IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/socsci/v96y2015i1p119-132.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Direct Democracy and Political Equality in the American States

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick Flavin

Abstract

type="main"> This study investigates the relationship between direct democracy and the equality of opinion-policy representation in the American states. Using public opinion measures from the National Annenberg Election Surveys and data on state policy outputs, I generate an index of the equality of political representation (based on citizens’ incomes) that is comparable across the states. I then evaluate the relationship between different measures of direct democracy and political equality. States with the ballot initiative process are no more politically equal than states without the process. However, among those that have the ballot initiative process, states where it is easier to place a measure on the ballot for popular vote and states where the ballot initiative is more frequently used tend to weigh citizens’ opinions more equally in the policy-making process. These findings suggest that having and frequently using direct democracy leads to more egalitarian policy outcomes. More generally, this study underscores the importance of laws and institutional design in promoting political equality in the United States.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick Flavin, 2015. "Direct Democracy and Political Equality in the American States," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 96(1), pages 119-132, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:96:y:2015:i:1:p:119-132
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/ssqu.12106
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jessee, Stephen A., 2009. "Spatial Voting in the 2004 Presidential Election," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 103(1), pages 59-81, February.
    2. Hall, Richard L. & Wayman, Frank W., 1990. "Buying Time: Moneyed Interests and the Mobilization of Bias in Congressional Committees," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(3), pages 797-820, September.
    3. Matsusaka, John G., 2004. "For the Many or the Few," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226510811.
    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. Jarron Bowman, 2020. "Do the Affluent Override Average Americans? Measuring Policy Disagreement and Unequal Influence," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 101(3), pages 1018-1037, May.

    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. Gregory M. Randolph & Michael T. Tasto, 2012. "Special Interest Group Formation in the United States: Do Special Interest Groups Mirror the Success of their Spatial Neighbors?," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 119-134, July.
    2. David Lowery & Virginia Gray, 2004. "Bias in the Heavenly Chorus," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 16(1), pages 5-29, January.
    3. Ansolabehere, Stephen & De Figueiredo, John M. & Snyder, James M., 2003. "Are Campaign Contributions Investment in the Political Marketplace or Individual Consumption? Or "Why Is There So Little Money in Politics?"," Working papers 4272-02, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    4. Aisbett, Emma & McAusland, Carol, 2013. "Firm characteristics and influence on government rule-making: Theory and evidence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 214-235.
    5. Stutzer Alois & Frey Bruno S., 2006. "Making International Organizations More Democratic," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(3), pages 305-330, January.
    6. Edward López & R. Jewell, 2007. "Strategic institutional choice: Voters, states, and congressional term limits," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 132(1), pages 137-157, July.
    7. Cotton, Christopher, 2012. "Pay-to-play politics: Informational lobbying and contribution limits when money buys access," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(3), pages 369-386.
    8. Lora, Eduardo, 2008. "El futuro de los pactos fiscales en América Latina," Coediciones, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), number 1310, February.
    9. Delis, Manthos & Hasan, Iftekhar & To, Thomas & Wu, Eliza, 2022. "The real effects of bank lobbying: Evidence from the corporate loan market," MPRA Paper 111642, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. John Jackson, 2014. "Location, location, location: the Davis-Hinich model of electoral competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 197-218, April.
    11. George Tridimas, 2011. "A political economy perspective of direct democracy in ancient Athens," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 58-82, March.
    12. Necmi K. Avkiran & Direnç K. Kanol & Barry Oliver & Tom Smith, 2016. "Knowledge of campaign finance regulation reduces perceptions of corruption," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 56(4), pages 961-984, December.
    13. Laurent Bouton & Julia Cagé & Edgard Dewitte & Vincent Pons, 2021. "Small Campaign Donors," Working Papers hal-03878175, HAL.
    14. Grelak, Eric & Koford, Kenneth, 1997. "A re-examination of the Fiorina-Plott and Eavey voting experiments: How much do cardinal payoffs influence outcomes?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 571-589, April.
    15. Benjamin H. Liebman & Kara M. Reynolds, 2006. "The returns from rent-seeking: campaign contributions, firm subsidies and the Byrd Amendment," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1345-1369, November.
    16. Christopher J. Ellis & Thomas Groll, 2018. "Who Lobbies Whom? Special Interests and Hired Guns," CESifo Working Paper Series 7367, CESifo.
    17. George Tridimas, 2010. "Referendum and the choice between monarchy and republic in Greece," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 119-144, June.
    18. Feld, Lars P. & Fischer, Justina A.V. & Kirchgaessner, Gebhard, 2007. "The Effect of Direct Democratic Institutions on Income Redistribution: Evidence for Switzerland," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 689, Stockholm School of Economics.
    19. John M. de Figueiredo, 2004. "The Timing, Intensity, and Composition of Interest Group Lobbying: An Analysis of Structural Policy Windows in the States," NBER Working Papers 10588, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Asatryan, Zareh & De Witte, Kristof, 2015. "Direct democracy and local government efficiency," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 58-66.

    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:socsci:v:96:y:2015:i:1:p:119-132. 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=0038-4941 .

    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.