Presidential Elections," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 695-733, December.
    9. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65, pages 135-135.
    10. Knack, Stephen, 1998. "Drivers Wanted: Motor Voter and the Election of 1996," MPRA Paper 24983, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jun 1999.
    11. John G. Matsusaka, 2005. "Direct Democracy Works," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 185-206, Spring.
    12. Yoram Barzel & Eugene Silberberg, 1973. "Is the act of voting rational?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 51-58, September.
    13. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    14. Barreto, Matt A. & Segura, Gary M. & Woods, Nathan D., 2004. "The Mobilizing Effect of Majority–Minority Districts on Latino Turnout," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 98(1), pages 65-75, February.
    15. Greene, Kenneth V & Nikolaev, Oleg, 1999. "Voter Participation and the Redistributive State," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 98(1-2), pages 213-226, January.
    16. Milton Kafoglis & Richard Cebula, 1981. "The Buchanan-Tullock model: Some extensions," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 179-186, January.
    17. Riker, William H. & Ordeshook, Peter C., 1968. "A Theory of the Calculus of Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(1), pages 25-42, March.
    18. Tullock, Gordon, 1971. "Public Decisions as Public Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(4), pages 913-918, July-Aug..
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Merlă Vladimir, 2018. "Political Marketing’s Influence on Intra-Party Democracy," Ovidius University Annals, Economic Sciences Series, Ovidius University of Constantza, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 0(1), pages 331-335, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Richard J. Cebula & Gordon Tullock, 2006. "An Extension of the Rational Voter Model," Chapters, in: Attiat F. Ott & Richard J. Cebula (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Public Economics, chapter 15, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Richard Cebula & Holly Meads, 2008. "The Electoral College System, Political Party Dominance, and Voter Turnout, With Evidence from the 2004 Presidential Election," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 36(1), pages 53-64, March.
    3. Richard J. Cebula, 2007. "PAC Congressional Election Campaign Contributions and Other Political or Economic Influences on the Voter Participation Rate," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(2), pages 399-412, April.
    4. Richard Cebula & Michael Toma, 2006. "Determinants of Geographic Differentials in the Voter Participation Rate," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 34(1), pages 33-40, March.
    5. Richard Cebula & Daniel Hulse, 2007. "The Poll Results Hypothesis," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 35(1), pages 33-41, March.
    6. Richard Cebula, 2008. "Influence of the Number of Statewide Referenda Involving Emotionally-Charged Issues on Voter Turnout, 2006," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 36(4), pages 383-393, December.
    7. Cebula, Richard & Lawson, Luther, 2002. "A Framework for Teaching the Rational Voter Model in Public Choice Courses," MPRA Paper 53183, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Richard J. Cebula & Garey C. Durden, 2007. "Expected Benefits of Voting and Voter Turnout," Working Papers 07-06, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.
    9. Richard Cebula, 2005. "Strong Presidential Approval or Disapproval Influencing the Expected Benefits of Voting and the Voter Participation Rate," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 33(2), pages 159-167, June.
    10. Konstantinou, Panagiotis Th. & Panagiotidis, Theodore & Roumanias, Costas, 2021. "State-dependent effect on voter turnout: The case of US House elections," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 753-765.
    11. Louis Kaplow & Scott Duke Kominers, 2020. "On the Representativeness of Voter Turnout," NBER Working Papers 26913, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Cameron Guage & Feng Fu, 2021. "Asymmetric Partisan Voter Turnout Games," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 11(4), pages 738-758, December.
    13. Abel François & Olivier Gergaud, 2019. "Is civic duty the solution to the paradox of voting?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 180(3), pages 257-283, September.
    14. Cebula, Richard & Unemori, Mary, 2005. "Potential Impact of Referenda and Initiatives on Voter Turnout: Evidence from the 1998 General Election," MPRA Paper 60064, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Richard J. Cebula & James E. Payne & Ira S. Saltz, 2017. "Determinants of Geographic Voter Participation Rate Differentials: the 2014 Mid-Term Election," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 45(1), pages 35-43, March.
    16. Cebula, Richard & Coombs, Christopher, 2008. "Factors Influencing Interregional Differentials in the Voter Participation Rate in the U.S., 2006," MPRA Paper 56786, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. León, Gianmarco, 2017. "Turnout, political preferences and information: Experimental evidence from Peru," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 56-71.
    18. Alastair Smith & Bruce Bueno de Mesquita & Tom LaGatta, 2017. "Group incentives and rational voting1," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(2), pages 299-326, April.
    19. Lacombe, Donald J. & Coats, R. Morris & Shughart II, William F. & Karahan, Gökhan, 2016. "Corruption and Voter Turnout: A Spatial Econometric Approach," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 46(2), December.
    20. John Carter, 1984. "Early projections and voter turnout in the 1980 presidential election," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 195-202, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:67:y:2008:i:4:p:629-644. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0002-9246 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.