Levels of Education and Support for Direct Democracy

Dados Bibliográficos

ID6180217
AutoresL Collingwood (0000-0002-4447-8204, University of Washington, autor correspondente)
Ano2012
Volume40
Fascículo4
Páginas571-602
Data de publicação2012-07-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAmerican Politics Research (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1532-673X • E-ISSN: 1552-3373
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1532673x11428805
OpenAlexW2138444646
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas16
Referências citadas35

Conventional wisdom based on public opinion surveys suggests that voters are generally supportive of direct democracy. Recent research has shown that perhaps public support for direct democracy may not be as strong as is traditionally thought. Given this, I hypothesize that voters without a college degree are less supportive of direct democracy once asked how they will vote on a series of ballot initiative questions in the context of a survey. Voters with a college degree will not be affected by these questions in their evaluations of direct democracy because they have more confidence in their ability to participate in politics. I conduct a split sample survey experiment to investigate opinions toward direct democracy. The results confirm that, when exposed to ballot initiative questions, voters without a college degree are less supportive of direct democracy compared to college graduates. Implications are discussed

Ballot · Democracy · Direct democracy · Political science · Politics · Public opinion · Public relations · Voting · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies · Psychology · Public Administration · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology