Unequal responsiveness and direct democracy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6169156 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Manuel Wagner (0000-0002-4336-4766, University of Vienna Department of Government, , Vienna, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 695-716 |
| Publication date | 2025-10-14 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Socio-Economic Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1475-1461 • E-ISSN: 1475-147X |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ser/mwaf073 |
| OpenAlex | W4416781444 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 43 |
Recent studies of the U.S. and European countries find that policy responsiveness is strongly skewed toward the affluent and well-educated. The introduction of direct democracy has been proposed as a solution to this problem. To explore whether this could lead to greater political equality, this paper studies policy responsiveness in Switzerland—the country with the strongest direct democratic institutions in the world. The analysis is based on an original dataset linking public opinion to policy, with 399 survey questions asked between 1972 and 2017. Extending the approach pioneered by Gilens (2012), I show that direct democratic agenda-setting in Switzerland is more egalitarian than representative democratic agenda-setting and that—likely due to referenda—the status-quo bias favors all income and education groups equally. However, despite its unique direct democratic institutions, also in Switzerland, policy outcomes are skewed toward the preferences of citizens with high levels of income and education
Oligarchy
White-Collar Government
The Politics of Switzerland
The effect of direct democracy on the social stratification of political participation
Do the Affluent Override Average Americans? Measuring Policy Disagreement and Unequal Influence
Direct Democracy and Political Equality in the American States
Mobilized by Direct Democracy
Do populist values or civic values drive support for referendums in Europe
How does direct democracy matter? The impact of referendum votes on politics and policy‐making
Conditional Status Quo Bias and Top Income Shares
Legislative Response to the Threat of Popular Initiatives
The Effect of Direct Democracy on the Size and Diversity of State Interest Group Populations
Affluence and Congruence
The Interaction Between Direct and Representative Democracy in Switzerland
The Poor Political Representation of the Poor in a Comparative Perspective
Inequality and Democratic Responsiveness
Zero-Sum Democracy? The Effects of Direct Democracy on Representative Participation
The Effect of Direct Democracy on Turnout
Is the Left-Right Scale a Valid Measure of Ideology
Government's Unequal Attentiveness to Citizens' Political Priorities
Does Direct Democracy Matter for Political Parties
Occurrence and Policy Consequences of Referendums
Federalism, Direct Democracy, and Welfare State Development in Switzerland
Institutions, Veto Points, and Policy Results
Not just money
Who got what they wanted? Investigating the role of institutional agenda setting, costly policies, and status quo bias as explanations to income based unequal responsiveness
Ideological congruence and socio-economic inequality
Organised interests in the media and policy congruence
The Effect of Information on Voter Turnout
Can a Social Issue Proposition Increase Political Knowledge? Campaign Learning and the Educative Effects of Direct Democracy
Income Inequality and Policy Representation in the American States
Business power, right-wing populism, and noisy politics
Unequal policy responsiveness in the Netherlands
When Do the Rich Win
Unequal policy responsiveness in Spain
Low turnout in direct democracy
The Democratic Effect of Direct Democracy
Real but Unequal Representation in Welfare State Reform
| Highly cited | No |
|---|