Right‐wing populist parties tend to combine criticism of how liberal democracy functions with calls for greater direct democracy. But do their voters share that support for direct democracy? In this article, survey data is used to examine, first, whether right‐wing populist candidates in Australia, Canada and New Zealand were more supportive of direct democracy than candidates of other parties. Second, the views of right‐wing populist voters about the functioning of democracy and direct democracy are investigated. While right‐wing populist candidates turned out to be far more likely to support direct democracy, right‐wing populist supporters did not mirror the candidates. Although these were among the most dissatisfied with how democracy worked, they did not necessarily favour referendums more than other voters. The findings have implications both for how we conceive of the relationship between populism and direct democracy and the remedies proposed for redressing populist discontent.

In some countries, direct democracy is used successfully to increase legitimacy of decisions or mitigate conflict, and in other countries, authoritarian leaders seem to instrumentalize and manipulate referendums. How can referendum integrity be analyzed? This article presents an empirical instrument to evaluate the variety and integrity of referendums. This encompasses criteria for the analysis of direct democracy. First, we develop a referendum cycle model based on the electoral cycle framework, assessing referendum quality in a number of dimensions from electoral laws and electoral procedures, thematic limitations of referendums, to voter registration, the initiation of referendums, campaign and media coverage as well as campaign financing. The empirical instrument is designed to be used in expert surveys, and piloted in the Turkish constitutional referendum of 2017. The article presents the results of the pilot study, draws out opportunities and limitations of this approach and suggests avenues for its future development.

Using individual data on Swiss federal ballots (VOX data) and an original dataset on the evolution and content of political campaigns, this article elucidates how negative campaigning influences individual turnout during Swiss federal ballots. It hypothesises that the effect of negativism on turnout depends on ‘which camp goes dirty’ and, specifically, on the direction of the political campaign (‘status quo’ versus ‘policy change’ campaigns). A series of multilevel models provide strong support for the hypotheses, by showing that high negativism in ‘status quo campaigns’ decreases individual turnout, whereas high negativism for ‘policy change campaigns’ increases it. It is argued here that this could depend on the emotional responses triggered by negativism in political campaigns.

Are citizens in consensus democracies with developed direct democratic institutions more satisfied with their political system than those in majoritarian democracies? In this article, individual‐level data from the second wave of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and an updated version of Lijphart's multivariate measure of consensus and majoritarian democracy covering 24 countries are used to investigate this question. The findings from logistic multilevel models indicate that consensual cabinet types and direct democratic institutions are associated with higher levels of citizens' satisfaction with democracy. Furthermore, consensus democracy in these institutions closes the gap in satisfaction with democracy between losers and winners of elections by both comforting losers and reducing the satisfaction of winners. Simultaneously, consensus democracy in terms of electoral rules, the executive–legislative power balance, interest groups and the party system reduces the satisfaction of election winners, but does not enhance that of losers.

Empirical literature regarding which actors support the most participatory democracy is surprisingly scarce. Discussing the core ideological features of populist and post-materialist-centred parties, we expect that these parties emphasise participatory democracy more than their competitors. Additionally, populist parties should embody a monist demand for greater participatory democracy, while post-materialist-centred (PMC) parties should advocate a pluralist understanding of it. Drawing on party electoral manifestos, we verify these assumptions in several national elections across Europe. Our findings show mixed support for the theoretical expectations. Both post-materialist and populist parties support participatory democracy more than other parties, and their principles diverge. More precisely, our data confirm that PMC parties advocate a pluralist understanding of participatory democracy. Yet populist parties show a fuzzier picture. While populist radical right parties exhibit a monist profile, radical left populist parties are much more in line with post-materialist arguments.

Analyses of voting in European Union referendums typically distinguish between ‘second‐order’ effects and the impact of substantive ‘issues’. In order to explain change in referendum outcome, two types of substantive issues are distinguished in this article. Focusing on Irish voting in the Lisbon Treaty referendums and using data from post‐referendum surveys, it is found that perceptions of treaty implications outperform underlying attitudes to EU integration in predicting vote choice at both referendums, and perceptions of treaty implications are strong predictors of vote change between the referendums. The findings have broadly positive implications for normative assessments of the usefulness of direct democracy as a tool for legitimising regional integration advance.

