Electoral Competition and the Frequency of Initiative Use in the U.S. States

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7626844
AutoresRobert J Mcgrath (0000-0001-8963-3231, University of Iowa, autor de correspondencia)
Año2011
Volumen39
Número3
Páginas611-638
Fecha de publicación2011-05-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAmerican Politics Research (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1532-673X • E-ISSN: 1552-3373
EditorialSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1532673x10388143
OpenAlexW2018288662
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas40

To what extent has direct democracy, specifically the ballot initiative process, served to substitute for perceived deficiencies of representative democracy in the United States? Despite extensive literatures on both direct democracy and democratic representation, there exist very few direct evaluations of the interplay between the two. I examine whether variation in the frequency of a state’s initiative use is related to the extent to which that state’s representative institutions lack electoral competition. I find that initiative states with a higher percentage of uncontested elections for representative office see more initiative use than states with more competitive elections, conditional on the ideological divergence between citizens and legislators. The results contribute much to our understanding of the processes driving cycles of initiative use and identify a tangible consequence of the presence of misrepresentative state institutions

Ballot · Democracy · Direct democracy · Economics · House of Representatives · Ideology · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Voting · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies · Public Administration · Social Media and Politics