Levels of Education and Support for Direct Democracy

Bibliographic Data

ID6180217
AuthorsL Collingwood (0000-0002-4447-8204, University of Washington, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume40
Issue4
Pages571-602
Publication date2012-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Politics Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1532-673X • E-ISSN: 1552-3373
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1532673x11428805
OpenAlexW2138444646
LanguageEN
Citations received16
References cited35

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