Although charitable foundations play an important role in modern Western civil societies, knowledge about them and the factors that encourage their prevalence is still quite limited. The relevant literature acknowledges that Switzerland has proven a fertile ground for foundation growth, and in this paper, we develop and empirically test a model in order to examine the effects of the country’s economic and political incentive structure on foundation activity. We find that alongside the required income level that is an important determinant of foundation prevalence, tax incentives, and direct democracy have significant influence on individuals’ philanthropic behavior, as each account for approximately 10 % of the variance in the model presented here.

Research on the effects of referendums and citizens’ initiatives in the USA and Switzerland have shown that provisions for institutions of direct democracy (referendums and initiatives) are statistically associated with lower inequality, lower budget deficits and higher levels of GDP per capita at the state/canton level. This paper breaks new ground by replicating the American and Swiss research on nationwide referendums in European democracies. The results differ in some respects from the Swiss and American results. While, this paper to a degree corroborates the association between equality and citizens’ initiatives, there is no evidence in support of the proposition that citizen-initiated referendums are correlated with lower public debt. And, contrary to the findings of the earlier research, the paper finds evidence that provisions for referendums lead to lower GDP per capita. Moreover, the analysis cannot point to specific exemplars of countries that showcase the relationships. It remains difficult to point to any specific policy effect of referendums and initiatives in Europe.

Existing scholarship investigates the influence of out-of-state donors in state-level candidate politics; however, comparatively little attention is given to out-of-state contributions in direct democracy campaigns, such as ballot initiatives and referenda. This study is the first to investigate out-of-state donations to direct democracy campaigns, focusing on the scope and characteristics of individual out-of-state donors across the United States. Utilizing an original dataset of contributions to direct democracy committees from 2006 to 2022, I present three key findings. First, out-of-state contributions to direct democracy campaigns have increased over time, with notable spikes in recent election cycles. Second, a large majority of out-of-state individual contributions total $100 or less, primarily to measures related to social issues and substance use regulation. Third, out-of-state contributions to direct democracy campaigns tend to share certain characteristics. A significant portion of these contributions comes from zip codes with lower to average incomes and states without direct democracy processes of their own. Finally, based on these characteristics, I develop a potential theory for why these donors contribute, arguing that individual out-of-state donors to direct democracy campaigns are primarily motivated by a combination of ideological and consumption-oriented considerations.

Voters of governing parties are more satisfied with democracy than opposition voters, but the consequences of this winner-loser gap remain underexplored. We argue that electoral losers should be more supportive of referendums than electoral winners as representative democracy has failed electoral losers, whereas electoral winners aim to protect their party’s ability to govern without constraint. In addition, we theorize that affective polarization should strengthen this gap. Using cross-national survey data from thirteen European democracies, we find that electoral losers consistently show greater support for referendums than winners, and affective polarization amplifies this effect. Yet, the effect of affective polarization is solely attributed to a decrease in support for referendums among polarized election winners. These findings raise questions about the role of affective polarization in undermining the accountability mechanism between electoral winners and their parties. Concerns about electoral losers might be overstated and potentially overlook the democratic implications of electoral victory.

Whether referendums, initiatives, and other mechanisms of direct democracy enhance representative systems is a matter of debate. Skeptics note—among other criticisms—that turnout tends to be low in referendums, often lower than in candidate elections in the same country. If citizens do not care enough to participate, how useful can these mechanisms be for improving the quality of democratic systems? We argue that low referendum turnout has as much to do with parties’ disincentives to mobilize voters as it does with voter disinterest. Prior research on political behavior in referendums has focused largely on Europe and assumes that voters view them as elections of lesser importance. By shifting focus to Latin America, we introduce more variation in the features of political parties that influence levels of turnout. We draw on cross-national evidence, qualitative research in Colombia, and quantitative analysis of municipal-level referendum voting behavior in Brazil. The key to understanding low voter turnout in these settings is the relatively weaker incentives that political parties have to turn out the vote when control over office is not at stake. We demonstrate that, in clientelistic systems, party operatives have particularly weak incentives to get their constituents out to the polls.

In the field of American state politics, the tension between majoritarian institutions and equality has largely been ignored. Do state institutions that empower majority preferences exacerbate disparities in social outcomes? Under what conditions do majoritarian institutions exacerbate inequalities in the American states? Our argument is that equality is most likely to be threatened under majoritarian institutions when (1) there are systemic participatory biases and/or (2) there are widespread prejudices about particular groups in society. We find that more majoritarian institutions are associated with larger disparities between White and Black life expectancy and poverty rates across the American states, but not differences in educational attainment. We also find that this effect is moderated by racial context, with majoritarian institutions being associated with greater disparities for states with diverse racial contexts and smaller disparities in more homogenous states. These findings suggest that majoritarian institutions operate to the benefit of the White majority, while coming at the cost of minority population outcomes when a racial threat is perceived, and presumably, public opinion is biased.

We investigate voter preferences for changes in voting rules, focusing specifically on the creation of citizen-initiative processes that were originally adopted in South Dakota in 1898 and eventually enacted by half of the states. Various claims have been advanced about why the process was adopted and who supported or opposed it, but without presenting evidence from referenda where voters approved the creation of the process. We test these claims by examining county-level election returns from South Dakota’s 1898 referendum that created the first statewide initiative process in the United States. We find that support for the initiative process was generally higher among groups that are disadvantaged in various ways by existing representative institutions and perceive advantages in creating direct democratic institutions capable of bypassing representative processes. These findings stand in contrast to the notion that the adoption of constitutional rules will be relatively free from calculations rooted in self-interest and perceived advantage from the rules changes.

Municipal and state governments are often constitutionally bound to ask voters to approve new government debt through voting on bond referendums. Generally, politicians expect voters to balk at higher-cost bonds and be more willing to approve lower-cost bonds. However, there is minimal research on how the amount of a bond affects voter support. We implement a survey experiment that presents respondents with hypothetical ballots, in which the cost of proposed bonds, the number of bonds on the ballot, and the order in which they are presented, are all randomized. Our results suggest that support is not responsive to the amount of the bond, even when the cost is well outside what is typical and within the bounds of what the government can afford. In contrast, we find other aspects of the ballot matter significantly more for bond referendum approval. The more bonds on the ballot and being placed lower on the ballot both reduce support significantly.

Inequalities in terms of who participates in politics yield policy outcomes that fail to reflect the interests of the broader public. Because these processes fail to engage the full citizenry in political decision-making processes, they are also markers of an anemic civic culture. Advocates of participatory budgeting (PB) – a process implemented at the subnational level in thousands of cities in the United States and beyond that invites residents to participate directly in the process of allocating public resources for local projects – argue that it can alleviate these inequalities. They argue that features of the PB process make it ripe for engaging new participants in the political process and weaving a more inclusive social fabric. We examine the correlates of interest in participating in PB using a survey of Cook County residents. We also consider the extent to which the policy priorities of those who are interested in participating diverge from those who are less interested. Although we find evidence that the process is particularly appealing to younger respondents and those who identify as Latine or Black (as opposed to White), we also find that interest is higher among those with higher socioeconomic status and those who perceive conditions in their neighborhood to already be good. Our evidence also suggests that inequalities in who is interested in participating may not radically affect policy outcomes. However, those who decline to participate cannot reap the broader social and political benefits advocates hope the PB process can foster.

Interest groups and policy advocates often view the initiative process as a way to circumvent a gridlocked state legislative process. A major assumption behind this strategy is that this alternative path can be successful. We theorize that the same conflict and lack of consensus that killed the legislation in the legislative process may resurface in the electorate and jeopardize the measure’s chances of success at the ballot box. We test this proposition on all initiatives in California from 1912 to 2020 and on a smaller subset of the data that controls for campaign spending and the economy. We find clear and consistent evidence that voter support for initiatives, especially fiscal initiatives, declines under periods of divided government. In addition, interactive models show that increasing levels of party polarization exacerbate these effects. We conclude by discussing the implications of these results for the debate about whether the initiative process makes states more responsive to constituent opinion.